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Description & Citation--Study No. 3062 | |
Bibliographic Description | |
| ICPSR Study No.: | 3062 |
|---|---|
| Persistent URL: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03062 |
| Title: | Pennsylvania Sentencing Data, 1996 |
| Principal Investigator(s): | Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing |
| Funding Agency: | United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice |
| Bibliographic Citation: | Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing. Pennsylvania Sentencing Data, 1996 [Computer file]. ICPSR03062-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2000. doi:10.3886/ICPSR03062 |
Scope of Study | |
| Summary: | The Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing is a legislative agency of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Commission develops sentencing guidelines for judges to use when sentencing felony and misdemeanor offenses. The judges report sentences to the Commission on a Guideline Sentence Form. This data collection reflects all felonies and misdemeanors reported to the Commission that were sentenced during calendar year 1996. The data are contained in two files. Part 1, Records Data, provides information on each offender, including rudimentary demographic characteristics and prior offense history. Part 2, Offense Data, contains information on each offense, including the statutory citation for the offense, the Offense Gravity Score assigned by the Commission, the offender's Prior Record Score, and the sentence given the offender. |
| Subject Term(s): | crime reporting, criminal histories, felony offenses, judges, misdemeanor offenses, offenders, sentencing, sentencing guidelines |
| Geographic Coverage: | Pennsylvania, United States |
| Time Period: | 1996 |
| Date(s) of Collection: | 1996 - 1997 |
| Universe: | All felony and misdemeanor offenses sentenced in Pennsylvania in 1996. |
| Data Type: | administrative records data |
| Data Collection Notes: | (1) The two data files should not be used separately for analysis. The data files can be linked using the Commission ID (CID). In the Records Data (Part 1), the CID is unique. In the Offense Data (Part 2), one CID can have multiple offenses. (2) The unit of analysis is determined by the user but could include: (a) Judicial proceeding: a proceeding in which all offenses for which the offender was convicted were pending before the court for sentencing at the same time. (b) Transaction: a crime or crimes committed by an offender at a single time or in temporally continuous actions that were part of the same episode, event, or incident, or which were conspiracy and the offense that was conspired to. There can be multiple transactions within one judicial proceeding. (c) Offense: there can be multiple offenses within one transaction. (3) These data represent the public version of the 1996 sentencing data for which three confidential variables (offender's name, Social Security number, judge's name) were removed from the dataset before submission to ICPSR and three additional variables (docket number, offense tracking number, and state identification number) were blanked by ICPSR. Information on obtaining the full dataset is provided in the codebook. (4) The codebook and data collection instruments are provided by ICPSR as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site. |
Methodology | |
| Sample: | All cases reported on Guideline Sentence Forms sent to the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing by judges. |
| Data Source: | Guideline Sentence Forms submitted by judges to the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing |
Access and Availability | |
| Note: | A list of the data formats available for this study can be found in the summary of holdings. Detailed file-level information (such as record length, case count, and variable count) is listed in the file manifest. |
| Restrictions: | To protect respondent privacy, certain identifying variables are restricted from general dissemination. (1) The variables State ID Number in Part 1 and Docket Number and Offense Tracking Number in Part 2 have been restricted by ICPSR from general dissemination. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Data Transfer Agreement Form and specify the reasons for the request. A copy of the Data Transfer Agreement Form can be requested by calling 800-999-0960 or 734-647-5000. The Data Transfer Agreement Form is also available as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file from the NACJD Web site at http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/Private/private.pdf (link). Completed forms should be returned to: Director, National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, Institute for Social Research, P.O. Box 1248, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248, or by fax: 734-647-8200. (2) The variables Offender's Name, Offender's Social Security Number, and Judge's Name have been restricted by the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing from general dissemination. Users interested in obtaining these data for a fee must submit a Data Set Request Form directly to the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing. More information and copies of the form can be obtained by contacting the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing, P.O. Box 1200, State College, PA 16804-1200, Phone: 814-863-2797, Fax: 814-863-2129, URL: http://pcs.la.psu.edu (link). |
| Original ICPSR Release: | 2000-12-04 |
| Version History: | The last update of this study occurred on 2006-03-30. |
| 2006-03-30 - File CB3062.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads. | |
| 2005-11-04 - On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable, and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to reflect these additions. | |
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