This data collection examines the impact of defendants' prior criminal records on the sentencing of male and female defendants committing violent and non-violent crimes. The collection also provides data on which types of prior records most influenced the sentencing judges. Variables deal specifically with the defendant, the judge and the characteristics of the current case. Only cases that fell into one of 14 categories of common offenses were included. These offenses were murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, assault, minor assault, burglary, auto theft, embezzlement, receiving stolen property, forgery, sex offenses other than rape, drug possession, and driving while intoxicated.

This study attempted to measure spatial displacement or diffusion of crime to areas near the targeted sites of police intervention. Data were drawn from a controlled study of displacement and diffusion in Jersey City, New Jersey. Two sites with substantial street-level crime and disorder were targeted and carefully monitored during an experimental period. Two neighboring areas were selected as "catchment areas" from which to assess immediate spatial displacement or diffusion. Intensive police interventions were applied to each target site but not to the catchment areas. More than 6,000 20-minute social observations were conducted in the target and catchment areas. Physical observations of the areas were conducted before, during, and after the interventions as well. These data were supplemented by interviews with local residents and ethnographic field observations.

This subsample of the national crime surveys consists of data on personal and household victimization for persons aged 12 and older in 26 major United States cities in the period 1972-1975. The National Crime Surveys were designed by the Bureau of Justice Statistics to meet three primary objectives: (1) to develop detailed information about the victims and consequences of crime, (2) to estimate the numbers and types of crimes not reported to police, and (3) to provide uniform measures of selected types of crimes in order to permit reliable comparisons over time and between areas. The surveys provide measures of victimization on the basis of six crimes (including attempts): rape, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. The total National Crime Survey employed two distinct samples: a National Sample, and a Cities Sample. The cities sample consists of information about victimization in 26 major United States cities. The data collection was conducted by the United States Census Bureau, initial processing of the data and documentation was performed by the Data Use and Access Laboratories (DUALabs), and subsequent processing was performed by the ICPSR under grants from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). This Cities Attitude Sub-Sample study also includes information on personal attitudes and perceptions of crime and the police, the fear of crime, and the effect of this fear on behavioral patterns such as choice of shopping areas and places of entertainment. Data are provided on reasons for respondents' choice of neighborhood, and feelings about neighborhood, crime, personal safety, and the local police. Also specified are date, type, place, and nature of the incidents, injuries suffered, hospital treatment and medical expenses incurred, offender's personal profile, relationship of offender to victim, property stolen and value, items recovered and value, insurance coverage, and police report and reasons if incident was not reported to the police. Demographic items cover age, sex, marital status, race, ethnicity, education, employment, family income, and previous residence and reasons for migrating. This subsample is a one-half random sample of the Complete Sample, NATIONAL CRIME SURVEYS: CITIES, 1972-1975 (ICPSR 7658), in which an attitude questionnaire was administered. The subsample contains data from the same 26 cities that were used in the Complete Sample.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the role and impact of forensic science evidence on the criminal justice process. The study utilized a prospective analysis of official record data that followed criminal cases in five jurisdictions (Los Angeles County, California; Indianapolis, Indiana; Evansville, Indiana; Fort Wayne, Indiana; and South Bend, Indiana) from the time of police incident report to final criminal disposition. The data were based on a random sample of the population of reported crime incidents between 2003 and 2006, stratified by crime type and jurisdiction. A total of 4,205 cases were sampled including 859 aggravated assaults, 1,263 burglaries, 400 homicides, 602 rapes, and 1,081 robberies. Descriptive and impact data were collected from three sources: police incident and investigation reports, crime lab reports, and prosecutor case files. The data contain a total of 175 variables including site, crime type, forensic variables, criminal offense variables, and crime dispositions variables.

This study was the first attempt to investigate gang migration systematically and on a national level. The primary objectives of the study were (1) to identify the scope of gang migration nationally, (2) to describe the nature of gang migration, (3) to assess the impact of gang migration on destination cities, and (4) to describe the current law enforcement responses to the migration of gangs and identify those that appeared to be most effective for various types of migration. Two phases of data collection were used. The major objective of the initial phase was to identify cities that had experienced gang migration (Part 1). This was accomplished by distributing a brief mail questionnaire in 1992 to law enforcement agencies in cities identified as potential gang or gang migration sites. The second major phase of data collection involved in-depth telephone interviews with law enforcement officers in cities that had experienced gang migration in order to develop descriptions of the nature of migration and police responses to it (Part 2). For Part 1, information was collected on the year migration started, number of migrants in the past year, factors that deter gang migration, number of gang members, names of gangs, ethnic distribution of gang members and their drug market involvement, number of gang homicides, number of 1991 gang "drive-bys", and if gangs or narcotics were specified in the respondent's assignment. For Part 2, information was collected on the demographics of gang members, the ethnic percentage of drug gang members and their involvement in distributing specific drugs, and the influence of gang migrants on local gang and crime situations in terms of types and methods of crime, drug distribution activities, technology/equipment used, and targets of crime. Information on patterns of gang migration, including motivations to migrate, drug gang migration, and volume of migration, was also collected. Local responses to gang migration covered information sources, department policies relative to migration, gang specialization in department, approaches taken by the department, and information exchanges and coordination among local, state, and federal agencies.

Two previously released data collections from ICPSR are combined in this dataset: CHARACTERISTICS OF HIGH AND LOW CRIME NEIGHBORHOODS IN ATLANTA, 1980 (ICPSR 7951) and CRIME FACTORS AND NEIGHBORHOOD DECLINE IN CHICAGO, 1979 (ICPSR 7952). Information for ICPSR 7951 was obtained from 523 residents interviewed in six selected neighborhoods in Atlanta, Georgia. A research team from the Research Triangle Institute sampled and surveyed the residents. ICPSR 7952 contains 3,310 interviews of Chicago residents in eight selected neighborhoods. The combined data collection contains variables on topics such as residents' demographics and socioeconomic status, personal crime rates, property crime rates, neighborhood crime rates, and neighborhood characteristics. The documentation contains three pieces of information for each variable: variable reference numbers for both the Atlanta and Chicago datasets, the complete wording of the questions put to the respondents of each survey, and the exact wording of the coding schemes adopted by the researchers.