AndreaBozzo/ceres-open-data-index huggingface dataset:
Felonious Homicides of American Police Officers, 1977-1992

The study was a comprehensive analysis of felonious
 killings of officers. The purposes of the study were (1) to analyze
 the nature and circumstances of incidents of felonious police killings
 and (2) to analyze trends in the numbers and rates of killings across
 different types of agencies and to explain these differences. For Part
 1, Incident-Level Data, an incident-level database was created to
 capture all incidents involving the death of a police officer from
 1983 through 1992. Data on officers and incidents were collected from
 the Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) data
 collection as coded by the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. In
 addition to the UCR data, the Police Foundation also coded information
 from the LEOKA narratives that are not part of the computerized LEOKA
 database from the FBI. For Part 2, Agency-Level Data, the researchers
 created an agency-level database to research systematic differences
 among rates at which law enforcement officers had been feloniously
 killed from 1977 through 1992. The investigators focused on the 56
 largest law enforcement agencies because of the availability of data
 for explanatory variables. Variables in Part 1 include year of
 killing, involvement of other officers, if the officer was killed with
 his/her own weapon, circumstances of the killing, location of fatal
 wounds, distance between officer and offender, if the victim was
 wearing body armor, if different officers were killed in the same
 incident, if the officer was in uniform, actions of the killer and of
 the officer at entry and final stage, if the killer was visible at
 first, if the officer thought the killer was a felon suspect, if the
 officer was shot at entry, and circumstances at anticipation, entry,
 and final stages. Demographic variables for Part 1 include victim's
 sex, age, race, type of assignment, rank, years of experience, agency,
 population group, and if the officer was working a security job. Part
 2 contains variables describing the general municipal environment,
 such as whether the agency is located in the South, level of poverty
 according to a poverty index, population density, percent of
 population that was Hispanic or Black, and population aged 15-34 years
 old. Variables capturing the crime environment include the violent
 crime rate, property crime rate, and a gun-related crime
 index. Lastly, variables on the environment of the police agencies
 include violent and property crime arrests per 1,000 sworn officers,
 percentage of officers injured in assaults, and number of sworn
officers.

Tags: crime-rates, felony-offenses, homicide, law-enforcement-agencies, police-deaths, police-officers, police-safety
Organization: Department of Justice
Police Response Time Analysis, 1975

This is a study of the relationship between the amount of
 time taken by police to respond to calls for service and the outcomes
 of criminal and noncriminal incidents in Kansas City, Missouri.
 Outcomes were evaluated in terms of police effectiveness and citizen
 satisfaction. Response time data were generated by timing telephone
 and radio exchanges on police dispatch tapes. Police travel time was
 measured and recorded by highly trained civilian observers. To assess
 satisfaction with police service, personal and telephone interviews
 were conducted with victims and witnesses who had made the calls to
the police.

Tags: citizen-attitudes, citizen-crime-reporting, citizen-participation, crime-control, crime-statistics, demographic-characteristics, kansas-city-missouri, law-enforcement, missouri, offenses, po, police-community-relations, police-departments, united-states
Organization: Department of Justice
Homicides in New York City, 1797-1999 [And Various Historical Comparison Sites]

There has been little research on United States homicide
rates from a long-term perspective, primarily because there has been
no consistent data series on a particular place preceding the Uniform
Crime Reports (UCR), which began its first full year in 1931. To fill
this research gap, this project created a data series on homicides per
capita for New York City that spans two centuries. The goal was to
create a site-specific, individual-based data series that could be
used to examine major social shifts related to homicide, such as mass
immigration, urban growth, war, demographic changes, and changes in
laws. Data were also gathered on various other sites, particularly in
England, to allow for comparisons on important issues, such as the
post-World War II wave of violence. The basic approach to the data
collection was to obtain the best possible estimate of annual counts
and the most complete information on individual homicides. The annual
count data (Parts 1 and 3) were derived from multiple sources,
including the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports
and Supplementary Homicide Reports, as well as other official counts
from the New York City Police Department and the City Inspector in the
early 19th century. The data include a combined count of murder and
manslaughter because charge bargaining often blurs this legal
distinction. The individual-level data (Part 2) were drawn from
coroners' indictments held by the New York City Municipal Archives,
and from daily newspapers. Duplication was avoided by keeping a record
for each victim. The estimation technique known as "capture-recapture"
was used to estimate homicides not listed in either source. Part 1
variables include counts of New York City homicides, arrests, and
convictions, as well as the homicide rate, race or ethnicity and
gender of victims, type of weapon used, and source of data. Part 2
includes the date of the murder, the age, sex, and race of the
offender and victim, and whether the case led to an arrest, trial,
conviction, execution, or pardon. Part 3 contains annual homicide
counts and rates for various comparison sites including Liverpool,
London, Kent, Canada, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Seattle, and San
Francisco.

