Data App: Let's Go to Prison

by Matt Stiles and Niran Babalola
Texas Tribune

April 29, 2010

Texas houses roughly 160,000 inmates in more than 100 state prison units, a sprawling network of secure buildings from Edinburg to Dalhart that few outsiders see or understand.

Now you can explore them all.

The Tribune's latest data application, one of our most ambitious, includes records and visualizations on each of these facilities and the inmates inside them, including names, crimes, sentences and more.

Click here to start your research: http://www.texastribune.org/stories/2010/apr/29/texas-prison-inmate-locator/

[Yes, the offense (mis-)categorization is a mess, but it's still fun to dig into some of the data they've accessed.]

If you have ideas about how to categorize the offenses in a more helpful way, we'd love to hear them. All we had to work with was the NCIC code of the crime, and a number that supposedly corresponds to an offense in the Texas Penal Code, but we couldn't find a meaningful way to use the latter number. We grouped offenses that had the same description associated with the NCIC code in a spreadsheet that TDCJ gave us.

If there are better ways to use that data, let us know. nbabalola@texastribune.org

An outstanding resource, and the only thing I'd like to see is that the database be searchable by the county crime was committed in.

If I'm missing how to search for this, please let me know.

It's much more user friendly looking up inmates by name than the TDCJ website. I'll be giving this website addy to our victims who want to track their defendants.

I have been so frustrated with TDCJ's website in recent months. I can never find people I know are in TDCJ custody, even when I have and use their TDCJ number. Earlier this week, I searched TDCJ for a defendant I knew was in custody, and I received no results. I just used this application to search for the same defendant, and it found him in about five seconds. This application reminds me of the Georgia DOC website, which provides copious amounts of information about prison inmates. Great job, Texas Tribune!

quote:

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Originally posted by Niran Babalola:
If there are better ways to use that data, let us know. nbabalola@texastribune.org

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Thanks, Niran, I will contact you directly.

If any readers have suggestions for improvement, please contact me and/or Niran.

...they could post food loaf recipes. Maybe start a reality show, IronHouse Chef America -- convict cooks competing with their favorite peanut butter & canned mackerel concoctions.

Since it was an open records request, then this is not live data, is that correct?

It's much easier to navigate then TDCJ's own VPN. Add in a few add'l fields that TDCJ houses, open it up to all of their conviction records, and this could make felony enhancement info far easier to locate and verify. Coordinate with State Jail facility records, even better. (Okay, I know I'm just dreaming with that one)

Nice job.

Correct, it's not live data. The data is accurate as of February 12.

quote:

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Originally posted by GG:
An outstanding resource, and the only thing I'd like to see is that the database be searchable by the county crime was committed in.

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Ask and ye shall receive:

Updated data application