Montgomery County Jail Coalition urges public-facing jail dashboard and sheriff-hosted town halls

Joel Pruce and Rev. Alice Diebel, speaking for the Montgomery County Jail Coalition, presented a proposal on July 7 to create a public-facing jail dashboard and recurring town halls hosted by the Sheriff's Office to increase transparency and accountability in jail operations.

"They presented a proposal to increase transparency and accountability in jail operations through the creation of a public-facing jail dashboard and recurring town halls hosted by the Sheriff's Office," the presenters told the Board. The proposal described a web-based dashboard with real-time operational data and town halls intended to provide updates and public discussion about jail operations, improvements, and concerns.

MCJC said the dashboard would allow policymakers, stakeholders, and the public to evaluate system-wide outcomes using consistent metrics, monitor indicators associated with harm, and track measures such as length of stay and hospitalizations. The presenters emphasized that publicly shared data would be de-identified and anonymized to protect privacy and proposed a phased approach that begins with a limited set of high-confidence metrics.

The presenters also highlighted implementation risks and mitigations from their slides, including a two-tier design (public vs. internal dashboards), formal data-governance policies and legal review for sensitive metrics, memoranda of understanding for data sharing, and co-designing metrics with the Sheriff and courts. The slides recommended housing the project under the Criminal Justice Council and investing in joint validation between the Sheriff's Office and County IT.

No formal action on the proposal was taken by the Board at the meeting; presenters said the initiative would require collaboration among multiple agencies and stakeholders before launch.