Making a metaphor for St. Louis
After sorting out a new data set, I decided it would be best to redo some of the earlier work done in week one. In week one, I wrote project information based on a data set about birds, but I have since then found a more relevant data set about inmate populations in St. Louis
0. Situate
I am an Asian-American woman of Chinese descent who grew up in the suburbs of St. Louis, MO. Normally, I would be in Austin, TX, but due to the pandemic, I have returned back to my home in St. Louis County for the time being. The ecoregion I will be working in is the Eastern Ozark Border, which is characterized by “moderately dissected hills,” “sheer bluffs,” rocky and thin soils, and “areas of claypan or loess” according to user aaroncarlson on iNaturalist. There is an array of land cover, including forests, woodlands, and cleared areas for cropland and pasture. With my hometown being the home of the St. Louis Cardinals, I have always appreciated the Northern Cardinal. Not as much because of my love for baseball, but more so because of its striking appearance, particularly against barren trees and winter snow. The Eastern Bluebird and Blue Jay are other cool birds that can be found in St. Louis. Cardinals are a symbol of St. Louis pride in a lot of ways, but there is generally a lot less state pride here than in Texas.
Ecoregions of the St. Louis Metropolitan Area via East West Gateway
Species I have seen while home:
White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus)
Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo)
Woodpecker
I. Purpose
Using a data set found from St. Louis’ open data set collection, I collected data from a dashboard of inmate population in St. Louis from 2010 to 2021. St. Louis has two main jail facilities known as the St. Louis Medium Security Institution and the St. Louis City Justice Center.
The worldview that informs the data set is that of the St. Louis municipal government. The stories behind the numbers are not transparent. Through research on St. Louis news and laws, however, one may be able to do some more sensemaking on the stories behind the numbers.
The data can give us a sense of carceration levels in St. Louis, which we can use to speculate on levels of crime or perhaps severity of criminal enforcement. These stories are at the most speculations, and it would require deeper research to truly understand the data. However, I do think looking at looking at general levels can encourage thoughtful questions related to incarceration, law enforcement, homelessness, and family dynamics.
This data set provides information on these parameters:
- Average daily inmate population
- Average inmate length of stay
Additionally, you can sort based on these attributes:
- Race
- Sex
- Facility
- Marital Status
- Employment Status
- Top Offense Class
- Age Group
II. Attunement
I think this data set should convey a sense of separation and perhaps uneasiness, which would hopefully allow viewers to start going down empathizing branches of thought and a desire for transparency.
Why a desire for transparency? As I was becoming attune to the data, it was annoying to be given data that didn’t seem be very comprehensive. While I do appreciate the easy to comprehend dashboard of information, I feel there the data was lacking in several areas. On one hand, it could only give a broad overview of inmate populations and times, and I was forced to make a lot of unsubstantial hypotheses to further guide my questions. Also, it would have been helpful to include census data on the overall populations of the attributes given such that one could make more effective comparisons. I found myself asking a lot of questions on the city’s patterns of law enforcement, especially as I continued to I filter and explore the data.
Something I tried to do to further attune myself to the data was read a bit of local journalism on the two facilities where inmates are held. Here are some articles on the history of “The Workhouse,” a name given to the medium security facility due to the fact that inmates were taken into this facility to be able to “work off” fines they could not pay.
III. Relationship
I will likely project a lot of my own perspective as a person who is passionate about equity and who supports decarceration. I think I should be wary of what hypotheses I try to think of and how that might influence the data visualization. It is important to remember that I also don’t know the whole story behind this information, and that I shouldn’t SOLELY frame the information in a negative light (as changing patterns could reveal positive things about the city). I think especially in St. Louis/Missouri, there tends to be a lot of negativity about the city and being stuck in the city, so maybe being weary of how a penchant for negativity might affect the way I view the data.
I hope this data generates a sense of empathy between the viewer and those incarcerated or promotes a sense of curiosity about the viewer’s municipal policies and crime laws.
IV. Manifest
This week, we were asked to develop a data visualization concept that uses an ecological metaphor based on the bioregion in which we are working from. I am working from the Eastern Ozark Border ecoregion, which relates to my upbringing in St. Louis County, MO.
The metaphor I am choosing to explore is kind of a combination of cycles and distribution and mostly space colonization. I used the northern cardinal, one of the native birds in this eco region, as inspiration. According to allaboutbirds.org:
“Northern Cardinals tend to sit low in shrubs and trees or forage on or near the ground, often in pairs. They are common at bird feeders but may be inconspicuous away from them, at least until you learn their loud, metallic chip note.”
This characteristic notes that there are moments of peace and blending in in contrast with other moments of loud, shrill noise. I think this is a good metaphor to describe incarceration levels in St. Louis, a city that has recently made local news for an inmate uprising against poor conditions within the City Justice Center. Additionally, St. Louis has a long history of wealth disparity, as evident through the Delmar Divide, and I believe looking at incarceration can encourage research in wealth disparity as well, which is directly related to most of the inmates who are taken into the medium security facility in St. Louis.
My metaphor is a representation of inmate populations in St. Louis. The cardinals start in the center, initially close together, but pushed further and further apart from each other as incarceration population widens. They are pushed apart by this screechy, metallic branching that further branches out as the incarceration levels grow, with each peak and trough representing the average yearly inmate population in hundreds (hence creating an actual divide/gap between the birds which are a symbol of St. Louis pride). Additionally, the amplitude of the peaks and troughs is determined by the other factor of average length of stay in jail. The lengths ranged from about 100 to 300 days, so I made three different levels (low, medium, high) to represent amplitude rather than a numerical amplitude. It was interesting to incorporate both dynamics because as the average inmate population decreased through time, the average inmate stay increased. Thus, both factors can actually widen the gap between the birds based on distance and amplitude. These frames can be combined to make a gif.
I also think this is an interesting metaphor to explore because the allaboutbirds quote mentions how cardinals can be inconspicious until they are heard making loud screech noises, and this is fairly reflected in the fact that oftentimes people can become unempathetic to people in jails and prisons. It can be easy to look away or ignore those who are behind bars, and sometimes people will justify inhumane or unethical living conditions for people who are incarcerated. But often, carceration only seeks to further weaken people of recovery and growth, leading to continuous cycles of pain, economic destitution, and carceration. This dynamic will only serve to widen the bond between community members of St. Louis, as represented by the cardinals.
