National Day of Civic Hacking

Overview

iZotope
60 Hampshire Street
Cambridge, MA
United States

Saturday, 21 September 2019 - 9:30am to 3:00pm

View Event Page

Details

The National Day of Civic Hacking brings together civic leaders, public servants, designers, coders, and engaged citizens to partner with local government and community groups to tackle some of our toughest challenges. This year Code for Boston invites you to join us and our partners at Citizens for Juvenile Justice for a day of collective action to help those impacted by the criminal justice system, particularly in the area of criminal record expungement (more on record expungement in Massachusetts).

This year’s NDoCH coincides with National Expungement Week, an effort led by organizations across the country to help people in the process of clearing their criminal records. This is a great opportunity to work with partners who are already doing this important work. At NDoCH, we will center their perspectives in an effort to transform the criminal record clearance landscape. We will focus on expanding, streamlining, and automating the expungement process in Massachusetts.

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This page will be updated frequently as we approach the day of the event.

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Should I come to the National day of Civic Hacking?

Yes! We're looking for a wide variety of attendees to address these critical issues of criminal justice and record expungement. We’re especially interested in working with people who are in the process of getting a criminal record sealed or expunged, but we also hope that you'll bring your skills and passion to our event if you're one of the following:

  • legal professionals
  • criminal justice advocates
  • court employees
  • experience and content designers
  • user researchers
  • software developers
  • translators
  • anyone passionate about criminal justice reform
What can I expect to do at the National Day of Civic Hacking?

We’re planning a full set of activities to provide opportunities for people of all backgrounds and experience levels to make meaningful contributions to this effort! Each activity will have a facilitator with enough subject-matter knowledge to guide teams throughout the day.

Activities will include:

  • Building a “Know Your Rights” website to make Massachusetts’ criminal records expungement and sealing laws more accessible to the people they’re intended to serve
  • Developing and researching an Expungement Scorecard to assess Massachusetts’ expungement and sealing laws in comparison to other states
  • Making a journey map to understand the process a person who wants to seal their record needs to follow to successfully accomplish their goal
  • Analyzing data to estimate the number of people in Massachusetts who are eligible to seal or expunge their criminal record under existing laws
  • User testing some existing resources being developed by our partners at Citizens for Juvenile Justice
  • Translating everything we write, design, and develop into other languages to make the work we’ll do together accessible to people who speak a language other than English
Agenda

Coming soon!

Some logistical notes…

Food

Breakfast, lunch, and plenty of coffee will be provided.

Transportation

The best transportation option is the MBTA Red Line to Kendall. iZotope is about a 7-minute walk from the station. There are also nearby BlueBike stations, and some on-street meter parking is available.

Photography

All Code for Boston events are on the record by default. Participants should be made aware that they may be quoted, photographed, videotaped and otherwise recorded. Exceptions must be agreed to by all parties present in a conversation in order for the conversation to be off the record.

Code of Conduct

All Code for Boston events are governed by our Code of Conduct.

Reading Material

If you'd like to learn more about expungement and the MA criminal justice system prior to the event, here are a few resources to get you started:

Questions?

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions about Code for Boston or our National Day of Civic Hacking Event. Eventbrite unhelpfully strips out mailto links from their HTML, so you'll have to copy/paste - apologies.

Organizing Partners

Citizens for Juvenile Justice

Citizens for Juvenile Justice (CfJJ) is an independent, non-profit, statewide organization working to improve the juvenile justice system in Massachusetts through advocacy, convening, conducting research, and educating the public on important juvenile justice issues.

 

About National Day of Civic Hacking

National Day of Civic Hacking is a nationwide day of action where developers, government employees, designers, journalists, data scientists, non-profit employees, UX designers, and residents who care about their communities come together to host civic tech events leveraging their skills to help their community. This annual event provides citizens an opportunity to do what is most quintessentially American: roll up our sleeves, get involved, and work together to improve our society.

Read more about National Day of Civic Hacking at Code for America

About Code for Boston

Part of the Code for America Brigade network, Code for Boston was founded in 2012 as a volunteer group of developers, designers, data geeks, and citizen activists who use creative technology to solve civic and social problems in the Greater Boston area.

Part mission-driven non-profit, part technology meetup, part advocacy group, part social club, we provide a way for citizens to give back to their communities by building civic applications, opening public data sources, and generally helping to leverage technology for use in the public sphere.

Read more about Code for Boston