AndreaBozzo/ceres-open-data-index huggingface dataset:
Pennsylvania Sentencing Data, 1998

The Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing is a legislative
 agency of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that develops sentencing
 guidelines for judges to use when sentencing felony and misdemeanor
 offenses. The judges then report sentences to the Commission on a
 Guideline Sentence Form. This data collection reflects all felonies
 and misdemeanors reported to the Commission that were sentenced during
 calendar year 1998. The data are contained in four files reflecting
 three sets of sentencing guidelines. The 1991 sentencing guidelines
 pertain to all offenses committed on or after August 9, 1991, up until
 the time that the 1994 guidelines became effective. The 1994
 sentencing guidelines became effective for all offenses committed on
 or after August 12, 1994. The 1997 sentencing guidelines became
 effective for all offenses committed on or after June 13, 1997. In
 this data collection, the variable "GLEPOCH" denotes which set of
 guidelines pertained to the offense. Because the 1997 guidelines
 differ significantly from the 1991 and 1994 guidelines, sentences
 under the 1997 guidelines are reported in separate datasets. Parts 1
 and 2, Records Data, provide information on each offender, including
 rudimentary demographic characteristics and prior offense
 history. Parts 3 and 4, Offense Data, contain information on each
 offense, including the statutory citation for the offense, the Offense
 Gravity Score assigned by the Commission, the offender's Prior Record
 Score, and the sentence given the offender. Parts 1 and 3 contain data
 from cases sentenced under the 1991 and 1994 guidelines, while Parts 2
and 4 contain data from cases sentenced under the 1997 guidelines.

Tags: criminal-histories, demographic-characteristics, felony-offenses, misdemeanor-offenses, sentencing-guidelines
Organization: Department of Justice
Outcome Evaluation of the Forever Free Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) Program at the California Institution for Women, 1997-2000

This study was an outcome evaluation of the Forever Free
 Substance Abuse Treatment Program at the California Institution for
 Women (CIW). Data were collected from 119 women who entered Forever
 Free between October 1997 and June 1998. Comparison data were
 collected from 96 women enrolled in Life Plan for Recovery, an
 eight-week substance abuse education course at CIW, between April and
 November 1998. Program participants completed an intake questionnaire,
 approximately one month after the beginning of treatment, designed to
 collect information on background, therapeutic alliance with
 counselors, group identification with fellow participants, treatment
 motivation, and psychological status. Members of the comparison group
 completed an intake form that collected background information.
 Treatment participants completed a pre-release form before leaving the
 program, which collected information on clients' therapeutic alliance
 with their counselors, psychological status, drug-related locus of
 control, and post-release treatment plans. Women in both groups
 participated in 12-month follow-up interviews between September 1999
 and August 2000, which were used to update background information and
 collect information on subjects' relationships with their children,
 drug use since release, substance abuse treatment since release,
 vocational training since release, services needed and received,
 social support, current treatment motivation, psychological status,
 and drug-related locus of control. Reincarceration data for the entire
 sample were obtained from the Offender-Based Information System, a
database maintained by the California Department of Corrections.

Tags: female-inmates, outcome-evaluation, substance-abuse-treatment, treatment-compliance, treatment-programs
Organization: Department of Justice
Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN): Census Tract Crosswalk, 1994-2002

The Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) is a large-scale, interdisciplinary study of how families, schools, and neighborhoods affect child and adolescent development. The crosswalk file contains census tract to neighborhood cluster level data, enabling researchers to merge and aggregate additional crime and census data with the PHDCN data. Access to these data is restricted. Users must provide justification for their request to access the crosswalk file, as well as a description of any datasets they plan to link to the PHDCN data.

Tags: census-tract, neighborhood-cluster
Organization: Department of Justice
International and Domestic Trends in Sex Trafficking of Women in the United States, 1999-2000

This study by the Coalition Against Trafficking Women was
 the first to research both contemporary international and domestic
 trafficking of women for sexual exploitation in the United States and
 to include primary research information from interviews with
 trafficked and prostituted women in the sex industry. Telephone and
 personal interviews were conducted with people who had experience with
 or knowledge of sex trafficking in the United States. This data
 collection consists of the verbatim questions and responses from the
 following groups of individuals who were interviewed: (1)
 international and United States women who had been or were in the sex
 industry in the United States, (2) law enforcement officials who had
 experience and expertise in sex-industry related cases or immigration,
 (3) social service workers who provided services to women in
 prostitution or might have come into contact with women from the sex
 industry and those providing services to immigrant populations, and
 (4) health care workers who provided services to women in prostitution
 or who may have come into contact with women in the sex industry. The
 research framework was developed to follow the path of trafficked
 women from their hometown, through their experiences in the sex
 industry, to their present place in life. Information was collected
 on trafficked women's backgrounds, roles and activities while in the
 sex industry, how they were controlled, and how they coped with their
 situations. Respondents were also asked about experiences with
 recruiters, traffickers, pimps, and customers. Additional information
 was gathered on the respondents' views on policies regarding
 trafficking and prostitution, the organization of the sex industry,
 and health and legal aspects of the business. Questionnaires for each
 group of interviewees were constructed according to the topics about
which each group would most likely have knowledge or experience.

