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.

In 1986, the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) funded a demonstration project of intensive supervision programs (ISPs), alternatives to control sanctions that involve community sanctions and emphasize stringent conditions and close monitoring of convicted offenders. The primary intent of the demonstration project was to determine the effects of participation in an ISP program on the subsequent behavior of offenders and to test the feasibility of the ISP's stated objectives: (1) to reduce recidivism by providing a seemingly cost-effective alternative to imprisonment, and (2) to provide an intermediate punishment between incarceration and regular probation that allows the punishment to fit the crime. Fourteen sites in nine states participated in the project and each of the selected sites was funded for 18 to 24 months. Individual agencies in each site tailored their ISP programs to their local needs, resources, and contexts, developed their own eligibility criteria, and determined whether probationers met those criteria. While the individual ISP projects differed, each site was required to follow identical procedures regarding random assignment, data collection, and overall program evaluation. Data collection instruments that differed in the amount of drug-related questions asked were used for the six- and twelve-month reviews. The "non-drug" data collection instrument, used in Contra Costa, Ventura, and Los Angeles counties, CA, Marion County, OR, and Milwaukee, WI, gathered drug data only on the number of monthly drug and alcohol tests given to offenders. The "drug" data collection instrument was distributed in Atlanta, Macon, and Waycross, GA, Seattle, WA, Santa Fe, NM, Des Moines, IA, and Winchester, VA. Variables regarding drug use included the number of drug tests ordered, the number of drug tests taken, and the number of positives for alcohol, cocaine, heroin, uppers, downers, quaaludes, LSD/hallucinogens, PCP, marijuana/hashish, and "other". The drug questions on the instrument used in Dallas and Houston, TX, were the same as those asked at the drug sites. Once a site determined that an offender was eligible for inclusion, RAND staff randomly assigned the offender to either the experimental ISP program (prison diversion, enhanced probation, or enhanced parole) or to a control sanction (prison, routine probation, or parole). Assignment periods began in January 1987 and some sites continued to accept cases through January 1990. Each offender was followed for a period of one year, beginning on the day of assignment to the experimental or control program. The six-month and twelve-month review data contain identical variables: the current status of the offender (prison, ISP, or terminated), record of each arrest and/or technical violation, its disposition, and sentence or sanction. Information was also recorded for each month during the follow-up regarding face-to-face contacts, phone and collateral contacts, monitoring and record checks, community service hours, days on electronic surveillance (if applicable), contacts between client and community sponsor, number and type of counseling sessions and training, days in paid employment and earnings, number of drug and alcohol tests taken, and amount of restitution, fines, court costs, and probation fees paid. Background variables include sex, race, age at assignment, prior criminal history, drug use and treatment history, type of current offense, sentence characteristics, conditions imposed, and various items relating to risk of recidivism and need for treatment. For the two Texas sites, information on each arrest and/or technical violation, its disposition, and sentence or sanction was recorded in separate recidivism files (Parts 10 and 17). Dates were converted by RAND to time-lapse variables for the public release files that comprise this data collection.

The primary purpose of this data collection was to examine the impact of the implementation of sentencing guidelines on the rate of incarcerative and nonincarcerative sentences imposed and on the average length of expected time to be served in incarceration for all offenses as well as for select groups of offenses. The measure of sentence length, "expected time to be served," was used to allow for assumed good time and parole reductions. This term represents the amount of time an offender can expect to spend in prison at the time of sentencing, a roughly equivalent standard that can be measured before and after the implementation of federal criminal sentencing guidelines in 1987. Three broad offense categories were studied: drug offenses, robbery, and economic crimes. Drug offenses include a wide range of illegal activities involving marijuana, heroin, and cocaine. Robbery includes bank and postal robbery (both armed and unarmed) as well as other types of robbery offenses that appear less frequently in the federal system, such as carrying a firearm during the commission of a robbery. Economic offenses include fraud (bank, postal, and other), embezzlement (bank, postal, and other), and tax evasion. Other monthly data are provided on the number of prison and probation sentences for all offenses and by offense categories.

