Summary
The United States Sentencing Commission, established by the 98th Congress, is an independent agency in the judicial branch of government. The Commission recommends guidelines prescribing the appropriate form and severity of punishment for offenders convicted of federal crimes. These data were collected to determine whether sentencing disparities existed and whether the guidelines were adequate. Basic information in the collection includes a description of the offense, characterization of the defendant's background and criminal record, method of disposition of the case, and sentence imposed. Felony and misdemeanor cases are included while petty offense cases are excluded. Three types of additional information were used to augment the existing data: (1) more detailed offense and offender characteristics identified by the United States Sentencing Commission but coded by federal probation officers, (2) actual time served in prison from the SENTRY data file of the United States Bureau of Prisons, and (3) information necessary to estimate prospective release dates from the hearing files of the United States Parole Commission. The unit of analysis is the defendant.
Citation
Export Citation:
Funding
United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics
Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage
Sample
Stratified random sample.
Universe
Individuals sentenced for serious misdemeanor or felony offenses between October 1, 1984, and September 30, 1985, in United States District Courts.
Data Source
records from the Administrative Office of the United States Court's Federal Probation Sentencing and Supervision Information System
administrative records data
Original Release Date
1992-01-10
Version Date
2006-01-12
Version History
2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 6 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.
2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 5 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.
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.
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.