The Source for Crime and Justice Data

Description & Citation--Study No. 9998

Bibliographic Description

Study No.:

09998

Title:

Arrests As Communications to Criminals in St. Louis, 1970, 1972-1982

Principal Investigator(s):

Kohfeld, Carol W.

Sprague, John

Funding:

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice (84-IJ-CX-0032)

Bibliographic Citation:

Kohfeld, Carol W., and John Sprague. ARRESTS AS COMMUNICATIONS TO CRIMINALS IN ST. LOUIS, 1970, 1972-1982. ICPSR09998-v1. Los Altos, CA: Sociometrics Corporation [producer], 1992. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1999. doi:10.3886/ICPSR09998.v1

Scope of Study

Summary:

This data collection was designed to assess the deterrent effects over time of police sanctioning activity, specifically that of arrests. Arrest and crime report data were collected from the St. Louis Police Department and divided into two categories: all Uniform Crime Reporting Program Part I crime reports, including arrests, and Part I felony arrests. The police department also generated geographical "x" and "y" coordinates corresponding to the longitude and latitude where each crime and arrest took place. Part 1 of this collection contains data on all reports made to police regarding Part I felony crimes from 1970 to 1982 (excluding 1971). Parts 2-13 contain the yearly data that were concatenated into one file for Part 1. Variables in Parts 2-13 include offense code, census tract, police district, police area, city block, date of crime, time crime occurred, value of property taken, and "x" and "y" coordinates of crime and arrest locations. Part 14 contains data on all Part I felony arrests. Included is information on offense charged, the marital status, sex, and race of the person arrested, census tract of arrest, and "x" and "y" coordinates.

Subject Terms:

arrest rates, arrests, crime mapping, crime statistics, deterrence, felony offenses

Geographic Coverage:

Missouri, St. Louis, United States

Time Period:
  • 1970
  • 1972--1982

Date of Collection:
  • 1982--1984

Universe:

All Uniform Crime Reporting Program Part I police reports and felony arrests made by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department between 1970 and 1982, excluding 1971.

Data Types:

event/transaction data, and census data

Methodology

Data Source:

police reports and arrest data from the Planning Department of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department

Access and Availability

Note:

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

Original ICPSR Release:

1993-10-02

Version History:

  • 2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 15 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.

  • 1999-06-02 SAS and SPSS data definition statements have been added to this collection. Also, the codebook has been converted to a PDF file.

Dataset(s):
  • DS1: Police Report Data, 1970, 1972-1982
  • DS2: Police Report Data, 1970
  • DS3: Police Report Data, 1972
  • DS4: Police Report Data, 1973
  • DS5: Police Report Data, 1974
  • DS6: Police Report Data, 1975
  • DS7: Police Report Data, 1976
  • DS8: Police Report Data, 1977
  • DS9: Police Report Data, 1978
  • DS10: Police Report Data, 1979
  • DS11: Police Report Data, 1980
  • DS12: Police Report Data, 1981
  • DS13: Police Report Data, 1982
  • DS14: Part I Felony Arrest Data, 1970, 1972-1982