Combining and Analyzing Judicial Databases - Discrimination and Privacy in the Information Society - page 184

Chapter 10
Combining and Analyzing Judicial Databases
Susan van den Braak, Sunil Choenni, and Sicco Verwer *
Abstract. To monitor crime and law enforcement, databases of several organiza-
tions, covering different parts of the criminal justice system, have to be integrated.
Combined data from different organizations may then be analyzed, for instance, to
investigate how specific groups of suspects move through the system. Such insight
is useful for several reasons, for example, to define an effective and coherent safe-
ty policy. To integrate or relate judicial data two approaches are currently
employed: a data warehouse and a dataspace approach. The former is useful for
applications that require combined data on an individual level. The latter is suita-
ble for data with a higher level of aggregation. However, developing applications
that exploit combined judicial data is not without risk. One important issue while
handling such data is the protection of the privacy of individuals. Therefore, sev-
eral precautions have to be taken in the data integration process: use aggregate da-
ta, follow the Dutch Personal Data Protection Act, and filter out privacy-sensitive
results. Another issue is that judicial data is essentially different from data in exact
or technical sciences. Therefore, data mining should be used with caution, in par-
ticular to avoid incorrect conclusions and to prevent discrimination and stigmati-
zation of certain groups of individuals.
10.1 Introduction
In the Netherlands, many organizations work together to ensure the enforcement
of law and public safety of people. Each of these organizations covers a specific
area in the field of crime and law enforcement. For instance, the police focus on
reported crime and hand over suspects to the prosecution service. The Public
Prosecution Service then decides whether to prosecute or drop a case. The court
can either convict or acquit a suspect, and may impose sanctions such as impri-
sonment. When a sentence is pronounced by court, the execution of sanctions