Courts, legal aid groups, community organizations, and service providers are sitting on pieces of the same story. Someone cycles through the criminal justice system, from arraignment to jail, shelter, and clinics. Their data lives in four or five systems. No one sees the full picture in time to change the outcome.
That is where data sharing comes in. In plain language, these are written rules that spell out how partners in a justice-focused coalition collect, share, protect, and use data together. They sit behind diversion and reentry programs, racial equity initiatives, and serious program evaluations.
If you are an executive director, COO, CFO, or tech and operations lead, you feel the pull in both directions. Funders want cross-system outcomes. Communities want less harm and more care. Staff worry about privacy and misuse. This article offers a practical, defensible path to appropriate information sharing, without pretending you can fix everything at once.
Key Takeaways: What Justice Coalitions Need From Data Sharing Agreements
- Strong data use agreements for justice efforts give partners a clear, written basis to share data in support of diversion, reentry, and equity goals.
- Agreements should cover governance, privacy, consent, security, and equity, not just technical integrations or exports.
- Coalitions run into trouble when they rely on informal sharing, unclear consent, or “everyone gets everything” access.
- Start small: define a narrow purpose, map current data flows, and limit data to what is truly needed.
- Treat the agreement as a living tool that connects to your systems, reporting, and long-term governance structures.
Why Justice Coalitions Need Strong Data Sharing Agreements
Photo by Sora Shimazaki
Most coalitions start from a human goal, not a spreadsheet. Fewer people in county jails for low-level charges. Safer reentry. Faster access to housing, treatment, or counsel. Better outcomes for Black, Brown, immigrant, and Indigenous communities who face the harshest consequences.
To reach those goals, partners need to know what is actually happening. That means tracking whether diversion participants show up, whether reentry clients connect to services, and where people still fall through gaps. Shared data helps coalitions act early, not months later when a report is due.
At the same time, justice data is some of the most sensitive information any system holds. Arrests, immigration status, mental health history, behavioral health records, survivor records, and family relationships can all sit in the same file. Misuse or exposure can lead to deportation, loss of housing, danger from an abusive partner, or deep community distrust.
Many coalitions already feel this tension. Funders push for integrated data. Staff feel pressure to “just pull a list” or email a spreadsheet. New rules on cross-border and government information sharing, including Department of Justice (DOJ) oversight of Covered Data Transactions, federal and state confidentiality regulations, along with long-standing privacy concerns, add more risk when data moves without strong agreements, especially risks related to U.S. Sensitive Personal Data transfers involving countries of concern, where data of U.S. Persons is at stake. Civil liberties groups that challenge broad surveillance and cross-border sharing by law enforcement, such as in this Bill C‑2 information‑sharing explainer, highlight what is at stake when data use outruns governance.
The task is to build a structure that honors the mission, protects people, and keeps community trust at the center.
How shared data can improve justice outcomes and services
When the rules are clear, shared data becomes a practical tool for better decisions:
- Diversion programs can track who was referred, who accepted, who completed, and who still needs support.
- Reentry coalitions can see when someone leaving custody has open needs around housing, benefits, or medication.
- Legal aid and community partners can reduce duplicate intake and avoid asking people to re-live trauma at every door.
- Leaders can show boards and funders real outcomes across partners, not just counts from one system.
The goal is not to replace human judgment with dashboards. It is to give judges, case managers, advocates, and organizers clearer signals so they can act faster and with more care.
Risks of informal or poorly written data sharing in justice coalitions
When data sharing runs on habit and goodwill instead of written rules, patterns emerge:
- Privacy violations, like spreadsheets sent to the wrong inbox or broader access than anyone intended.
- Uneven access, where some partners see everything and others see almost nothing.
- Confusion about consent, especially when participants never agreed to cross-agency use.
- Tech decisions made before policy, which leaves legal and program staff cleaning up after the fact.
Immigration, youth, and survivor data carry special harm if misused, and data from criminal justice systems can follow people for life. Coalitions that ignore these risks often find themselves backpedaling with communities, boards, or the press.
If this feels familiar, you are not alone. Many justice nonprofits are already wrestling with common technology challenges facing legal nonprofits that make secure, consistent sharing even harder.
What To Include In Coalition Data Sharing Agreements For Justice Work
A good coalition data sharing agreement, one of several critical information sharing agreements, does not need fancy language. It needs to connect legal, program, and technology concerns in a way leaders can explain and staff can follow.
Think of it as a short playbook that answers four questions, similar in spirit to the Four Question Framework for ethical data sharing: Why are we sharing, what are we sharing, who gets it, and who decides when things change.
Defining the coalition, purpose, and scope of shared data
Start by naming who is involved. County courts, legal aid, public defenders, community-based organizations, evaluators, and any tech vendors that touch the data.
Then write down the purpose. For example, “to coordinate diversion referrals and track completion” or “to evaluate racial disparities in reentry outcomes.”
List the categories of data needed to answer those questions, such as case IDs, key dates, service usage, and basic outcomes. Keep it tight. Decide whether data will be person-level, de-identified, or aggregate, and document which elements are excluded, like narrative notes or immigration details.
The narrower the scope, the easier it is to defend and explain to participants and funders.
Privacy, consent, and rules for how justice data can and cannot be used
Privacy and confidentiality terms should be clear enough that a participant advocate could read them to a client.
Agreements should spell out:
- The legal basis for sharing, such as consent, a court order, or a specific statute.
