Virginia Courts Data Scraping Project; The Controversy of the Prison Industrial Complex in the United States

In the U.S., how can crime be equitably managed without compromising human and civil rights?

How can the accessibility of Virginia Court Data be improved for the public? The state of Virginia understands the importance of the accessibility of online court data. However, their current implementation lacks a friendly user interface and is therefore unintuitive to use. A small team and I worked with UVA Law’s Legal Data Lab to optimize their system for public use. Now the public can easily search the new database for online court data within the state of Virginia.

How do correctional communities, law enforcement, and local and state legislators benefit from the Prison Industrial Complex at the expense of their inmates? Racial disparity is exacerbated through the neglect of the United States’ neoliberal political economy. As a result, the colorblind racism of neoliberalism invokes disproportionate racial implications. The United States is far from uprooting its history of capitalizing on the disadvantaged. However, New Zealand’s reformed Private Prison Model can provide the United States a blueprint.

School of Engineering and Applied Science
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
Technical Advisor: Jack Davidson
STS Advisor: Peter Norton
Technical Team Members: David Alves, David Stern, Jessie Shen, Matthew Bacon