Showing 1 – 3 of 3 results.
Curated
National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART), 1988 (ICPSR 9682)
Released/updated on: 1996-11-21
Geographic coverage: United States
This collection was undertaken in response to the mandate of the 1984 Missing Children Act. The objective of the act was to estimate the incidence of five categories of children: children abducted by family members, children abducted by nonfamily members, runaways, thrownaways (those not wanted by their families or taken from families because of abuse or neglect), and children considered missing. Data were collected by several different methods. The centerpiece of this collection is a household survey (Parts 19, 20, and 35) that interviewed families to determine whether any children fit the categories under study. Basic demographic information on age, race, and sex was collected, and questions on the family situation were asked of identified children and their parents and siblings. A survey of juvenile facilities (Parts 28 and 29) was also conducted to determine how many children had run away from these facilities. Facility administrators were prompted for demographic information on the runaways as well as for information on the structure of the runaways' families. In addition, a survey of returned runaways (children who had run away and returned home) (Part 30) was completed to find out whether children's accounts of runaway episodes matched the accounts given by their parents. Children were queried about their relationships with their parents and their views of their contributions to the family. They were also asked about each specific runaway episode: whether they actually ran away or were asked to leave, how long the episode lasted, whether friends knew about it, whether friends accompanied them, whether they used drugs before, during, or after the episode, how they were found, where they were found, and whether disciplinary action was taken. The police records component (Parts 31-33) contains information on homicides, abductions, and sexual assaults.
Curated
Restricted
Response to Domestic Violence in the Quincy, Massachusetts, District Court, 1995-1997 (ICPSR 3076)
Released/updated on: 2001-08-06
Geographic coverage: United States, Quincy, Massachusetts
Time period: 1995-01-01--1997-01-01
The Quincy, Massachusetts, District Court initiated an aggressive, pro-intervention strategy for dealing with domestic violence cases in 1986. This study was funded to examine the workings of this court and its impact on the lives of victims. The four main goals of the research were: (1) to describe the workings of the primary components of this model jurisdiction in its response to domestic violence, specifically (a) what the police actually did when called to a domestic violence incident, (b) decisions made by the prosecutor's office and the court in their handling of these incidents, (c) how many victims talked to a victim advocate, and (d) how many offenders received batterer treatment and/or were incarcerated, (2) to describe the types of incidents, victims, and offenders seen in a full enforcement jurisdiction to determine if the types of cases coming to attention in such a setting looked similar to cases reported in studies from other jurisdictions, (3) to interview victims to hear directly about their experiences with a model court, and (4) to examine how well this model jurisdiction worked in preventing revictimization. Data used in this study were based on domestic violence cases that resulted in an arrest and arraignment before the Quincy District Court (QDC) during a seven-month study period. Six types of data were collected for this study: (1) The offender's criminal history prior to the study and for one year subsequent to the study incident were provided by the QDC's Department of Probation from the Massachusetts Criminal Records System Board. (2) Civil restraining order data were provided by the Department of Probation from a statewide registry of civil restraining orders. (3) Data on prosecutorial charges for up to three domestic violence-related charges were provided by the Department of Probation. (4) Data on defendants who attended batterer treatment programs were provided by directors of two such programs that served the QDC. (5) Police incident reports from the seven departments served by the QDC were used to measure the officer's perspective and actions taken relating to each incident, what the call for service involved, characteristics of the incident, socio-demographics of the participants, their narrative descriptions of the incident, and their stated response. (6) Interviews with victims were conducted one year after the occurrence of the study incident. Variables from administrative records include date and location of incident, number of suspects, age and race of victims and offenders, use of weapons, injuries, witnesses, whether there was an existing restraining order and its characteristics, charges filed by police, number and gender of police officers responding to the incident, victim's state at the time of the incident, offender's criminal history, and whether the offender participated in batterer treatment. The victim survey collected data on the victim's education and employment status, current living arrangement, relationship with offender, how the victim responded to the incident, how afraid the victim was, victim's opinions of police and the prosecutor, victim's sense of control, satisfaction with the court, victim's past violent relationships and child sexual abuse, victim's opinions on what the criminal justice system could do to stop abuse, and whether the victim obtained a restraining order.
Curated
Restricted
Revictimization and Victim Satisfaction in Domestic Violence Cases Processed in the Quincy, Massachusetts, District Court, 1995-1997 (ICPSR 3790)
Released/updated on: 2003-10-30
Geographic coverage: United States, Massachusetts
Time period: 1995-01-01--1997-01-01
This study sought to examine (1) the occurrence of revictimization, (2) the impact of case processing in Quincy District Court (QDC) on the disclosure of revictimization, and (3) victim satisfaction with various components of the criminal justice system. This study was undertaken as part of a secondary analysis of data originally collected for a National Institute of Justice (NIJ) sponsored evaluation of a "model" domestic violence program located in Quincy, Massachusetts (RESPONSE TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN THE QUINCY, MASSACHUSETTS, DISTRICT COURT, 1995-1997 [ICPSR 3076]). Administrative records data were collected from the Quincy District Court's Department of Probation, two batterer treatment programs servicing offenders, and police incident reports, as well as survey data administered to victims. Included are criminal history data, records of civil restraining orders, probation department data on prosecutorial charges, case disposition and risk assessment information, data on offender treatment program participation, police incident reports, and self-report victim survey data. These data were collected with three primary goals: (1) to obtain the victim's point of view about what she wanted from the criminal justice system, and how the criminal justice system responded to the domestic violence incident in which she was involved, (2) to get details about the study incidents and the context of the victim-offender relationship that are not typically available in official statistics, and (3) to hear directly from victims about the defendant's reoffending behavior.