What Justice Data Requires Beyond Access: A Conversation with Chief Judge Donald R. Johnson

With everything happening right now, transparency is being asked to carry a lot. Data is often positioned as the answer, but access alone doesn’t guarantee understanding or trust.

I’ve been thinking about that in the context of a conversation I had with Chief Judge Donald R. Johnson. We weren’t talking about data as an endpoint. We were talking about what it means to lead inside systems where trust is fragile, accountability is real, and numbers can’t speak for themselves.

One thing that stayed with me was how clearly he named the limits of data on its own. Accessible data can create transparency, but only if people understand what they’re looking at and why it matters. Otherwise, it risks becoming another layer of distance between institutions and the communities they serve.

From his perspective, data works best when it helps leaders pause and ask better questions. It supports decision-making not by replacing judgment, but by grounding it. When judges and policymakers can see patterns clearly, they’re better positioned to respond to disparities instead of overlooking them.

We also talked about community input and why data policies can’t be shaped in isolation. When communities are part of the conversation, data becomes more than a reporting tool. It starts to reflect lived experience, surface concerns earlier, and build legitimacy over time.

That conversation connects directly to The Louisiana Data Landscape: A Divided Front, a report that examines how fragmented justice data can be across agencies and jurisdictions. What our conversation reinforced is that access alone doesn’t solve that problem. Structure, framing, and care are what make information usable and trustworthy. View the full report here.

What I value most about conversations like this is the chance to slow down and really sit with the implications of the work. Justice systems don’t change because data exists. They change when leaders are willing to engage what the data is asking of them, and when communities can see themselves reflected in how information is shared.

If you’re interested in the full conversation with Chief Judge Donald R. Johnson, you can watch it and stay connected to ongoing insights around justice, transparency, and data accessibility by joining the MFJ Collective newsletter here.