Description & Citation--Study No. 6785

• Bibliographic Description
• Scope of Study
• Methodology
• Access and Availability

Bibliographic Description

06785

National Prosecutors Survey, 1994

United States Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics

United States Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics. National Prosecutors Survey, 1994. ICPSR06785-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1998. doi:10.3886/ICPSR06785.v1

National Prosecutors Survey Series

Scope of Study

The National Survey of Prosecutors is a biennial survey of chief prosecutors in state court systems. A chief prosecutor is an official, usually locally elected and typically with the title of district attorney or county attorney, who is in charge of a prosecutorial district made up of one or more counties, and who conducts or supervises the prosecution of felony cases in a state court system. Prosecutors in courts of limited jurisdiction, such as municipal prosecutors, were not included in the survey. The survey's purpose was to obtain detailed descriptive information on prosecutors' offices, as well as information on their policies and practices. The data collection instrument was based on questions that were included in the NATIONAL PROSECUTORS SURVEY, 1992 (ICPSR 6273), and also added queries on topics of current concern, including: cross-designation of state prosecutors to try cases in federal court, juvenile transfers to criminal court, personal liability insurance for prosecutors, and involvement with community-based drug abuse programs. Variables include whether certain categories of felony prosecution, such as gangs, hate crimes, domestic violence, stalking, fraud, or child abuse or abduction were handled, whether DNA evidence, videotape, expert or child witnesses, polygraph tests, or wiretap evidence were used in trials, types of intermediate sanctions used, including house arrest, electronic monitoring, work release, substance abuse rehabilitation or therapy, community service, and fines or restitution, information on problem cases, personal risks associated with the role of the prosecutor, civil actions against prosecutors, criminal defense of indigent offenders, staffing, workload, funding, whether the defendant's criminal history was used in trials, juvenile matters, relationships with victims and other persons aiding prosecution, computerization, and community leadership. The unit of analysis is the district office.

attorneys, case processing, district attorneys, evidence, felony courts, felony offenses, juvenile courts, plea negotiations, policies and procedures, prosecuting attorneys, prosecution, sentencing, state courts, treatment programs, trial procedures

United States

• 1994-01-01--1994-12-31

• 1995-06--1995-12

Prosecutorial districts in the United States, usually consisting entirely of one county.

survey data

Conducted by the United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics

Methodology

A list of all prosecutorial districts that handled felony cases was compiled by the Bureau of the Census from the approximately 3,100 counties and independent cities in the United States (total 2,343). The list consisted of 2,343 prosecutorial districts, 1992 population figures, and 1992 Uniform Crime Reports Part I adult arrest data by county. From this file the Census Bureau drew a stratified systematic sample. The 2,343 prosecutorial districts were grouped into 6 strata, depending on the number of Part I adult arrests in 1992. Within each stratum, districts were systematically selected for the sample. A sample of 308 districts was chosen that is expected to yield a coefficient of variation of about 2 percent for variables correlated with population and arrests. A questionnaire was mailed to the chief prosecutor of each district.

self-enumerated questionnaires, and telephone interviews for offices not initially reported

All archived data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. The archive 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, the archive performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

• Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.
• Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Access and Availability

Detailed file-level information (such as record length, case count, and variable count) is listed in the file manifest.

1997-02-13

To protect respondent privacy, certain identifying variables are restricted 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. 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.

• 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.

• 1998-10-28 A section of the codebook appendix (Notes 3-38) has been modified. In each of those notes, the left column's heading was changed from "V4 - ICPSR Sequential ID Number" to "V5 - Prosecutorial District Number". Also, the ASCII codebook has been converted to a PDF file, and the PDF questionnaire is now included in the file.