AndreaBozzo/ceres-open-data-index huggingface dataset:
Evidence-based Enhancement of the Detection, Prevention, and Treatment of Mental Illness in the Connecticut Correction Systems, 2003

The study developed and tested the Brief Mental Health Screening Tool to enhance the identification of psychiatric disorders among adult detainees. Participants were randomly recruited within 24 to 72 hours of entering State-run jails in Connecticut. In the first phase, participants completed a 25-minute screening interview, after which 20 percent of the participants were asked to complete a longer interview 1 week later to establish a more detailed account of Axis I and Axis II psychiatric disorders and psychosocial functioning. In a second phase, the new Brief Mental Health Screening Tool was tested and validated on a new sample of participants.

Tags: correctional-facilities, inmate-populations, inmates, jail-inmates, jails, mental-disorders, mental-health, offenders, psychological-evaluation
Organization: Department of Justice
The Anatomy of Discretion: An Analysis of Prosecutorial Decision-making for Cases Processed by Offices in One Northern County and One Southern County, 2007-2010

 Prosecuting attorneys enjoy broad discretion in making decisions that influence criminal case outcomes. This study examines the impact of legal, quasi-legal, and extra-legal factors on case outcomes throughout the prosecutorial process. It then examines how prosecutors weigh these factors in their decision making and explores the formal and informal mechanisms that constrain or regulate prosecutors' decision-making.
 The study examines case screening decisions, charging decisions, plea offers, sentence recommendations, and dismissals in two moderately large county prosecutors' offices. It includes statistical analyses of actual case outcomes, responses to a standardized set of hypothetical cases, and responses to a survey of prosecutors' opinions and priorities, as well as qualitative analyses of two waves of individual interviews and focus groups. It addresses the following questions:  How did prosecutors define and apply the concepts of justice and fairness?What factors were associated with prosecutorial outcomes at each stage? How did prosecutors interpret and weigh different case-specific factors in making decisions at each stage?How did contextual factors constrain or regulate prosecutorial decision making?How consistent were prosecutors' decisions across similar cases? What case-level and contextual factors influenced the degree of consistency? 

Tags: case-dismissal, case-management, case-processing, court-cases, disposition-legal, district-attorneys, guilty-pleas, judicial-process, plea-negotiations, pretrial-procedures, prosecuting-attorneys, prosecution, trials
Organization: Department of Justice
A Process and Outcome Evaluation of the 4-H Mentoring/Youth and Families with Promise (YFP) Program [Utah, 2005-2010]

This study was an evaluation of Utah's 4-H Mentoring/Youth and Families with Promise (YFP) program, a statewide 4-H mentoring program designed for at-risk youths. Both the degree to which the YFP program was implemented and operated as planned and the long term outcome of program participation and sustainability of program effects were assessed.
The process evaluation addressed (1) characteristics of the population served (risk factors, protective factors, socio-demographic characteristics); (2) type and dosage of program activities; (3) mentor-mentee relationships; (4) satisfaction with the program; (5) involvement of youths' family members in the program; (6) characteristics of mentors (e.g., type of mentor, sex, race); and (7) issues related to the youths' length of stay.
The outcome evaluation consisted of an experimental group of at-risk youth 10-14 years old who were paired with a mentor, participated in 4-H activities, and also attended Family Night Out (FNO) activities to strengthen family bonds. A comparison group was constructed of students of the same age attending the same schools but who did not participate in the YFP program. The outcome evaluation measured whether the YFP program increased youths' interpersonal competence, improved youths' academic performance, strengthened youths' family relationships, and prevented delinquency. Outcome indicators were measured at the start of, during, and up to three years after program involvement. In addition to self-reporting pre/post tests, official school and court records were recorded. Additionally, youths' perceptions of mentor relationship quality were measured with the Youth-Mentor Relationship Questionnaire. 

Tags: program-evaluation, youthful-offenders, youths-at-risk
Organization: Department of Justice
Police Departments' Use of Lethality Assessments: An Experimental Evaluation

Police Departments' Use of Lethality Assessments: An Experimental Evaluation examined the effectiveness of the Lethality Assessment Protocol (LAP), a tool used to gauge the severity of danger to victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) and determine whether to immediately connect victims with additional resources and safety options. Specifically, the evaluation focused on the effectiveness of the LAP at decreasing the rates of repeat, lethal and near lethal violence and increasing the rates of emergency safety planning and help seeking among women who experienced IPV and called the police. Additionally, the predictive and concurrent validity of the screening portion of the LAP was evaluated, as were the implementation of the LAP by officers and IPV victims' satisfaction with the police responses they experienced.
The study consisted of two groups: (1) a comparison group, which included women who were victims of IPV and were referred to the study by a police officer; and (2) an intervention group which consisted of victims of IPV who were administered the LAP by police. Both groups were contacted for baseline and follow-up phone interview surveys that recorded the victims' self-reported demographic information (age, race, income, education marital status), information about the status of their relationships with their partners, as well as the type of abuse they had endured and how this affected their behavior.

