Cohort 2023

Freedom Community Center

Improving the Collection and Sharing of Data from CourtWatch in St. Louis

St. Louis, MO

More than 85 percent of people accused of crimes in the St. Louis court system from June 2021 to June 2022 were Black, despite Black people making up only 45 percent of the city’s population. Over that year, members of the Freedom Community Center’s CourtWatch attended more than 1,800 bail hearings, observing disparate decisions made by judges and prosecutorial decisions that often resulted in recommendations to hold people in jail without bond, even people with health needs. CourtWatch not only provides real-time, quality data not otherwise available to the public and insight into court proceedings, but also trains volunteers to collect data and educates community members on prosecutorial and judicial practices.

With Catalyst Grant funding, the Freedom Community Center will strengthen its capacity to collect, analyze, and share data collected through CourtWatch and contextualize those data with narratives from people incarcerated pretrial to illuminate their experiences with the criminal legal system. It will complete data analysis to develop a public-facing dashboard to share its findings, and it will encourage new community members to volunteer as “CourtWatchers.” By shining a light on prosecutorial and judicial practices through CourtWatch, the Freedom Community Center aims to propel its work advocating for systemic change.