It’s been a big decade for police transparency. Dashcams and body cameras have become the norm. And newsrooms are certainly all-too prepared with a laundry list of documents to request should an officer—or department—land in hot water.

But as much as departments are embracing Robocop technology, the traditional paper trail left by troubled police remains stubbornly stuck in the past.

When an officer makes headlines, it’s a big deal. Naturally, reporters request all sorts of records about his history. We want to know if the officer has ever been the subject of an internal affairs investigation. If he’s been named in a lawsuit. If he’s ever lied on the stand. But by the time the requests are honored, interest tends to have waned.

It’s unsatisfying, to say the least.

Two years ago, a group of USA TODAY editors and reporters had an absurd thought. What if we could have those records before the news happened? What untold stories could we find in getting those records from every law enforcement department in the country? And so they set out to make it happen.

So far, we’ve collected more than 220,000 records detailing the troubles of police, and the collection continues to grow.

The data is already being shared with reporters across the USA TODAY Network of more than 100 newsrooms coast to coast. Now we’re making the same information available to you.

30,000 Decertified Officers

To kick off this effort, we’re releasing a database of the most cut-and-dried cases of troubled cops—30,000 officers from 44 states who were decertified by state oversight agencies. Decertification essentially bans those officers from carrying a badge anywhere in the state.

Their infractions run the gamut. They’ve beaten members of the public, planted evidence, and used their badges to harass women. Others have lied, stolen, dealt drugs, driven drunk, abused spouses, and pursued relationships with minors, among a wide range of other infractions, depending on the aggressiveness of their state’s rules for police behavior.

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