Tags: domestic-violence, homicide, intimate-partner-violence, police-referral, risk-assessment, victimization, women
Organization: Department of Justice
Finding Victims of Human Trafficking, 2005-2008 [United States]


This study was a response to the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act passed by Congress in 2005, which called for a collection of data; a comprehensive statistical review and analysis of human trafficking data; and a biennial report to Congress on sex trafficking and unlawful commercial sex acts.  It examined the human trafficking experiences (and to a lesser extent commercial sex acts) among a random sample of 60 counties across the United States. In contrast to prior research that had examined the issue from a federal perspective, this study examined experiences with human trafficking at the local level across the United States. The specific aims of the research were to:



Identify victims and potential victims of domestic labor and sex trafficking;


Determine whether they have been identified as victims by law enforcement; and


Explore differences between sex trafficking and unlawful commercial sex.



To achieve these goals the researchers collected data through telephone interviews with local law enforcement, prosecutors, and service providers; a mail-out statistical survey completed by knowledgeable officials in those jurisdictions; and an examination of case files in four local communities. This latter effort consisted of reviewing incident and arrest reports and charging documents for a variety of offenses that might have involved criminal conduct with characteristics of human trafficking. Through this method, the researchers not only gained a sense of how local authorities handled these types of cases but also the ways in which trafficking victims "fall through the cracks" in the interfaces between local and federal judicial systems as well as among local, state, and federal law enforcement and social service systems.


Tags: human-trafficking, sex-trafficking, sexual-exploitation, victims
Organization: Department of Justice
Technology, Teen Dating Violence and Abuse, and Bullying in Three States, 2011-2012


This project examined the role of technology use in teen dating violence and abuse, and bullying. The goal of the project was to expand knowledge about the types of abuse experiences youth have, the extent of victimization and perpetration via technology and new media (e.g., social networking sites, texting on cellular phones), and how the experience of such cyber abuse within teen dating relationships or through bullying relates to other life factors.


This project carried out a multi-state study of teen dating violence and abuse, and bullying, the main component of which included a survey of youth from ten schools in five school districts in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, gathering information from 5,647 youth about their experiences. The study employed a cross-sectional, survey research design, collecting data via a paper-pencil survey. The survey targeted all youth who attended school on a single day and achieved an 84 percent response rate.


Tags: abuse, adolescents, bullying, cyber-crime, dating-social, emotional-abuse, sex-offenses, sexual-behavior, substance-abuse, technology, violence
Organization: Department of Justice
Custody Evaluators' Beliefs about Domestic Abuse Allegations, 2009-2010 [United States]

This study sought to further understanding of the beliefs of child custody evaluators and related professionals regarding allegations of domestic abuse made by parents during the divorce process.  Researchers administered a survey of beliefs, practices, background, and training experiences to custody evaluators. For comparison purposes, judges, legal aid attorneys, private attorneys, and domestic violence program workers were also surveyed.  Additionally, researchers used in-depth qualitative interviews of domestic abuse survivors to help interpret quantitative findings, to understand the complexities of their experiences, and to generate hypotheses for future research. The study had two major parts. Part 1 (Custody Evaluator Beliefs Dataset) was a survey of professionals, who had experience with custody cases (child custody evaluators, judges, attorneys, and domestic violence program workers). The dataset includes 1,246 cases and 162 variables. Part 2 (Qualitative Transcripts of Survivors' Interviews) involved qualitative, semi-structured interviews with domestic abuse survivors who experienced negative outcomes in family court. Part 2 contains interviews with 24 with domestic abuse survivors.

Tags: abuse, abuse-allegations, case-management, child-custody, courts, divorce, domestic-violence
Organization: Department of Justice
The Kentucky Civil Protective Order Study: A Rural and Urban Multiple Perspective Study of Protective Order Violation Consequences, Responses, and Costs, 2006-2008


This project examined civil protective orders in Kentucky from multiple perspectives in order to examine rural and urban jurisdictional differences in the protective order process, protective order outcomes, and costs of protective orders, as well as potential avoided costs to society due to the protections that protective orders are supposed to provide. Although partner violence can be perpetrated by both men and women, the vast majority of serious partner violence and protective order use is for cases of male violence against female partners. Thus, this project focused on women victims of partner violence. The study was comprised of three substudies.


