Improving Citizen-initiated Police Reform Efforts through Interactive Design: A Case Study in Allegheny County

Abstract

Increasing police accountability in the US has been an issue for decades, but citizen-initiated reform efforts have been less than effective at moving the needle on the issue. Our project aims to provide citizens and community organizers with a better understanding of the legal landscape of police accountability in Allegheny County, allowing them to more effectively advocate for reform. We do so by creating an open collaborative network that works to overcome the issues of data inaccessibility, data complexity, and the fragmentation of data across different municipalities. We engaged with community leaders, gathered contracts and other data on over 100 police departments in Allegheny County, and created a web platform to make this previously inaccessible information available to the public. In its creation, we also utilized visual representation to aid those engaging with the law to better understand and collaborate without being inhibited by complicated legal concepts.