Six-year follow-up study on career criminals, 1970-1976, [United States]
By: principal investigators, Brian Forst and William Rhodes
Series: ICPSR -- 8648; ICPSR (Series) -- 8648
Publisher: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor
Published: 1980
Place of publication: Ann Arbor, Mich
Language: und
Format: [computer file] /
Subjects: Crime; Sentences (Criminal procedure)
Description: The major objective of the Six-year Follow-up Study on Career Criminals was to provide data describing the effects of sentencing decisions on the behavior of career criminals. A second purpose was to develop programs to target career offenders at the time of sentencing who were likely to commit crimes in the future and incarcerate them accordingly. The data collection includes detailed demographic background and complete prior and follow-up criminal records for each selected offender. There are two types of data sets in the study, the PSI data set based on pre-sentence investigation (PSI) reports, and the Parole data set based on Parole Commission records. The PSI data set describes each offender's demographic background, criminal history, and court entry/exit history. The Parole data set contains information about the offender's background characteristics, prior records of arrests, convictions, dispositions and sentences, and follow-up records for a period of six years. Arrests are described in terms of arrest date, offense charge, disposition, result of sentence, and months incarcerated.
Notes: Event/transaction data.

Holding archive: Criminal Justice Archive and Information Network.

ICPSR data class: Class IV.

Chronological coverage: 1970-1976; Data collected: 1981.

(1) pre-sentence investigation (PSI) reports, (2) Parole Commission records, (3) Federal Bureau of Prisons records, (4) Administrative Office of the Court records, (5) the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Computerized Criminal History system.

United States.

United States Department of Justice. National Institute of Justice, JYFRP-81-C-0126.

Logical record length format with SPSS Control Cards.

The PSI Rap Sheet and Parole Rap Sheet files are structured hierarchically with a varying number of records per offender. The first physical record corresponding to an offender is an identification record containing 7 variables. Each of the subsequent records for that offender represents a single arrest. The maximum number of arrest records per offender is 31 for the PSI Rap Sheet file and 53 for the Parole Rap Sheet file. There are 17 variables per arrest record. The PSI Rap Sheet file contains a total of 6,430 records representing 1,320 offenders. The Parole Rap Sheet file has 7,257 records representing 659 offenders. The PSI data files and Parole data files can be linked to the corresponding Rap Sheet files using the appropriate Link file.

Part number: 1 ; part name: PSI Data ; file structure: rectangular ; case count: 1,567 ; variable count: 311 ; LRECL: 653 ; records per case: 1.

Part number: 2 ; part name: Parole Data ; file structure: rectangular ; case count: 1,762 ; variable count: 160 ; LRECL: 296 ; records per case: 1.

Part number: 3 ; part name: PSI Rap Sheet ; file structure: hierarchical ; variable count: 311 ; LRECL: 39.

Part number: 4 ; part name: Parole Rap Sheet ; file structure: hierarchical ; variable count: 160 ; LRECL: 39.

Part number: 5 ; part name: PSI-Rap Link ; file structure: rectangular ; case count: 1,318 ; variable count: 2 ; LRECL: 8 ; records per case: 1.

Part number: 6 ; part name: Parole-Rap Link ; file structure: rectangular ; case count: 659 ; variable count: 2 ; LRECL: 12 ; records per case: 1.

Universe: Defendants convicted of federal offenses in 1969-1970 and sentenced to up to a year in prison, given probation, or fined, and federal offenders released from prison during the first six months of l970.

Rhodes, William, Herbert Tyson, James Weekley, Catherine Conly, and Gustave Powell. Developing criteria for identifying career criminals. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Law and Social Research, 1982.