For the Tomahawk Leader

WISCONSIN – Attorney General Josh Kaul, on Tuesday, April 25, announced the launch of a new dashboarding tool on the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) website that allows users to explore arrests submitted to the state’s criminal history repository (CCH) by law enforcement agencies across the state.

A release from DOJ said the CCH is a fingerprint-based database that contains detailed information, including arrests and arrest charges.

“The database is an accumulation of information submitted by Wisconsin law enforcement agencies and other criminal justice system entities, as required by applicable state statutes,” DOJ stated. “Wisconsin law enforcement agencies must submit documentation of all felony and a subset of misdemeanor arrests to the CCH. The CCH, however, accepts documentation of any arrest Wisconsin law enforcement submits.”

DOJ noted that some agencies might submit all arrests, irrespective of the level, while others might only submit felonies and the misdemeanors required by state statute.

“Users of the dashboarding tool will be able to explore the number of arrests, the number of unique individuals arrested and arrest rates on both a statewide and county level for whatever timeframe is selected,” DOJ said. “User-selectable filters related the offense(s), including specific statute, category, subcategory and whether it was a misdemeanor or felony, along with arrestee options, can be applied for more exploration.”

“At DOJ, we strive to make as much data available to the public as possible,” Kaul stated. “This new dashboard makes government more transparent and open to the public, while also serving as a great tool for researchers and other members of the public interested in learning more about arrest data in our state.”

The dashboarding tool is refreshed weekly and is available at www.bit.ly/3V2yWkR.