Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Chicago's Homan Square Detainees


For a while The Guardian has been investigating the use by the Chicago Police Department of Homan Square. The Guardian describes the facility as "an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site."

In a new interactive presentation, Homan Square - A portrait of Chicago’s detainees, the paper has created an impressive visualization breaking down the data behind the 7,185 arrests of people taken to Homan Square between 5 August 2004 and 30 June 2015. Throughout The Guardian's presentation the 7,185 arrests are represented as small portraits. As you progress through the interactive the portraits are rearranged to show the demographics of those arrested, the type of crimes people were arrested for and the dates of the arrests.

The data portraits are also rearranged to create a map showing where these arrests were made in Chicago. It is very impressive how The Guardian seamlessly rearranges the dots from a chart view into an oblique map view and then into a map plan view. All made possible by the use of Scalable Vector Graphics.

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