DOI: 10.3886/icpsr09038.v1
title: Operation Hardcore [Crime] Evaluation: Los Angeles, 1976-1980
title: Version 1

description: This evaluation was developed and implemented by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office to examine the effectiveness of specialized prosecutorial activities in dealing with the local problem of rising gang violence, in particular the special gang prosecution unit Operation Hardcore. One part of the evaluation was a system performance analysis. The purposes of this system performance analysis were (1) to describe the problems of gang violence in Los Angeles and the ways that incidents of gang violence were handled by the Los Angeles criminal justice system, and (2) to document the activities of Operation Hardcore and its effect on the criminal justice system's handling of the cases prosecuted by that unit. Computer-generated listings from the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office of all individuals referred for prosecution by local police agencies were used to identify those individuals who were subsequently prosecuted by the District Attorney. Data from working files on all cases prosecuted, including copies of police, court, and criminal history records as well as information on case prosecution, were used to describe criminal justice handling. Information from several supplementary sources was also included, such as the automated Prosecutors Management Information System (PROMIS) maintained by the District Attorney's Office, and court records from the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles County, the local felony court.
description: 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: Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS0: Study-Level Files 
 DS1: Incident-Based Data 
 DS2: Case-Based Data 
 DS3: Victim-Based Data 
 DS4: Suspect-Based Data 
 DS5: Defendant Processing Data 
 DS6: Charge Data 
 DS7: Codebook for All Parts 
 DS8: SAS Data Definition Statements for Incident-Based Data 
 DS9: SAS Data Definition Statements for Case-Based Data 
 DS10: SAS Data Definition Statements for Victim-Based Data 
 DS11: SAS Data Definition Statements for Suspect-Based Data 
 DS12: SAS Data Definition Statements for Defendant Processing Data 
 DS13: SAS Data Definition Statements for Charge Data
description: Data for the seventh file named in the codebook (Prior Criminal Record Data) are not available from ICPSR.
description: All cases referred by local police agencies for prosecution to the Los Angeles District Attorney's office during 1976-1980.
description: First, cases involving gang-related homicide were selected, since the majority of cases prosecuted by Operation Hardcore were gang homicide cases. Second, individuals suspected by police as being involved in these cases were identified by police records. Third, the District Attorney's listings of individuals against whom criminal charges had been accepted or rejected for prosecution were reviewed for the names identified in the second step. Thus all names from step two were classified as accepted, rejected, or not referred.