Tags: crime-statistics, death-records, historical-data, homicide, manslaughter, murder, nineteenth-century, social-change, twentieth-century
Organization: Department of Justice
Benefits and Limitations of Civil Protection Orders for Victims of Domestic Violence in Wilmington, Delaware, Denver, Colorado, and the District of Columbia, 1994-1995

This study was designed to explore whether civil protection
 orders were effective in providing safer environments for victims of
 domestic violence and enhancing their opportunities for escaping
 violent relationships. The researchers looked at the factors that
 might influence civil protection orders, such as accessibility to the
 court process, linkages to public and private services and sources of
 support, and the criminal record of the victim's abuser, and then
 examined how courts in three jurisdictions processed civil protection
 orders. Wilmington, Delaware, Denver, Colorado, and the District of
 Columbia were chosen as sites because of structural differences among
 them that were believed to be linked to the effectiveness of civil
 protection orders. Since these jurisdictions each had different court
 processes and service models, the researchers expected that these
 models would produce various results and that these variations might
 hold implications for improving practices in other jurisdictions. Data
 were collected through initial and follow-up interviews with women who
 had filed civil protection orders. The effectiveness of the civil
 protection orders was measured by the amount of improvement in the
 quality of the women's lives after the order was in place, versus the
 extent of problems created by the protection orders. Variables from
 the survey of women include police involvement at the incident leading
 to the protection order, the relationship of the petitioner and
 respondent to the petition prior to the order, history of abuse, the
 provisions asked for and granted in the order, if a permanent order
 was not filed for by the petitioner, the reasons why, the court
 experience, protective measures the petitioner undertook after the
 order, and how the petitioner's life changed after the order. Case
 file data were gathered on when the order was filed and issued,
 contempt motions and hearings, stipulations of the order, and social
 service referrals. Data on the arrest and conviction history of the
petition respondent were also collected.

Tags: battered-women, domestic-violence, process-evaluation, restraining-orders, victim-safety, victim-services, victims
Organization: Department of Justice
Measuring Perceptions of Appropriate Prison Sentences in the United States, 2000

This study examined the public's preferences regarding
 sentencing and parole of criminal offenders. It also investigated the
 public's willingness to pay for particular crime prevention and
 control strategies and tested new methods for gathering this kind of
 information from the public. This involved asking the public to
 respond to a series of crime vignettes that involved constrained
 choice. The study consisted of a telephone survey of 1,300 adult
 respondents conducted in 2000 in the United States. Following a review
 by a panel of experts and extensive pretesting, the final instrument
 was programmed for computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI). The
 questionnaire specifically focused on: (1) the attitudes of the public
 on issues such as the number of police on the street, civil rights of
 minority groups, and the legal rights of people accused of serious
 crimes, (2) the randomized evaluation of preferred sentencing
 alternatives for eight different crime scenarios, (3) making parole
 decisions in a constrained choice setting by assuming that there is
 only enough space for one of two offenders, (4) the underlying factors
 that motivate the public's parole decisions, and (5) respondents'
willingness to pay for various crime prevention strategies.

Tags: crime-reduction, parole, public-opinion, sentencing
Organization: Department of Justice
Determinants of Case Growth in Federal District Courts in the United States, 1904-2002

This study analyzed the determinants of the explosion in
the caseload of the United States federal district courts that
commenced in 1960. First, the study sought to provide forecasts of
future demands on the federal courts while reducing forecasting errors
by taking account of the time series properties of the case data. The
researchers constructed a comprehensive dataset based on annual
aggregated civil and criminal case volumes of individual federal
district courts spanning the period 1904-1998, for a total of 95
yearly observations. Secondly, the study specified and estimated
multivariate econometric models of the determinants of civil case
filings over time and across geographic space using panel data
techniques. These empirical models were run on three alternative
datasets consisting of observations on statewide, districtwide, and
circuitwide United States civil, private civil, and total civil cases
per capita, over the period 1960 to 1998. The empirical models
included standard socioeconomic variables, such as income, population
density, and race, along with variables that controlled for fixed
effects associated with the courts' geographic location. The study
also addressed the pressing issue of allocating judgeships across
circuits and districts. Variables include total civil and criminal
cases, percentage of minority population, unemployment rate,
percentage of drug and immigration cases, annual unweighted and
weighted total case filings per judge, and annual civil and criminal
case filings per judge.