- When written, informed consent is required and how it is collected and stored.
- Which fields are redacted or masked before data leaves a system.
- Role-based access rules, such as “provider X can see only their own clients.”
Coalitions should also forbid certain uses outright, like using service participation data to increase sentences, expand surveillance, fuel predictive policing, or the sale of data to data brokers or similar entities.
Health, immigration, youth, and survivor data, including personal health data, often sit under extra rules. Your agreement should reference those laws, such as HIPAA for protected health information (PHI), and any oversight bodies like the attorney general, then align with their expectations. For agreements involving sensitive PHI, include the requirement for a Business Associate Agreement (BAA). Many coalitions also adopt a Universal Release of Information (UROI) across partners, inspired by examples in sample cross-sector data sharing agreements.
Security, governance, and technical standards that keep shared data safe
Data security language does not need to be long, but it does need to be concrete.
Agreements should cover:
- Use of secure systems, encryption in transit and at rest, and strong authentication.
- Vendor expectations, including where data is stored and who can access it, with restrictions on sharing data related to U.S. Persons, transfers of U.S. Sensitive Personal Data, or storing or transferring data to countries of concern, while ensuring vendors comply with regulations set forth by the Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding data transfers.
- Logging access to shared data and retaining those logs.
- What happens if there is a suspected or confirmed breach, including notification timelines.
Governance belongs here too. Name a data stewardship group with people from multiple organizations. Describe how new data uses are proposed, reviewed, and either approved or rejected.
Finally, connect the agreement to a broader technology plan across the network. Many coalitions benefit from a roadmap for modernizing legal nonprofit systems so data sharing does not outgrow the underlying tools.
A Practical Roadmap To Build Trustworthy Justice Coalition Data Agreements
You do not need a perfect agreement on day one. You need a starting point that reflects real work and can grow.
Think in phases: align, pilot, then stabilize.
Step 1: Align partners on goals, harms to avoid, and minimum data needs
Begin with a focused convening. Bring together program leads, legal counsel, tech or data staff, and community voices who understand lived risk.
In that session, agree on:
- One or two concrete goals for shared data.
- Harms you are committed to avoiding, such as deportation risk, re-identification, misuse of algorithms in predictive policing, or increased surveillance.
- A rough map of current systems and data flows across the coalition.
This can be a light sketch on a virtual whiteboard, not a full inventory. The point is to see where fragile systems or gaps mirror the tech obstacles that steal time from legal aid.
Step 2: Draft, pilot, and refine your data sharing agreement in real work
With alignment in place, ask counsel for a template, then adapt it in plain language.
Pilot the agreement on a single project, population, or dataset. During the pilot, gather feedback from staff, participants, and partners:
- Where are people confused about consent or access to data?
- Did any steps slow down urgent services?
- Did staff feel pressure to bend the rules to get work done?
Use what you hear to adjust the agreement, related workflows, and any tech tools that support them. Document decisions and train staff. A signature without practice does not reduce risk.
Step 3: Connect agreements to systems, reporting, and long term governance
Once the pilot feels stable, move from “one-off” to “how we do things here.”
Create shared documentation, standard onboarding materials for new partners, and a simple reporting package for funders that reflects the agreement’s limits.
Build a regular review rhythm. For example, a quarterly data governance meeting to check privacy incidents, evaluate impact, and decide on requested changes.
As your coalition’s work grows, connect this governance work to a broader systems plan for data sharing and learn from case studies showcasing impact of technology upgrades in similar justice organizations.
FAQs About Coalition Data Sharing Agreements In Justice Work
Are MOUs enough, or do we need a full contract?
A memorandum of understanding (MOU) can be a useful starting point if it clearly covers purpose, data elements, privacy, consent, security, and governance. For higher-risk projects, or where law requires it, you will likely need more formal contracts. Treat MOUs as stepping stones, not permanent fixes.
What if funders push for more data than feels safe?
You can honor funder goals without handing over everything. Explain the risks, share aggregate or de-identified data where possible, and show how your safeguards, including compliance with regulations like HIPAA, protect both participants and program credibility. Robust information sharing agreements give you a documented basis for saying yes to some requests and no to others.
How do we handle partners with weak tech or security?
Name minimum expectations for any system that touches shared data, especially sensitive data like behavioral health data, then support partners to meet them. That might mean shared tools, training, or small grants, instead of leaving smaller groups on their own. If a partner cannot meet the floor, limit them to less sensitive or aggregate data.
How do we center equity and community voice in data sharing?
Invite directly impacted people into governance, not just as focus group members. Share back what you learn from the data, and be open to changing metrics or uses that feel harmful. Equity is a design choice, not a slogan.
Conclusion: Turning Shared Data Into Protection, Not Exposure
Strong data sharing agreements do not exist for their own sake. They help coalitions protect people, earn trust, and show impact without trading away safety.
You do not have to design all of this alone. CTO Input supports justice-focused organizations by mapping systems and risks, building cross-organization data governance, designing a believable technology roadmap, and guiding vendor and product decisions as a calm, neutral senior voice across partners. If you need fractional technology leadership for justice coalitions, you can learn more at https://www.ctoinput.com.
For deeper dives into technology, data governance, and security topics that sit under this work, explore the articles and guides on the CTO Input blog at https://blog.ctoinput.com.
Pick one coalition priority this quarter, and commit to taking the first step toward a written, shared agreement. The people you serve in the criminal justice system deserve systems that treat their information with the same care you bring to their cases.