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Extended Statistical Analysis of criminal cases in the United States District Court of Puerto Rico

Submission Number: 168
Submission ID: 3809
Submission UUID: e82e7847-ef81-474e-bd56-c2525a83173f
Submission URI: /form/project

Created: Fri, 07/07/2023 - 13:30
Completed: Fri, 07/07/2023 - 13:31
Changed: Sun, 12/10/2023 - 05:33

Remote IP address: 131.109.33.100
Submitted by: Gaurav Khanna
Language: English

Is draft: No
Webform: Project
Extended Statistical Analysis of criminal cases in the United States District Court of Puerto Rico
CAREERS

Project Leader

Michael Chou
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Project Information

For the purposes of submitting an amicus brief to the US Supreme Court, the Puerto Rico Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (PRACDL) compiled several indictments and docket sheets from the PACER system. Data from these documents were extracted and analyzed with sociodemographic data from the US Census. The wealth of data contained in these documents is not easily accessible for statistical study. The goal of this project is two-fold. First, to write script to data mine these documents for information including but not limited to: the length of time that the case is "open", the percentage of persons represented by a court-appointed attorney, the average length of sentences, the number of persons granted bail, the number of persons with bail violations and the reasons for those violations, among others. Secondly, data science techniques will be used to provide insightful visualizations and detect correlation between these various categories. An understanding of these data will facilitate related future social justice projects in this jurisdiction, as well as apply to other indictment and docket sheets from the PACER system at large.