The National Assessment Program (NAP) Survey was conducted to determine the needs and problems of state and local criminal justice agencies. At the local level in each sampled county, survey questionnaires were distributed to police chiefs of the largest city, sheriffs, jail administrators, prosecutors, public defenders, chief trial court judges, trial court administrators (where applicable), and probation and parole agency heads. Data were collected at the state level through surveys sent to attorneys general, commissioners of corrections, prison wardens, state court administrators, and directors of probation and parole. For the 1992-1994 survey, 13 separate questionnaires were used. Police chiefs and sheriffs received the same survey instruments, with a screening procedure employed to identify sheriffs who handled law enforcement responsibilities. Of the 411 counties selected, 264 counties also employed trial court administrators. Judges and trial court administrators received identical survey instruments. A total of 546 surveys were mailed to probation and parole agencies, with the same questions asked of state and local officers. Counties that had separate agencies for probation and parole were sent two surveys. All survey instruments were divided into sections on workload (except that the wardens, jail administrators, and corrections commissioners were sent a section on jail use and crowding instead), staffing, operations and procedures, and background. The staffing section of each survey queried respondents on recruitment, retention, training, and number of staff. The other sections varied from instrument to instrument, with questions tailored to the responsibilities of the particular agency. Most of the questionnaires asked about use of automated information systems, programs, policies, or aspects of the facility or security needing improvement, agency responsibilities and jurisdictions, factors contributing to workload increases, budget, number of fulltime employees and other staff, and contracted services. Questions specific to police chiefs and sheriffs included activities aimed at drug problems and whether they anticipated increases in authorized strength in officers. Jail administrators, corrections commissioners, and wardens were asked about factors contributing to jail crowding, alternatives to jail, medical services offered, drug testing and drug-related admissions, and inmate classification. Topics covered by the surveys for prosecutors, public defenders, judges, and state and trial court administrators included types of cases handled, case timeliness, diversion and sentencing alternatives, and court and jury management. State and local probation and parole agency directors were asked about diagnostic tools, contracted services, and drug testing. Attorneys general were queried about operational issues, statutory authority, and legal services and support provided to state and local criminal justice agencies.

The purpose of this data collection was to evaluate the effectiveness of judicial intervention and varying degrees of sanction severity by comparing persons who have been processed at the juvenile or adult level in the justice system with persons who have not. The main research question was whether the number of judicial interventions and severity of sanctions had any effects on the seriousness of offenders' future offenses or the decision to desist from such behavior. Variables include characteristics of the person who had the police contact as well as items specific to a particular police contact. Others are the number of police contacts, seriousness of police contacts, severity of sanctions, and age, cohort, and decade the contact occurred.

This data collection was designed to evaluate the Client Specific Planning (CSP) program of the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives (NCIA). The CSP program offers non-incarcerative sentencing options and alternatives prepared for judges and presented by an NCIA caseworker. The study measures the impact of the program on sentence length, sentence severity, the effectiveness of the program at diverting serious felony offenders from incarceration, and the rate, type, seriousness, and timing of recidivism in a 24-month post-sentence risk period. Variables are provided for each defendant on demographic characteristics, criminal history, prior counseling experiences, prior incarceration, charges and dispositions of the recidivist arrests, and types of sentencing alternatives recommended in CSP.

In order to assess the impacts of state-level sentencing and corrections policies in the United States implemented between 1975 and 2002 on state incarceration rates during that same time period, researchers conducted a two-phase study between November 2002 and March 2004. The first phase of the research involved building a framework for understanding the types of state-level sentencing and corrections policies in use between 1975 and 2002. Phase two of the project consisted of state-level data collection for all 50 states for all study years, 1975 to 2002. The researchers produced a dataset containing outcome variables that focus on the change and growth in state incarceration rates, non-policy control variables that were found in previous studies to be associated with changes in incarceration rates, and policy variables regarding sentencing structure, drug policy, time served requirements, habitual offender laws (HOL), and mandatory sentences.

These data were collected to examine the practices and views of state trial court judges with respect to their use of fines as a criminal sanction. Respondents were asked about the composition of their caseloads, sentencing practices (including fines imposed for various circumstances), available information about the offender at time of sentencing, enforcement and collection procedures in their courts, and their attitudes toward the use of fines. In addition to questions concerning the judges' use of fines and other sanctions, the questionnaire presented the judges with hypothetical cases.

경비처우급은 도주 등 위험성을 기준으로 수용할 시설과 계호의 정도를 구별하고, 범죄성향의 진전과 개선정도, 교정성적에 따라 처우수준을 구별하는 기준으로, 개방처우급, 완화경비처우급, 일반경비처우급, 중경비처우급으로 구분됩니다. 개방처우급과 완화경비처우급 수형자는 자율과 책임의식 함양 및 사회복귀지원을 위한 처우를 중점으로 하고, 일반경비처우급과 중경비처우급 수형자는 준법정신 함양을 위한 엄정한 형 집행에 따른 처우를 원칙으로 하며, 해당 데이터에서 기타는 분류심사 유예자, 제외자, 거부자의 경비처우급 현황입니다.