New Wayne County Jail dashboard offers statistics, charts in push for transparency

Andrea May Sahouri, Detroit Free Press
·4 min read

The public, along with the law enforcement community, can get a daily snapshot of the inmate population at the Wayne County Jail thanks to a new online database.

The launch of the free, online database providing demographic figures, mental health data and other information on the jail population was announced Thursday by the Wayne County Sheriff's Office and the Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network.

Its goal is to provide transparency surrounding Wayne County's incarcerated population and to help stakeholders in criminal justice — including the courts, judges, and jail administrators — to better understand and visualize how their decisions affect inmates and jail outcomes, the partnership said in a news release.

Transparency leads to change, according to Robert Dunlap, the Wayne County chief of jails.

"We think it's going to be a game-changer here in Wayne County," he told the Free Press.

“In the long term, we are hopeful this dashboard will help us better understand the population and its characteristics, and that it will spark dialogue throughout our community about how we can work together to improve what we see," Dunlap said.

"In particular, we hope the jail dashboard generates conversations about potential initiatives to reduce the length of stay for specific groups of people, alternatives to incarceration, and the need for additional programs and system-wide changes.”

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The dashboard shows 396 inmates have been housed in Wayne County jail facilities for more than one year, including 159 inmates who have been in jail for more than two years. County jail stays in Michigan are typically limited to one year, with longer sentences served in state prisons.

It isn't clear what has led to so many extended stays. Jail officials hope the new dashboard brings more attention to that issue and others.

The dashboard offers numerous interactive graphics that allow the public to explore different sets of data, including:

  • Inmate demographics, including race, gender, and age.

  • Mental health designations and number of available mental health beds.

  • Length of incarceration, including pretrial and post conviction.

  • Number of individuals in jail versus tethered.

  • Types of charges and bookings.

  • Originating agencies connected with inmate charges.

  • Number of releases.

The dashboard is updated every morning, officials said.

It can accessed at www.sheriffconnect.com/dashboard.

Some notable statistics revealed in the dashboard:

  • 75.3% of jail population is Black.

  • 91% of inmates are male.

  • 94.6% are in jail for felonies

  • 82.25% are in jail awaiting trial, versus 13.61% serving sentences.

  • 26.13% of inmates are labeled "mental health consumers."

By making the data easily accessible, the Sheriff's Office and Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network hope the dashboard will help reduce incarceration rates for those experiencing mental illness or substance abuse disorders, and those charged with low-level, non-violent crimes such as traffic offenses or property crimes, according to their news release.

“Across Wayne County, over 40 percent of local jail inmates have been diagnosed with mental health disorders, and many more in the system are likely undiagnosed and require some form of treatment,” said Andrea Smith, director of innovation and community engagement at DWIHN.

“With the dashboard in place, we’re much better equipped to respond to the obvious urgency to improve and target our delivery of services, which not only raises the quality of life for people currently under jail-system supervision, but can also contribute dramatically to the prevention of recidivism, and to improve outcomes for the families and communities of released individuals in the long run.”

In 2021, the Wayne County Sheriff's Office and DWIHN received a two-year grant from the Hudson-Webber Foundation to develop the public dashboard with the technology firm WIT Inc. But the analytics work started prior to Hudson-Webber's grant, Dunlap and Smith told the Free Press.

The dashboard was first initiated in 2018, after the Sheriff's Office and DWIHN tracked the mental health status of the Wayne County Jail inmate population and researched how other large cities have created change and transparency surrounding inmate populations.

Looking forward, the Sheriff’s Office and DWIHN "intend to expand their collaboration with the court system to influence policy and procedures that can expedite court proceedings, lead to the reduction of cases through diversion and mitigation measures and inform policymakers on the reforms and resources required to more effectively process cases," the partnership said in a news release.

Andrea Sahouri covers criminal justice for the Detroit Free Press. She can be contacted at 313-264-0442, asahouri@freepress.com or on Twitter @andreamsahouri.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Wayne County Jail data dashboard offers stats, charts, transparency