The Justice System as a Digital Platform
Justin Tashea – September 30 2020 – The Commons
To overcome the unprecedented court backlog of cases created by the pandemic, courts must reimagine what they are. No longer strictly a brick and mortar operation, courts need to think of themselves as a digital platform. Doing so requires the adoption of open data standards, data collection methods, and application programming interfaces (APIs), the digital infrastructure needed to help courts manage the tens of thousands of cases that have piled up, become more efficient, and increase access-to-justice.
The COVID era has brought physical shutdowns to American courts and an unprecedented backlog of cases. In Connecticut, pending civil and criminal cases have jumped 200 percent during the pandemic, and trials aren’t scheduled to start until at least November. As of late June, New York City had 39,200 criminal cases waiting to be heard. Meanwhile, San Diego, California has a backlog of 20,000 criminal cases. The list goes on and on.
In an attempt to manage this moment, courts have rapidly jumped online by opening Slack channels, Zoom accounts, and expanding other forms of online access. Quick action like this should be applauded for keeping the wheels of justice turning during uncertain times, however, these changes do not go far enough.
To overcome the unprecedented court backlog of cases created by the pandemic, courts must reimagine what they are. No longer strictly a brick and mortar operation, courts need to think of themselves as a digital platform. Doing so requires the adoption of open data standards, data collection methods, and application programming interfaces (APIs), the digital infrastructure needed to help courts manage the tens of thousands of cases that have piled up, become more efficient, and increase access-to-justice.
While this is no small undertaking, groundwork is already being laid to build the courts of the future. For example, the National Center for State Courts recently published open court data standards. Non-profits, like Measures for Justice and Recidiviz, are working with local justice agencies to unearth, de-silo, and publish data from the criminal justice system. At the legislative level, Florida standardized its arrest affidavit across the state to assist the creation of a centralized and uniform criminal justice data collection program. Local courts will do the majority of the data collection under this law. Collectively, efforts like these show that there is not only growing interest in improving court data, but that meaningful gains are being made. However, there is much work to be done yet.
