Operation Hardcore [Crime] Evaluation: Los Angeles, 1976-1980 (ICPSR 9038)

Principal Investigator(s): Los Angeles District Attorney's Office

Summary: This evaluation was developed and implemented by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office to examine the effectiveness of specialized prosecutorial activities in dealing with the local problem of rising gang violence, in particular the special gang prosecution unit Operation Hardcore. One part of the evaluation was a system performance analysis. The purposes of this system performance analysis were (1) to describe the problems of gang violence in Los Angeles and the ways that incidents of... (more info)

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Los Angeles District Attorney's Office. Operation Hardcore [Crime] Evaluation: Los Angeles, 1976-1980. ICPSR09038-v2. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1994. doi:10.3886/ICPSR09038.v2

Persistent URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09038.v2

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This survey was funded by:

• United States Department of Health and Human Services. National Institutes of Health. National Institute of Mental Health (81-IJ-CX-K004)
• United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice

Summary:   This evaluation was developed and implemented by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office to examine the effectiveness of specialized prosecutorial activities in dealing with the local problem of rising gang violence, in particular the special gang prosecution unit Operation Hardcore. One part of the evaluation was a system performance analysis. The purposes of this system performance analysis were (1) to describe the problems of gang violence in Los Angeles and the ways that incidents of gang violence were handled by the Los Angeles criminal justice system, and (2) to document the activities of Operation Hardcore and its effect on the criminal justice system's handling of the cases prosecuted by that unit. Computer-generated listings from the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office of all individuals referred for prosecution by local police agencies were used to identify those individuals who were subsequently prosecuted by the District Attorney. Data from working files on all cases prosecuted, including copies of police, court, and criminal history records as well as information on case prosecution, were used to describe criminal justice handling. Information from several supplementary sources was also included, such as the automated Prosecutors Management Information System (PROMIS) maintained by the District Attorney's Office, and court records from the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles County, the local felony court.

Subject Terms:   arrests, assault, burglary, correctional facilities, crime, criminal histories, criminal justice system, defendants, delinquent behavior, demographic characteristics, disposition (legal), district attorneys, driving under the influence, drug possession, felony offenses, gang violence, gangs, hearings, jails, kidnapping, murder, plea negotiations, rape, robbery, sentencing, theft, victimization, weapons, witnesses

Geographic Coverage:   California, Los Angeles, United States

Time Period:  

• 1976--1980

Universe:   All cases referred by local police agencies for prosecution to the Los Angeles District Attorney's office during 1976-1980.

Data Types:   administrative records data

Data Collection Notes:

Data for the seventh file named in the codebook (Prior Criminal Record Data) are not available from ICPSR.

Sample:   First, cases involving gang-related homicide were selected, since the majority of cases prosecuted by Operation Hardcore were gang homicide cases. Second, individuals suspected by police as being involved in these cases were identified by police records. Third, the District Attorney's listings of individuals against whom criminal charges had been accepted or rejected for prosecution were reviewed for the names identified in the second step. Thus all names from step two were classified as accepted, rejected, or not referred.

Data Source:

Los Angeles District Attorney's Office records, PROMIS (Prosecutors Management Information System), and Los Angeles County police, court, and criminal history records

Extent of Processing:  ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

• Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Original ICPSR Release:  1984-03-18

Version History:

• 2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 7 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.
• 2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 7 and flagged as study-level files, so that they 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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