National Prosecutors Survey, 1996 (ICPSR 2433)
Version Date: Nov 4, 2005 View help for published
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United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics
Series:
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02433.v1
Version V1
Summary View help for Summary
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 also 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.
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Access to these BJS-sponsored data is restricted. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a NACJD Restricted Data Use Agreement available from the ResearchDataGov website, specify the reasons for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.
Restricted Data Use Agreements available on the NACJD website are provided for reference only. Please visit the ResearchDataGov website to download the appropriate Restricted Data Use Agreement and submit your request. Once approved, data may be accessed from a requester secure site via ICPSR's secure download procedures.
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Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes
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Conducted by the United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Sample View help for Sample
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.
Universe View help for Universe
Prosecutorial districts in the United States, usually consisting entirely of one county.
Data Source View help for Data Source
self-enumerated questionnaires, and telephone interviews for offices not initially reported
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HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
1998-11-16
Version History View help for Version History
- United States Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics. National Prosecutors Survey, 1996. ICPSR02433-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1998. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02433.v1
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.
1998-11-16 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.
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.
This dataset is maintained and distributed by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD), the criminal justice archive within ICPSR. NACJD is primarily sponsored by three agencies within the U.S. Department of Justice: the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.