Data
Like policy, data can be harnessed to drive social change. In fact, data often inform policy initiatives and the successful passage of reforms. If we’re asking the right questions and questioning biases, intelligently managing data sets can help us disentangle mental health and criminal justice. Tracking data can reveal disparities and impacts, can map changes over time, and allows us to make predictions about behaviors and trends. Law enforcement agencies, health care providers, and governmental and non-governmental organizations must increasingly turn to data collection and analysis to answer questions, measure individual outcomes and experiences, improve operations, and achieve cost-savings in the context of complex systems.
Data should be shared among community partners, in order to improve care, while preserving individual rights and privacy.