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On March 15th, 2009 Charleston police stopped a man near the corner of Hassel and East Bay streets.
The details of this stop were recorded in a database.
{ Name.ID: 3092 }, { FCC.ID: 313 }, { Date.Time: "3/15/09 11:45" }, { Race: "W" }, { Sex: "M" }, { Age: 53 }
Over the next six years, police recorded over 1000 interactions with this man.
These types of records used to be kept on paper and thrown out over time.
Now that they're digital, they can be more easily analyzed for patterns, revealing surprising insights into people's daily lives.
From 2009 to 2015, Charleston Police collected data on some 35,000 people — roughly a quarter of the city's population.
A national Post and Courier investigation reveals that police across the country are stockpiling these kinds of detailed records of non-criminal interactions.
Explore the rest of the data here.