Purpose

Justice Watch Tucson is designed to provide a public eye on the justice system affecting citizens of Tucson, Arizona. The program aims to more actively insert public interests and values into the justice system and to maximize public order and the wellbeing of Tucsonans.

Public order is the absence of disorder. Disorder comes in many flavors, from simple neighbor squabbles and trashy yards to loud parties, graffiti, petty theft and serious crime. The justice system is an important societal mechanism to restore public order when individual restraint fails or simple person to person influence on the behavior of others is insufficient. Justice Watch Tucson wants the justice system to operate at an optimum level. It wants the forces of law and order to reduce the likelihood of future illegal and discordant behavior, and to do so efficiently and effectively.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Going to City Court

Been to Tucson City Court lately? How about to look after your neighborhood's interests when someone is up for a trial or hearing on bad behaviors of various kinds? Here's an account of one recent visit: http://neighsupport.net/topics-2/crime-and-disorder/enforcement/going-to-city-court/ (DI)

Monday, January 13, 2014

Access to City Court Scheduling Information Obtained

Today was different.

Today was the culmination of more than fifteen months of persistent work to obtain access to City of Tucson City Court upcoming court event information.  Justice Watch Tucson has taken a step forward.

Today, Presiding Magistrate Antonio Riojas and I signed a Data Dissemination Agreement allowing the Neighborhood Support Network / Justice Watch Tucson access to daily updates of court scheduling information. Processing this data will allow lists to be prepared showing upcoming court events by type and by neighborhood so that interested parties may attend court hearings and trials relating to crime and city code violations occurring in their neighborhoods (such as noise/red tag, graffiti and property appearance violations).

Processing this information for the first time will take some work. But access has been obtained and interested citizens will be able to more easily find city court hearings and trials where they have standing and where they can attend to assert their interests. D. S. Ijams

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Code Enforcement Data Obtained

First access to Tucson Code Enforcement violation data was achieved on May 30, 2013. A preliminary version of neighborhood level listings is available on the NSN website. Suggestions for improvements to the listings are now being sought.

Friday, February 8, 2013

Tucson City Court - Update on Data Access

On Friday February 8, 2013, I had a meeting with Christopher Hale, Tucson City Court Administrator and Assistant Court Administrator Laura Spain. We discussed various aspects of the data request that Justice Watch Tucson made in fall 2012, for upcoming court event data that would allow residents to easily find City Court events related to their neighborhood.

Mr. Hale continues to be quite open to our request and is actively looking for ways to get us what we need.  He notes that his information technology resources are even more constrained than before, due to the upcoming move to a new computer system along with normal requirements. Rule 123 of the Arizona Supreme Court controls the release of bulk data and may present some hurdles for us to clear.

Hale thinks that an electronic court calendar report, now in the final stages of production, will serve to provide the data we need, with the possible exception of the LEA field (TPD case number). I told him that access to raw data in a simple format was best for us, but that I thought we could possibly work with the electronic report he mentioned.  He will forward a sample copy for us to review.

Tucson City Court's Public Search web page will now allow the entry of a ten digit TPD case number into the LEA No. box to access court information: http://cms3.tucsonaz.gov/courts/QDPS/Search/CitySearch.aspx