Tags: prostitution, sex-offenses, sex-trafficking, sexual-exploitation, women
Organization: Department of Justice
Evaluation of a Truancy Reduction Program in Nashville, Tennessee, 1998-2000

The Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency in Nashville, 
 Tennessee, received a National Institute of Justice grant to study the 
 effectiveness of Nashville's Juvenile Court Truancy Reduction Program (TRP). 
 The goals of the TRP were to increase attendance and to get children 
 safely to and from school. While habitual truancy, also referred to 
 as chronic absenteeism, was legally defined under the Juvenile Offender Act 
 of the State of Tennessee as five or more aggregate, unexcused absences in 
 the course of a school year, the TRP operationally defined students at risk 
 of truancy as those who had three unexcused absences in a school year. The 
 intent of TRP was to intervene before the student was adjudicated habitually 
 truant, so once a student had a third unexcused absence, the child was placed 
 on the TRP caseload. TRP staff would then intervene with a variety of 
 services, including home visits, community advisory boards, a suspension 
 school, and a summer program. The evaluation study was designed to test the following 
 hypotheses: (1) students who participated in TRP would increase their 
 attendance rates, and (2) students who participated in TRP and other community 
 services that were part of the Public Housing Drug Elimination Program 
 network would increase their attendance rates at higher rates than students 
 who participated in TRP alone. The targeted population for this study 
 consisted of child and youth residents from five of the six public housing communities 
 that participated in TRP. These communities also represented the public 
 housing communities with the highest crime rates in Nashville, and  included five of the eight 
 total family public housing developments there. All kindergarten through 8th-grade 
 students from the targeted communities who began participating in 
 TRP during the 1998-1999 or 1999-2000 school years were included in 
 the study. The TRP served over 400 kindergarten through 8th-grade students during the two school years included in this study.
 Students who had all of the required data elements were 
 included in the analyses. Required data elements included TRP entry 
 date and school entry and exit dates. Students also had to have begun 
 TRP during the study period. Variables include students' grade, gender, 
 race, age, school enrollment date, TRP program entry date, bus eligibility, 
 other program participation, attendance records for every school day during 
 the two years of the study, and aggregated counts of attendance and 
truant behavior.

Tags: community-involvement, intervention, intervention-strategies, juveniles, public-housing, school-attendance, students, truancy, youths-at-risk
Organization: Department of Justice
Evaluation of Violence Against Women With Physical Disabilities in Michigan, 2000-2001

In the past few years it has become alarmingly clear that
 women with disabilities are at an extremely high risk for emotional,
 sexual, and physical assault. The Developmental Disabilities Institute
 at Wayne State University, in collaboration with the United Cerebral
 Palsy Association in Michigan, conducted a one-year study to
 investigate the prevalence and correlates of, and service system
 capacity related to, domestic abuse among women with physical
 disabilities in Michigan. The study aimed to address the following
 research questions: (1) What is the prevalence of domestic violence
 among a sample of women with physical disabilities? (2) What potential
 factors for domestic violence exist among women with physical
 disabilities? and (3) What is the capacity of existing support
 programs (e.g., safe houses, shelters, and service agencies) to assist
 women with physical disabilities? The population for this study was
 women over the age of 18 who had physical disabilities. Consistent
 with the work of other researchers, physical disabilities in this
 study were defined as those disabilities that result in functional
 impairment, such as cerebral palsy, post-polio syndrome, spina bifida,
 amputation, rheumatic conditions, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord
 injury, traumatic brain injury, visual impairment, hearing impairment,
 and stroke. A sample of 177 women was recruited through several
 mechanisms. To address the question of domestic abuse prevalence, the
 women participating in the study were first asked to complete a brief
 questionnaire addressing demographic characteristics and their
 experience with domestic violence (Part 1, Screening Interview
 Data). Fifty-six percent (100) of the 177 women interviewed indicated
 a positive history of abuse at their initial screening. In order to
 address the second research question about the correlates of abuse,
 this subsample of 100 women was invited and encouraged to participate
 in the second phase of the research, which involved a more extensive
 interview (Part 2, Abuse Interview Data). The interview used was based
 on a protocol developed by Nosek (1995) that addressed demographic
 characteristics, social networks, and abuse history. Variables in
 Parts 1 and 2 include type of disability, type of personal assistance
 needed, and whether the respondent was ever physically, emotionally,
 or sexually abused. Part 2 also contains variables on sources of monthly
 income, who perpetrated the abuse, the abuser's gender, how long the
 victim knew the abuser, whether the victim sought assistance from a
 domestic violence program or shelter, and a description of the worst
 incident of physical abuse. Demographic variables in Parts 1 and 2
include ethnicity, age, employment status, and marital status.

