Pennsylvania Sentencing Data, 1998 (ICPSR 3450)

Version Date: Mar 30, 2006

Cite this study |

Principal Investigator(s):
Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03450.v1

Version V1

Slide tabs to view more

Summary

The Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing is a legislative agency of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that develops sentencing guidelines for judges to use when sentencing felony and misdemeanor offenses. The judges then 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 1998. The data are contained in four files reflecting three sets of sentencing guidelines. The 1991 sentencing guidelines pertain to all offenses committed on or after August 9, 1991, up until the time that the 1994 guidelines became effective. The 1994 sentencing guidelines became effective for all offenses committed on or after August 12, 1994. The 1997 sentencing guidelines became effective for all offenses committed on or after June 13, 1997. In this data collection, the variable "GLEPOCH" denotes which set of guidelines pertained to the offense. Because the 1997 guidelines differ significantly from the 1991 and 1994 guidelines, sentences under the 1997 guidelines are reported in separate datasets. Parts 1 and 2, Records Data, provide information on each offender, including rudimentary demographic characteristics and prior offense history. Parts 3 and 4, Offense Data, contain 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. Parts 1 and 3 contain data from cases sentenced under the 1991 and 1994 guidelines, while Parts 2 and 4 contain data from cases sentenced under the 1997 guidelines.

Citation

Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing. Pennsylvania Sentencing Data, 1998. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2006-03-30. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03450.v1

Export Citation:

  • RIS (generic format for RefWorks, EndNote, etc.)
  • EndNote

Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Restrictions

A downloadable version of data for this study is available however, certain identifying information in the downloadable version may have been masked or edited to protect respondent privacy. Additional data not included in the downloadable version are available in a restricted version of this data collection. For more information about the differences between the downloadable data and the restricted data for this study, please refer to the codebook notes section of the PDF codebook. Users interested in obtaining restricted data must complete and sign a Restricted Data Use Agreement, describe the research project and data protection plan, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
Hide

Time Period(s)

1998

Date of Collection

1998 -- 1999

Data Collection Notes

  1. (1) The data files should not be used separately for analysis. Files can be linked using the Commission ID (CID). In the Records Data (Parts 1 and 2), the CID is unique. In the Offense Data (Parts 3 and 4), 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. Guidelines for 1997 do not use transaction. (c) Offense: There can be multiple offenses within one transaction. (3) These data represent the public version of the 1998 sentencing data for which three confidential variables (offender's name, Social Security number, judge's name) were removed from the dataset and four additional variables (docket number, offense tracking number, police photo identification 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.

Hide

Sample

All cases reported on Guideline Sentence Forms sent to the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing by judges.

Universe

All felony and misdemeanor offenses sentenced in Pennsylvania in 1998.

Data Source

Guideline Sentence Forms submitted by judges to the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing

Data Type(s)

Hide

Original Release Date

2002-08-13

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
  • Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing. Pennsylvania Sentencing Data, 1998. ICPSR03450-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2002. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03450.v1

2006-03-30 File CB3450.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.

Hide

Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

  • One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.