Tags: caseloads, civil-courts, criminal-courts, district-courts, federal-courts, forecasting-models
Organization: Department of Justice
Evaluation of Hung Juries in Bronx County, New York, Los Angeles County, California, Maricopa County, Arizona, and Washington, DC, 2000-2001

This study was undertaken for the purpose of providing an
 empirical picture of hung juries. Researchers were able to secure the
 cooperation of four courts: (1) Bronx County Supreme Court in New
 York, (2) Los Angeles County Superior Court in California, (3)
 Maricopa County Superior Court in Arizona, and (4) District of
 Columbia Superior Court in Washington, DC. The four sites were
 responsible for distributing and collecting questionnaire packets to
 all courtrooms hearing non-capital felony jury cases. Each packet
 contained a case data form requesting information about case
 characteristics (Part 1) and outcomes (Part 2), as well as survey
 questionnaires for the judges (Part 3), attorneys (Part 4), and jurors
 (Part 5). The case data form requested type of charge, sentence range,
 jury's decision, demographic information about the defendant(s) and
 the victim(s), voir dire (jury selection process), trial evidence and
 procedures, and jury deliberations. The judge questionnaire probed
 for evaluation of the evidence, case complexity, attorney skill,
 likelihood that the jury would hang, reaction to the verdict, opinions
 regarding the hung jury rate in the jurisdiction, and experience on
 the bench. The attorney questionnaire requested information assessing
 the voir dire, case complexity, attorney skill, evaluation of the
 evidence, reaction to the verdict, opinions regarding the hung jury
 rate in the jurisdiction, and experience in legal practice. If the
 jury hung, attorneys also provided their views about why the jury was
 unable to reach a verdict. Finally, the juror questionnaire requested
 responses regarding case complexity, attorney skill, evaluation of the
 evidence, formation of opinions, dynamics of the deliberations
 including the first and final votes, juror participation, conflict,
 reaction to the verdict, opinions about applicable law, assessment of
criminal justice in the community, and demographic information.

Tags: courts, felony-offenses, hung-juries, jury-deliberations, jury-instructions, jury-selection, mistrials, verdicts
Organization: Department of Justice
National Evaluation of the Rural Domestic Violence and Child Victimization Enforcement Grant Program, 1998-2002


The National Evaluation of the Rural Domestic Violence and Child Victimization Enforcement Grant Program (National Rural Evaluation) was a quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the Rural Domestic Violence and Child Victimization Enforcement Grant Program (Rural Program). The program provided funding to states, local and tribal governments, and private or public entities in rural states to create or enhance collaborations among criminal justice agencies, service providers, and community organizations to enhance services and the response to victims of domestic violence.


The National Rural Evaluation consisted of two phases: a process evaluation and an outcome evaluation. The process evaluation (Phase 1: Parts 1-8) was conducted prior to the outcome evaluation to describe the 89 grantees funded in fiscal years 1996 to 1998 and the context and nature of grant activity. The outcome evaluation (Phase 2: Parts 9-35) conducted an in-depth quantitative and qualitative analysis of the Rural program by identifying and assessing outcomes for nine grantees.


In total, this study contains 35 data files.  Users should review the Collection Notes to see a breakdown of the number of cases and variables in each data file.


Tags: crime-rates, crime-statistics, disposition-legal, domestic-violence, offenses, violence, violence-against-women
Organization: Department of Justice
Evaluation of Special Session Domestic Violence Court Processing in Connecticut, 1999-2000

This study documented women's experience of enhanced
 services and advocacy in the context of the three special session
 domestic violence courts in Connecticut. The study conducted 60
 in-depth interviews with women whose current or former partners were
 arrested for domestic violence and who appeared in one of the three
 special session courts. The questions were designed to elicit
 information from women about the meaning and context of intimate
 violence in their lives generally, their assessments of the risks and
 options available to them and their children from family, friends, and
 other institutions, their strategies for maximizing safety for
 themselves and their children, the meaning of the arrest incident in
 their overall experience of their relationship with their abusive
 partner, and the impact of the court experience on their plans, sense
of options, and understanding of the abuse they had experienced.

