Comments on: Dynamic Dakota County Inmate Data Dashboard

By: Bill

Bill — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:46:29 +0000

I have updated the code to limit the reporting dataset by date. I chose a seemingly arbitrary amount of 68 days of data because it’s about 6,000,000 seconds. Don’t ask. If you’re a nerd you’ll probably understand why I did it that way.

So every time it updates it’ll do this for us for what’s shown above but I will keep all the data elsewhere for fun.

By: Bill

Bill — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:10:58 +0000

Update on Scott County for those of you interested:

I have completed the scripts to pull the data and inmate images. It also does some fancy dancy stuff to crop the side view out (only want the face front version like Dakota) and add the name tag at the bottom.

Todo:

1. Contact Scott County to see what their charges list means.

2. Determine how to parse the mess of charges information to provide similar data to Dakota. I really don’t think they’ll be comparable on a lot of things due to the way they deal with the arresting agency, etc. Boo.

3. Finish automation and get the post up.

Fun times!

By: Bill

Bill — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 03:30:52 +0000

Scott County provides offenders’ addresses in the register so it is possible for me to see where they come from. That way we’ll be able to tell where they are from. I’ll probably strip the zip codes out and do it that way. Would be interesting IMO.

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:19:41 +0000

Regarding the older ages of offenders in Scott County — this is a shot in the dark that might be totally off, but maybe it has to do with the presence of Mystic Lake and Canterbury? I don’t think a whole lot of younger people go to either of those. I know that the two times I’ve been to Canterbury for a charity fundraiser, I was the second-youngest person there (the youngest being my wife) so far as I could tell. Valleyfair would skew it younger again, of course, but it’s closed right now.

By: Mrs. Robinson

Mrs. Robinson — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:43:54 +0000

How does one qualify to get to be a Dakota County inmate? I had to get someone out of the Lakeville PD this week after a DUI arrest within hours after the incident. All I had to do was sign a paper saying that I wouldn’t let them drive that day. They didn’t even look at my license, smell my breath or really even look at me much. I thought that was pretty strange. Of course, it was 12:30 in the afternoon……This was their first offense, maybe a repeat offender would qualify for a night in the Dakota County jail. I think an overnight stay for all DUI offenders would be a good thing.

By: Joey

Joey — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:23:06 +0000

It is odd that while Burnsville has almost the same number of residents as Eagan (just 4,000 residents less as of the 2000 census), it has a pretty disproportionately high number of arrests compared with Eagan. I thought income level may be a factor given that generally, the higher the median income is, the more affluent a community is and therefore the less crime there would be. However, Burnsville’s median income is higher than Eagan’s, so that theory goes out the window too. The only other conclusions I can come up with would be Burnsville’s location at the 35E/35W connection making it a great location for drug transportation (not likely to skew the numbers that much, particularly since Eagan is close too) or the closer proximity to Bloomington, Minneapolis, etc. (again, I have trouble believing the numbers would be skewed that much). If none of those theories were to hold true, then I guess you’d have to look at the law enforcement in each city.

By: Nils

Nils — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:14:01 +0000

I like how Burnsville has the highest amount of inmates. Kudos mayor Kautz for your tough stance on crime.

By: Bill

Bill — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:21:45 +0000

Are you constructing a data warehouse of sorts to log all of this, or do you just parse ascii or xml files?

I do both.

By: Mikeh

Mikeh — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:49:51 +0000

Longer history of crime in the area would be my guess. Could also be something related to sentencing or the types of crimes. I.e. what crime are 30 to 34 year old folks arrested for most often vs 20-24? Statistics… don’t ya love them.

Are you constructing a data warehouse of sorts to log all of this, or do you just parse ascii or xml files?

By: Bill

Bill — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:55:40 +0000

Interesting to see that their 30 to 34 year olds are more likely to get arrested whereas it’s the 20-24 year olds in Dakota. The median age (as of 2008) of Scott County is a year younger than Dakota. Any thoughts on why this would occur?