The first substudy examined rural and urban key informant perceptions along with court records and other secondary data to provide an in-depth picture of jurisdictional differences in the protective order process.


The second substudy provided a picture of women's self-reported experiences with violence and the protective order system and its outcomes. This substudy not only provided a description of those who obtain protective orders, but also provided a detailed look at the process of obtaining a protective order as well as the sacrifices and barriers that women experience in obtaining protective orders and trying to get them enforced. This substudy also provided detailed information about protective order effectiveness and enforcement outcomes.


The third substudy examined the social and personal costs of abuse and violence, the costs of protective orders, and the potential avoided costs due to the protection protective orders provide. These costs were provided for the sample of women interviewed and were also extrapolated from the sample to the population of victims who obtained protective orders issued in 2007 in Kentucky in order to expand the policy implications of the findings from this substudy.


The data file for Part 1 (Key Informant - Substudy 1) contains 188 cases and 502 variables.  The data file for Part 2 (Interview data - Substudies 2 and 3) contains 213 cases and 14,644 variables.


Tags: abuse, battered-women, domestic-violence, drug-use, emotional-abuse, intimate-partner-violence, mental-health, restraining-orders, stalking, violence-against-women, womens-shelters
Organization: Department of Justice
Financial Abuse of Elderly People vs. Other Forms of Elder Abuse in Virginia, 2003-2008

This study examined financial exploitation of elderly people compared to other forms of elder maltreatment (physical abuse, neglect, and hybrid, i.e., financial exploitation and physical abuse and/or neglect) that occurred in a domestic setting. The cases were explored by obtaining information from a variety of sources including:

Three different individuals about a given case including (1) the caseworker from APS that managed the reported case, (2) the person who had been reported to have experienced elder abuse and, (3) where they were available, a non-offending third party who knew the elder at the time of the APS response to the report of elder abuse (e.g., the elder's domestic partner, care provider, friend, or family member).

Data derived from the Virginia Department of Social Services' Adult Services Adult Protective Services (ASAPS) Database which contains information drawn from several sources.

Prosecutors in four states that were interviewed about their experience prosecuting elder abuse, barriers and facilitators associating with prosecuting such cases, and possible reforms.


The specific goals of this research were to (1) Determine unique aspects of financial exploitation as compared to other forms of elder maltreatment, including risk factors, reporting, investigation, and case outcomes; (2) Determine the degree of congruence between the perceptions of victims of elder maltreatment and APS caseworkers regarding these cases; and (3) Develop recommendations based on these findings for addressing the financial abuse of the elderly.

Tags: abuse, criminal-investigations, elder-abuse, exploitation, family-violence, intervention, justice, older-adults, prosecution, victims
Organization: Department of Justice
People With Dementia as Witnesses to Emotional Events in Southern California, 2008-2009

This study sought evidence that a subset of people with dementia (PwD) have reliable memory for emotional events in their own lives, and that they differ from PwD whose memory for emotional life events is less reliable or unreliable in respect to their own disease stage, confabulation and neuropsychiatric behaviors, and awareness of their cognitive impairment.  A cross-sectional study of 93 people with mild or moderate dementia (aged 55 and older) and a comparison group of 50 older adults was conducted. Memories of recent autobiographical events that had both positive and negative emotional content were elicited during a structured interview, designed for consistency with accepted forensic interviewing techniques.  Accurate recollection of these events was independently verified by a non-demented informant, usually a family member. In addition, both members of the dyad were interviewed independently to assess other characteristics of people with dementia (PwD): demographics, depressive symptoms, functional and cognitive abilities, medications, health conditions, behaviors and characteristics of the dyadic relationship. Researchers also assessed PwD for disease stage, awareness of cognitive impairment, and episodic memory. A validated test of emotionally-influenced memory was administered to qualified participants to verify the novel structured interviewing assessment developed for this study. Two researchers conducted the study assessments during home visits.  The data file contains 945 cases and 732 variables.

Tags: aging, alzheimers-disease, cognition, dementia, demographic-characteristics, elder-abuse, medications, memory, older-adults
Organization: Department of Justice
Anti-Terror Lessons of American Muslim Communities in Buffalo, New York, Houston, Texas, Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, and Seattle, Washington, 2008-2009

 In the aftermath of the attacks on September 11, 2001, and subsequent terrorist attacks elsewhere around the world, a key counterterrorism concern
was the possible radicalization of Muslims living in the United States. The purpose of the study was to examine and identify characteristics and practices of four American Muslim communities that have experienced varying levels of radicalization. The communities were selected because they were home to Muslim-Americans that had experienced isolated instances of radicalization. They were located in four distinct regions of the United States, and they each had distinctive histories and patterns of ethnic diversity. 
 This objective was mainly pursued through interviews of over 120 Muslims located within four different Muslim-American communities across the country (Buffalo, New York; Houston, Texas; Seattle, Washington; and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina), a comprehensive review of studies an literature on Muslim-American communities, a review of websites and publications of Muslim-American organizations and a compilation of data on prosecutions of Muslim-Americans on violent terrorism-related offenses.