Tags: abuse, assault, battered-women, disabled-persons, domestic-violence, emotional-abuse, physical-disabilities, sexual-abuse, violence, women, womens-shelters
Organization: Department of Justice
Police Stress and Domestic Violence in Police Families in Baltimore, Maryland, 1997-1999

This study was designed to address deficiencies in the
 existing literature on police work stress and especially on police
 stress-related domestic violence. The study sought to answer the
 following questions: (1) What is the relationship between police
 stress and domestic violence in police families? (2) What is the
 extent of domestic violence in police families? (3) What are the
 current stressors that contribute to police stress? (4) What are some
 of the tools available to measure or evaluate domestic violence in
 police families? (5) Can potentially effective interventions be
 identified to address the risk factors for stress-related domestic
 violence in police families? The study was a collaboration among the
 Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police, the Baltimore Police
 Department, and a research team from the Johns Hopkins School of
 Public Health. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to
 approximately 1,100 law enforcement officers who volunteered to
 participate in the study. Major variables focus on stressors,
 workplace/stress environment, coworker environment, unfair treatment,
 work satisfaction, administrative support, health problems, behavior
 problems, and psychological problems. Demographic variables include
 gender, age, ethnicity, education, current rank, military service,
marital status, and if spouse/partner was a police officer.

Tags: domestic-violence, family-violence, intervention, job-stress, police-officers, work-environment
Organization: Department of Justice
State Firearm Law Database: State Firearm Laws, 1991-2019

The State Firearm Database catalogs the presence or absence of 134 firearm safety laws in 14 categories covering the 26-year period from 1991 to 2019. The classification system categorizes state firearm provisions using a methodology that both captures differences and maintains a level of comparability between states. Because of this, the database is not the most detailed nor the most comprehensive record of all state firearm policies. Other resources may provide users with a deeper understanding of individual provisions, while this database serves as an efficient way to compare the broad scope of state firearm laws across the country. These provisions covered 14 aspects of state policies, including regulation of the process by which firearm transfers take place, ammunition, firearm possession, firearm storage, firearm trafficking, and liability of firearm manufacturers. In addition, descriptions of the criteria used to code each provision have been provided so that there is transparency in how various law exemptions, exceptions, and other nuances were addressed.

Tags: firearms, gun-control, gun-control-legislation, gun-legislation, gun-regulation, public-policy, state-regulations
Organization: Department of Justice
Process Evaluation of the Michigan Department of Corrections Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) Program, 1999

This study was a process evaluation of the Michigan
 Department of Corrections' (MDOC) residential substance abuse treatment
 (RSAT) program at the Cooper Street Correctional Facility in Jackson,
 Michigan. The 272-bed program was designed to treat male,
 minimum-custody inmates with a history of serious chemical dependency.
 The phase of treatment at the Jackson Cooper Street facility lasted six
 months, and was followed by a 12-month aftercare component. The main
 theory of change behind the program was that education about drugs and
 their physical, familial, and social effects, coupled with opportunities
 to learn about recovery and identify triggers for substance use, would
 help substance-abusing offenders to avoid both substance abuse and
 criminal behaviors once released into the community. This study used
 multiple data sources. Part 1, Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC)
 Data, was acquired from the MDOC's Correctional Management Information
 System, which included demographic, criminal history, programming, and
 institutional misconduct information for a snapshot of the entire inmate
 population. These data provided information on all 44,061 inmates in the
 custody of MDOC on July 1, 1999. Part 2, RSAT Applications data,
 contains data for the 834 applications received by August 30, 1999.
 These data were received from University of Michigan (UM) researchers
 studying the long-term impact of the RSAT program on offender substance
 abuse and recidivism.  The data were collected using a screening form
 for each application, and were initially generated and entered into an
 electronic format by RSAT program staff. Part 3, Service Tracking Data,
contains RSAT admission and parole data, which were manually collected.