Tags: advocacy, courts, domestic-violence, intervention, prosecution, treatment, victim-services, victims
Organization: Department of Justice
Consequences of a Criminal Record for Employment Opportunity in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2002

This study examined employers' policies and practices for
 hiring entry-level workers in the Milwaukee metropolitan area. The
 study consisted of telephone interviews conducted in the spring of
 2002 with 177 employers who had advertised entry-level openings in the
 prior six months. The survey included questions about the company,
 such as size, industry, employee turnover, and racial composition,
 questions about hiring procedures, questions about the last worker
 hired for a position not requiring a college degree, and questions
 about the employer's attitude toward various kinds of marginalized
 workers. An emphasis in the survey was placed on assessing employers'
 attitudes about and experience with applicants with criminal
histories.

Tags: african-americans, criminal-histories, drug-related-crimes, employment-discrimination, ex-offender-employment, hiring-practices, imprisonment, racial-discrimination, white-americans
Organization: Department of Justice
Gangs in Rural America, 1996-1998

This study was undertaken to enable cross-community
 analysis of gang trends in all areas of the United States. It was also
 designed to provide a comparative analysis of social, economic, and
 demographic differences among non-metropolitan jurisdictions in which
 gangs were reported to have been persistent problems, those in which
 gangs had been more transitory, and those that reported no gang
 problems. Data were collected from four separate sources and then
 merged into a single dataset using the county Federal Information
 Processing Standards (FIPS) code as the attribute of common
 identification. The data sources included: (1) local police agency
 responses to three waves (1996, 1997, and 1998) of the National Youth
 Gang Survey (NYGS), (2) rural-urban classification and county-level
 measures of primary economic activity from the Economic Research
 Service (ERS) of the United States Department of Agriculture, (3)
 county-level economic and demographic data from the County and City
 Data Book, 1994, and from USA Counties, 1998, produced by the United
 States Department of Commerce, and (4) county-level data on access to
 interstate highways provided by Tom Ricketts and Randy Randolph of the
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Variables include the
 FIPS codes for state, county, county subdivision, and sub-county,
 population in the agency jurisdiction, type of jurisdiction, and
 whether the county was dependent on farming, mining, manufacturing, or
 government. Other variables categorizing counties include retirement
 destination, federal lands, commuting, persistent poverty, and
 transfer payments. The year gang problems began in that jurisdiction,
 number of youth groups, number of active gangs, number of active gang
 members, percent of gang members who migrated, and the number of gangs
 in 1996, 1997, and 1998 are also available. Rounding out the variables
 are unemployment rates, median household income, percent of persons in
 county below poverty level, percent of family households that were
 one-parent households, percent of housing units in the county that
 were vacant, had no telephone, or were renter-occupied, resident
 population of the county in 1990 and 1997, change in unemployment
 rates, land area of county, percent of persons in the county speaking
 Spanish at home, and whether an interstate highway intersected the
county.

Tags: demographic-characteristics, economic-indicators, gang-members, gangs, police-response, rural-areas, rural-crime, social-indicators
Organization: Department of Justice
Outcome Evaluation of the Iowa State Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) Program, 1997-2001

The Other Way (TOW) program is an intensive residential
substance abuse treatment program housed at the Clarinda Correctional
Facility in Clarinda, Iowa. TOW is a voluntary, six-month program that
works with inmates to identify the causes of their addictive behaviors
and encourage changes in unacceptable behaviors and criminal
thinking. The Iowa Consortium for Substance Abuse Research and
Evaluation conducted an evaluation of TOW from October 1997 through
March 2001. The Iowa Consortium worked extensively with the Clarinda
TWO treatment staff to identify valid and reliable instruments that
measured substance use and abuse, mental health and personality
characteristics, criminal behavior and attitudes, social support, and
involvement in education, employment, and therapeutic
activities. These instruments were used to collect data at intake and
discharge. Additionally, the researchers conducted a six-month
follow-up of inmates to determine their post-program experiences as
well as recidivism. Part 1 (Clinical and Recidivism Data) consists of
selected variables gathered during the clinical interviews
administered to program participants at intake and discharge, as well
as recidivism data from the Department of Corrections. Part 2
(Follow-Up Data) consists of variables from the Addiction Severity
Index, which were collected during the six-month follow-up telephone
interview.

Tags: addiction, adjustment, aftercare, crime, inmate-programs, inmates, outcome-evaluation, recidivism, rehabilitation, residential-programs, substance-abuse-treatment
Organization: Department of Justice