Evaluation of the Midtown Community Court in New York City, 1992-1994 (ICPSR 2311)
Version Date: Mar 30, 2006 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
David Rottman, National Center for State Courts;
Brian Ostrom, National Center for State Courts;
Michele Sviridoff, National Center for State Courts;
Richard Curtis, National Center for State Courts
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02311.v1
Version V1
Summary View help for Summary
In October 1993, the Midtown Community Court opened as a three-year demonstration project designed to forge links with the community in developing a problem-solving approach to quality-of-life offenses. The problems that this community-based courthouse sought to address were specific to the court's midtown New York City location: high concentration of quality-of-life crimes, broad community dissatisfaction with court outcomes, visible signs of disorder, and clusters of persistent high-rate offenders with serious problems, including addiction and homelessness. This study was conducted to evaluate how well the new court was able to dispense justice locally and whether the establishment of the Midtown Community Court made a difference in misdemeanor case processing. Data were collected at two time periods for a comparative analysis. First, a baseline dataset (Part 1, Baseline Data) was constructed from administrative records, consisting of a ten-percent random sample of all nonfelony arraignments in Manhattan during the 12 months prior to the opening of the Midtown Community Court. Second, comparable administrative data (Part 2, Comparison Data) were collected from all cases arraigned at the Midtown Court during its first 12 months of operation, as well as from a random sample of all downtown nonfelony arraignments held during this same time period. Both files contain variables on precinct of arrest, arraignment type, charges, bonds, dispositions, sentences, total number of court appearances, and total number of warrants issued, as well as prior felony and misdemeanor convictions. Demographic variables include age, sex, and race of offender.
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Funding View help for Funding
Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
Distributor(s) View help for Distributor(s)
Time Period(s) View help for Time Period(s)
Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection
Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
In October 1993, the Midtown Community Court opened as a three-year demonstration project designed to forge links with the community in developing a problem-solving approach to quality-of-life offenses. The decision to establish the Midtown Community Court grew out of a belief that the traditional court response to low-level offenses was neither constructive nor meaningful to victims, defendants, or the community. The problems that this community-based courthouse sought to address were specific to the court's midtown New York City location: high concentration of quality-of-life crimes, broad community dissatisfaction with court outcomes, visible signs of disorder, and clusters of persistent high-rate offenders with serious problems, including addiction and homelessness. This study was conducted to evaluate how well the new court was able to dispense justice locally and whether the establishment of the Midtown Community Court made a difference in misdemeanor case processing.
Study Design View help for Study Design
This study was designed to compare case processing and case outcomes between the Midtown Community Court and the downtown court in light of six key decision points: (1) whether defendants given a Desk Appearance Ticket showed up as scheduled, (2) whether the case was disposed at arraignment or continued, (3) whether disposition was through dismissal, adjournment in contemplation of dismissal, or conviction, (4) whether the sentence involved an alternative sanction, traditional sentence, or no sanction, (5) whether jail sentences were imposed, and (6) whether sentenced offenders complied with alternative sanctions. Data were collected at two time periods for a comparative analysis. First, a baseline dataset (Part 1, Baseline Data) was constructed from administrative records, consisting of a ten-percent random sample of all nonfelony arraignments in Manhattan during the 12 months prior to the opening of the Midtown Community Court. Second, comparable administrative data (Part 2, Comparison Data) were collected from all cases arraigned at the Midtown Court during its first 12 months of operation, as well as from a random sample of all downtown nonfelony arraignments held during this same time period.
Sample View help for Sample
Random sampling.
Universe View help for Universe
All nonfelony arraignments in Manhattan from October 1992 to September 1994.
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
Data Source View help for Data Source
The Criminal Justice Agency, New York City and the Department of Criminal Justice Service
Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)
Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables
Both files contain variables on precinct of arrest, arraignment type, charges, bonds, dispositions, sentences, total number of court appearances, and total number of warrants issued, as well as prior felony and misdemeanor convictions. Demographic variables include age, sex, and race of offender.
Response Rates View help for Response Rates
Not applicable.
Presence of Common Scales View help for Presence of Common Scales
None.
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2000-04-18
Version History View help for Version History
- Rottman, David, Brian Ostrom, Michele Sviridoff, and Richard Curtis. Evaluation of the Midtown Community Court in New York City, 1992-1994. ICPSR02311-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2000. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02311.v1
2006-03-30 File CB2311.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.
2000-04-18 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.