Tags: aftercare, correctional-facilities, drug-education, drug-treatment, inmate-programs, process-evaluation, residential-programs, substance-abuse, substance-abuse-treatment
Organization: Department of Justice
Evaluating the Effects of Fatigue on Police Patrol Officers in Lowell, Massachusetts, Polk County, Florida, Portland, Oregon, and Arlington County, Virginia, 1997-1998

This study was undertaken to assess the connections between
administratively controllable sources of fatigue among police patrol
officers and problems such as diminished performance, accidents, and
illness. The study sought to answer: (1) What is the prevalence of
officer fatigue, and what are officers' attitudes toward it? (2) What
are the causes or correlates of officer fatigue? (3) How does fatigue
affect officer safety, health, and job performance? and (4) Can
officer fatigue be measured objectively? The final sample was
comprised of all sworn, nonsupervisory police officers assigned
full-time to patrol and/or community policing functions on the day
that data collection began at each of four selected sites: Lowell,
Massachusetts, Polk County, Florida, Portland, Oregon, and Arlington
County, Virginia. Part 1, Fatigue Survey Data, includes demographic
data and officers' responses from the initial self-report
survey. Variables include the extent to which the respondent felt hot
or cold, experienced uncomfortable breathing, bad dreams, or pain
while sleeping, the time the respondent usually went to bed, number of
hours slept each night, quality of sleep, whether medicine was taken
as a sleep aid, estimated hours worked in a one-, two-, seven-, and
thirty-day period, how overtime affected income, family relationships,
and social activities, and reasons for feeling tired. Part 2,
Demographic and Fatigue Survey Data, is comprised of data obtained
from administrative records and demographic data forms. Several
measures from the initial self-report survey are also included in Part
2. Variables focus on respondents' age, sex, race, marital status,
global score on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scale, total years
as a police officer assigned to any agency and current agency, and
total years worked in current shift. Data for Part 3, FIT and
Administrative Data, were obtained from administrative records and
from the fitness-for-duty (FIT) workplace screener test. Variables
include a pupilometry index score and the dates, time, and particular
shift (days, evenings, or midnight) the officer started working when
the pupilometry test was administered. Part 3 also includes the number
of hours worked by the officer in a regular shift or in association
with overtime, the number of sick leave hours taken by the officer,
and whether the officer was involved in an on-duty accident, injured
on duty, or commended by his/her department during a particular
shift.

Tags: community-policing, demographic-characteristics, family-work-relationship, fatigue, police-officers, police-patrol, police-performance, police-safety, sleep-disorders, working-hours
Organization: Department of Justice
Turnover Among Alaska Village Public Safety Officers, 1994-1999

The study was designed to examine the high turnover rate in
 Alaska's Village Public Safety Officers (VPSO) program. The goals were
 to help guide the design of future delivery of public safety services
 to Alaska villages and to add to what was a limited understanding of
 policing in places with tiny populations. The survey instrument was
 administered to former and currently-serving VPSOs from October 1998
 to January 1999. Information was collected on the respondent's
 motivation for becoming a VPSO, length of time working as a VPSO, if
 the respondent was satisfied with the pay, retirement benefits,
 training, housing, and safety, if it was difficult for the respondent
 to enforce laws against relatives, the respondent's perception of the
 community's support and expectations, and their job-related stresses,
 role conflicts, duties, and demands. Those who had left the job were
 also asked about their post-VPSO employment. Demographic variables
 include the respondent's age, race, sex, marital status, education,
military experience, and whether the officer was an Alaska Native.

Tags: job-satisfaction, job-stress, police-officers, public-interest, public-safety, towns
Organization: Department of Justice
Experiences and Needs of Formerly Intimate Stalking Victims in Southeastern Pennsylvania, 1991-1995

This study sought to explore the nature of the stalking
 experiences of noncelebrity stalking victims who had previously been
 in intimate relationships with their stalkers. These were cases in
 which the stalkers were seeking revenge and/or reconciliation through
 stalking. Data were collected from 187 female stalking victims during
 1991-1995 living in Chester, Delaware, Bucks, Philadelphia, and
 Montgomery counties in southeastern Pennsylvania. Data collection was
 comprised of an extensive, semistructured, face-to-face interview
 conducted with each woman to gather information concerning the nature
 of the stalking, the relationship between the victim and the stalker,
 the victim's response to the stalking, the consequences of the
 stalking for the victim, the needs of stalking victims in general, and
 fulfillment of those needs in terms of victim services and interaction
 with and cooperation from the criminal justice system. A brief survey
 questionnaire was also administered to obtain demographic information
 about each victim and her stalker. Content analysis of the interview
 transcripts was used to identify variables. Each variable fell into
 one of six categories: (1) victim's prior relationship with the
 stalker, (2) characteristics of the stalking, (3) victim's attempt to
 discourage the stalker (through both legal and extralegal mechanisms),
 (4) assistance sought by the victim through formal and informal
 networks and the subsequent handling of the situation by others, (5)
 the physical and emotional effects of the stalking on the victim, and
 (6) other victimization experiences. Demographic variables include
 the age, race, education level, marital status, and employment status
of both the victim and the stalker.

Tags: criminal-justice-system, demographic-characteristics, needs-assessment, relationships, stalking, victim-services, victims, women
Organization: Department of Justice