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Description & Citation--Study No. 9058 | |
Bibliographic Description | |
| ICPSR Study No.: | 9058 |
|---|---|
| Title: | Social Order in Middletown, 1932-1975 |
| Principal Investigator(s): | John Hewitt |
| Bibliographic Citation: | Hewitt, John. SOCIAL ORDER IN MIDDLETOWN, 1932-1975 [Computer file]. ICPSR version. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2002. |
Scope of Study | |
| Summary: | The purpose of this study was to examine crime over a period of 43 years in Muncie, Indiana, which has commonly been referred to as "Middletown" in social science studies. The unit of analysis is the criminal act charged. All charges were counted and appropriately categorized. The following rules were observed for cases involving multiple charges or multiple counts of single charges. First, each charge was counted separately when multiple charges were filed. Second, when a defendant was charged with multiple counts of a single charge, each count was considered to be a separate act and so recorded. Data are provided on year of criminal act charge, first, second, and third offenses charged, legal representation by public defender, amount of bail, nature of plea, and place and length of prison terms (Part 2). Other items specify city population, unemployment rate, and total jobs in nonfarm industries, as well as the number of police, reported charges and convictions for murders, rapes, assaults, and robberies, and the percentage of felons convicted for murder, rape, assault, and robbery that were incarcerated (Part 5). Additional variables provide the socioeconomic index, as well as other information on criminal cases such as initial charges, prior records and number of prior felony convictions, marital history, and work history of offenders, and prosecutors' recommended sentencings, actual number of months in jail, and probation and jail terms (Part 6). Demographic items specify age, sex, and race (Parts 2 and 6), as well as education and occupation (Part 6) of the alleged defendant. |
| Subject Term(s): | court records, crime, defendants, sentencing, Indiana-Muncie, United States |
| Time Period: | 1932 - 1975 |
| Universe: | All charged criminal acts in Muncie and Delaware Counties in Indiana in the period 1829-1978. |
| Data Type: | administrative records data |
| Data Collection Notes: | (1) The codebook is 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. (2) Despite the 1932-1975 date range in the title, there is indication that the collection actually contains data spanning 1829-1978. |
Methodology | |
| Data Source: | docket books and records from criminal courts in Muncie and Delaware Counties, Indiana |
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 LRECL, case count, and variable count) is listed in the file manifest. |
| Original ICPSR Release: | 1985-03-18 |
| Version History: | The last update of this study occurred on 1992-02-16. |
| 2006-01-18 - File CB9058.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads. | |
| Dataset(s): |
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