Santa Clara Co. Sheriff's Office redesigns daily jail population dashboard in push for transparency

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- A push for better transparency, accessibility and accountability--that's what the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office says its aiming to do with a new daily jail population dashboard.

"Our previous report was just a one-page PDF giving a few data points," said Dan Lou.

Lou is a data analyst at the sheriff's office and part of the in-house team that redesigned the dashboard. It not only has a new look but interactive features and improved insights.

"The new dashboard actually includes three different reports," she said. "The first reports, the overview report, is an enhanced version of the PDF version. And the other two reports, the daily population insights, allows you to view the population data by race, by charge types, by average length of stay, by the crime type. These are new and also the year by year, which shows you the change and changes over time."

MORE: California's Prop 36 now in effect, increasing penalties for certain theft and drug crimes

Jose Valle is with Silicon Valley Debug, a group that says it advocates for criminal justice reform.

"It would be great if we could go back further, especially 2020," he said.

Despite that critique, he says overall the new dashboard is an improvement.

"I think the more data that we have in regards to the criminal justice system, the better," he said. "That's how we could point out certain issues, certain trends and possibly make some new policy changes or even new legislation."

MORE: Man incarcerated at Santa Clara County jail nearly beaten to death; 3 charged

The new dashboard comes just as lawmakers this week met to discuss how to best implement Prop 36.

Passed last November, it increases the penalties for certain theft and drug crimes. With that comes statewide concerns over increased jail bookings.

Reports directly tied to Prop 36 haven't been publicly released yet in Santa Clara County.

The dashboard, however, is showing that percentage of population by sentencing status is increasing this year, with more than 90% of people in jail waiting to be sentenced. More than 80% are booked on felony charges.

MORE: How the passing of Prop 36 will impact California, prosecution of certain crimes

One positive metric showing promise is a recent decrease in the average daily jail population of all genders.

It's trends like that highlighted by the dashboard that Valle hopes lead to solutions.

"There's a lot of things that we can do (if we) all put our heads together," he said. "But I truly do feel that we could definitely figure out what is the trend, as far as the population decreasing. What can we do to keep making sure that it keeps decreasing?"

To view the dashboard updated daily, click here.