85,000 police officers around the country have been investigated for misconduct for an array of misdeeds. But despite their role as public servants, they often avoid public scrutiny for their actions.

So, reporters from USA Today — as well as its 100+ USA Today network newsrooms around the country — have made those records public for the first time. The newspaper partnered with nonprofit Invisible Institute in Chicago and spent more than a year working to create what’s now the largest collection of police misconduct records ever.  

Mark Nichols is a data journalist for the national investigations team at USA Today, and he was part of the team that gathered this data. The Show spoke with him about the project and how difficult it was to gather this data from police departments to begin with.

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