Tags: muslims, perceptions, radicalism, religion, states-usa, terrorism
Organization: Department of Justice
Polyvictimization Among Girls in the Juvenile Justice System [South Carolina], 2006-2009

This study collected lifespan data on girls' victimization and juvenile offending to: (1) examine range, diversity, and co-occurrence of different types of violence over the course of girls' lives, identifying strength and dynamics of relationships between forms of exposure; (2) examine independent, relative, and cumulative trajectories of risk for varied types of victimization over the lifespan, including critical periods of risk; (3) examine additional ecological factors as these relate to victimization; and (4) examine relationship of victimization to nature and chronicity of girls' offending. Life History Calendars were used in conjunction with the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire to examine co-occurrence of multiple forms of abuse and develop a comprehensive view of girls' experiences. The sample consisted of 100 girls adjudicated delinquent through the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice (SCDJJ) and up to one primary caregiver for each girl.

Tags: delinquent-behavior, female-offenders, risk-factors, victimization, violence-against-women
Organization: Department of Justice
Evaluation of CeaseFire, a Chicago-based Violence Prevention Program, 1991-2007

This study evaluated CeaseFire, a program of the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention. The evaluation had both outcome and process components. 
The outcome evaluation assessed the program's impact on shootings and killings in selected CeaseFire sites. Two types of crime data were compiled by the research team: Time Series Data (Dataset 1) and Shooting Incident Data (Dataset 2). Dataset 1 is comprised of aggregate month/year data on all shooting, gun murder, and persons shot incidents reported to Chicago police for CeaseFire's target beats and matched sets of comparison beats between January 1991 and December 2006, resulting in 1,332 observations. Dataset 2 consists of data on 4,828 shootings that were reported in CeaseFire's targeted police beats and in a matched set of comparison beats for two-year periods before and after the implementation of the program (February 1998 to April 2006). 
The process evaluation involved assessing the program's operations and effectiveness. Researchers surveyed three groups of CeaseFire program stakeholders: employees, representatives of collaborating organizations, and clients. 
The three sets of employee survey data examine such topics as their level of involvement with clients and CeaseFire activities, their assessments of their clients' problems, and their satisfaction with training and management practices. A total of 154 employees were surveyed: 23 outreach supervisors (Dataset 3), 78 outreach workers (Dataset 4), and 53 violence interrupters (Dataset 5). 
The six sets of collaborating organization representatives data examine such topics as their level of familiarity and contact with the CeaseFire program, their opinions of CeaseFire clients, and their assessments of the costs and benefits of being involved with CeaseFire. A total of 230 representatives were surveyed: 20 business representatives (Dataset 6), 45 clergy representatives (Dataset 7), 26 community representatives (Dataset 8), 35 police representatives (Dataset 9), 36 school representatives (Dataset 10), and 68 service organization representatives (Dataset 11). 
The Client Survey Data (Dataset 12) examine such topics as clients' involvement in the CeaseFire program, their satisfaction with aspects of life, and their opinions regarding the role of guns in neighborhood life. A total of 297 clients were interviewed. 

Tags: aggression, behavior-modification, community-involvement, community-organizations, community-policing, crime-mapping, crime-patterns, crime-reduction, crime-statistics, crisis-intervention, cultural-attitudes, cultural-conflict, firearms-deaths, gang-viol
Organization: Department of Justice
Multi-Site Evaluation of Batterer Intervention in Pennsylvania, Texas, and Colorado, 1995-1999

A multi-site evaluation of batterer intervention systems included a four year follow-up of male batterers and their female partners (initial partners at program intake and identified new partners during the follow-up) recruited from four batterer intervention programs in Denver, Colorado, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Dallas and Houston, Texas, in 1995. Approximately 220 men were consecutively recruited at each of the four programs. The men and their female partners were interviewed at the time of program intake and for every three months over the next four years. Besides an extensive background interview at program intake, the men were also administered the MAST and MCMI-III. Their clinical records were collected that included program attendance and a clinical rating form. Arrest records were also collected for the four year follow-up. The primary objective of the research was to improve prediction of continued violence using a more complex analysis that includes both multiple outcomes and conditional factors, with a secondary objective of exploring additional ways to improve prediction.

Tags: domestic-violence, intervention, recidivism, treatment-programs
Organization: Department of Justice