National Prosecutors Survey, 2005 (ICPSR 4600)
Alternate Title: National Survey of Prosecutors, 2005
Principal Investigator(s): United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics
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, 1994 (ICPSR 6785), and added queries on topics of current concern. Variables cover staffing, workload, funding, what type of computer access the office had, whether the office was part of an integrated computerized system with other specific criminal agencies, the use of DNA evidence in plea negotiations of felony trials, which laboratories performed these DNA analyses, juvenile matters, and risks associated with the role of the prosecutor, such as threatening letters or calls, face-to-face assaults, or batter/assaults. The unit of analysis is the district office.
Access 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.
Dataset(s)
Study Description
Citation
United States Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics. National Prosecutors Survey, 2005. ICPSR04600-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2007-02-23. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR04600.v1
Persistent URL: http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR04600.v1
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Funding
This study was funded by:
- United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics
Scope of Study
Subject Terms: attorneys, case processing, criminal investigations, district attorneys, DNA fingerprinting, evidence, felony courts, felony offenses, juvenile courts, personnel, plea negotiations, policies and procedures, prosecuting attorneys, prosecution, sentencing, state courts, training, treatment programs, trial procedures, victim services
Geographic Coverage: United States
- 2005-01-01--2005-12-31
Universe: Prosecutorial districts in the United States, usually consisting entirely of one county.
Conducted by the United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Methodology
Sample: The sampling frame, consisting of 2,400 prosecutorial districts that handle felony cases, was compiled by the Bureau of the Census, along with the 2004 population figures. From this file the Census Bureau drew a stratified systematic sample. The 2,400 prosecutorial districts were grouped into 5 strata, based solely on the population parameters. Within each stratum, districts were systematically selected for the sample. A sample of 310 districts was chosen that is expected to yield a coefficient variation of about 2 percent for variables correlated with population and arrests. A questionnaire was mailed to the chief prosecutor of each district, of which 307 responded.
Mode of Data Collection: self-enumerated questionnaire, telephone interview
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:
- Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.
- Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
Version(s)
Original ICPSR Release: 2007-01-17
- 2007-02-23 An error in the codebook has been corrected.
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