Thurston County to launch prosecutor data dashboard

A live data portal that allows the public to track and understand how prosecutors decide charges, handle diversions and resolve cases will launch in Thurston County.

The data portal, called Commons, was developed through a years-long partnership between the Thurston County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office (PAO), Thurston County Community Advisory Board and Measures for Justice. 

Measures for Justice is a nonprofit organization based in Rochester, New York. Its mission is to produce tools that help communities and justice agencies examine and improve how its systems functions. 

Commons is a community-driven data tool that helps shape criminal justice policy. It integrates a real-time view of prosecutorial actions and allows users to understand how cases move through the criminal justice system and how those decisions change over time.

The platform includes filters, such as defendant race, age, sex, offense type and severity. It also opens an opportunity for users to compare outcomes between groups in order to study how people with similar charges receive different results based on background. Users can monitor monthly changes and identify patterns in charging, diversion, and resolution. 

Unlike other tools that track police stops or jail bookings, Commons only targets the prosecutor’s role, such as what happens after an arrest and before a court ruling. 

“We’ve been partnering with Measures for Justice over the past couple of years, and we’re excited to announce the upcoming launch of our Commons Data Dashboard later this month!” the Prosecuting Attorney's Office (PAO) said in a Wednesday, June 11, announcement. 

In September 2023, the PAO and Measures for Justice established Thurston County Community Advisory Board and began the implementation of the Commons model. 

The board is composed of seven residents with a range of backgrounds, lived experience, as well as knowledge of the justice system. They are tasked to help decide what data the public should see, how it is categorized, and what policy goal the dashboard will follow, as relayed in the joint statement by PAO and Measures for Justice. 

County Prosecuting Attorney Jon Tunheim said the innovation is meant to help the community “make more transparent and informed decisions” and to improve how the justice system works for everyone. 

While the specific policy targets set by Thurston County have not yet been disclosed, Measures for Justice said every Commons launch features a benchmark programmed to quantify progress using case-level data aligned with the county’s criminal justice intervention goals. 

Nationally, Commons has been deployed in various counties tracking prosecutor decisions, such as Monroe County, New York; Jackson County, Missouri; Yolo County, California, and East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana. Police departments in Rochester, New York, and West Sacramento, California, also use the tool. 

To learn more about Commons and view mentioned live dashboards, visit Measures for Justice’s official website. 

Editor's note: The headline and story have been updated.