When I joined the Invisible Institute in 2017, one of my very first meetings focused on the idea of creating a national index of police officers. In many places it’s hard to tell who is serving as a cop, let alone if they’re a “wandering officer,” moving from department to department often to escape accountability.
At the time, we set the idea aside because it felt impossible. The federal government does not track or certify police, meaning we would need to stitch together the list from a patchwork of state agencies and local departments, some of whom were sure to fight public records requests.
This September, seven years after that first meeting, we took a huge step toward the goal of assembling a national list of officers, launching the National Police Index. We have published full lists of officers from seventeen states, with more on the way. We are still actively suing multiple states to force them to release records about their police.
The launch of the index came just one month after we launched an enormous update to the Civic Police Data Project, which makes over a quarter million police misconduct records accessible to the public. Our team added years of data to the site, including thousands of new complaints, uses of force, and lawsuits. The task took four years, largely because Chicago overhauled many of its police data systems as part of citywide reforms.
Both projects share roots in the way our team approaches the work. We are patient, and willing to spend the time to understand complex systems, and weather the years of FOIA requests and legal challenges needed to obtain records from across the country. We have the expertise in police records, data science, and web development to publish accessible websites. We also cultivate deep partnerships, including with data science nonprofit Human Rights Data Reporting Group (HRDAG) and with reporters across the country. Through these collaborations, our data becomes uniquely useful for investigations and advocacy.
Equally important is my colleagues’ willingness to be direct about the barriers to accountability and transparency. The lack of a federal database of police officers is disturbing and we cannot not wait for a government response before taking action.
Our data work always goes hand-in-hand with our journalism and storytelling, and our data tools, like CPDP, lead to innovative projects like Beneath the Surface and powerful reporting like Missing in Chicago.
The Invisible Institute is coming off a year of tremendous public recognition for our work. It is gratifying and a little overwhelming to watch our small organization win two Pulitzer Prizes, a Peabody Award, and a Driehaus Award, among others. Amid this recognition, I am heartened by how my colleagues continue to approach questions with the same patient ambition.
Projects like the National Police Index and CPDP are vital public tools, but they are also long-term investments in building the infrastructure that allows our team – and reporters across the country – to publish high impact reporting.
Our work doesn’t happen in isolation – ongoing dialogue around policing, public records, and how to use data all contribute to the creation of projects like CPDP and the National Police Index.
In 2025, we will be launching a Critical Conversation Series, a series of five public conversations. Our team will guide participants through an exploration of censorship and the First Amendment, and Jer Thorp’s book Living In Data: A Citizen’s Guide to a Better Information Future. Learn more here.
We deeply appreciate the community that supports our work and we look forward to conversations together in the new year.
Andrew Fan
Executive Director
December 23, 2024
Wall to honor and remember survivors at Missing in Chicago event. Chicago Art Department, 2024.
The quality of attention you bring to engaging with our work and your financial generosity has nourished our endeavors for close to a decade. We are thrilled to announce that we met our $60,000 year-end fundraising goal! Thank you for your support. Further donations will help lay the groundwork for our long-term work. We also encourage you to learn more about other organizations vital to our ecosystem and consider supporting their year-end campaigns: The Chicago Torture Justice Center’s survivors’ fund is a critical resource for people re-entering society after incarceration, and the community we work in is a healthier place for it. South Side Weekly, one of our long-time partners, has been key to our impact through print distribution. Our work and reach on a local level would not be the same without them, and we encourage you to sustain their printing with a donation.
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