Investigator(s): Pretrial Services Resource Center The National Pretrial Reporting Program project was initiated in 1983 by the Pretrial Services Resource Center with funding from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to determine the feasibility of a national pretrial database. Specifically, the project sought to determine whether accurate and comprehensive pretrial data can be collected at the local level and subsequently aggregated at the state and federal levels. Before this project began, there was no national system for regularly tracking information on persons and cases from the point they entered the local court system until they were adjudicated and sentenced, nor was it clear that such a system could be established. The project was developed in three phases and each phase has taken the program closer to its goal of providing BJS with reliable and valid data on the movement of defendants through the criminal court system. Phase 1 of the project, though limited to three jurisdictions, demonstrated that baseline data could be collected to describe how criminal defendants are processed through the courts. Phase II of the project not only focused on the collection and analyses of the data, but was also concerned with the procedural methods necessary to devise a national baseline data collection project. Although there were problems encountered and lessons learned in Phase II, the findings confirmed that a national effort could be undertaken. In the summer of 1987, Phase III of the program was developed. Changes incorporated in Phase III were a direct result of the lessons learned from Phase II, with the goal of achieving a more accurate and representative database. To accomplish this, significant changes were made, particularly in four areas: site selection, defendant sampling, site personnel training, and targeted charge. A more ambitious project was envisioned as well, with the project targeting 40 jurisdictions for data collection. Another major change in Phase III concerned the decision to target felony defendants only, since many of the ongoing BJS projects were limited to felony defendants. The data collected in the period 1988-1993 provide a picture of felony defendants' movements through the criminal courts and what happens during the course of their journey.

Investigator(s): Bureau of Justice Statistics Data in this collection examine the processing of federal offenders. The Cases Terminated files (Parts 1-3 and 25-28) contain information about defendants in criminal cases filed in the United States Federal District Court and terminated in the calendar year indicated. Defendants in criminal cases may either be individuals or corporations, and there is one record for each defendant in each case terminated. Information on court proceedings, date the case was filed, date the case was terminated, most serious charge, and reason for termination are included. The Docket and Reporting System files (Parts 4-7 and 31-34) include information on suspects in investigative matters that took an hour or more of a United States Attorney's time with one of the following outcomes: (1) the United States Attorney declined to prosecute, (2) the case was filed in Federal District Court, or (3) the matter was disposed by a United States magistrate. Codes for each disposition and change of status are also provided.The Pretrial Services data (Parts 8 and 22) present variables on the circuit, district, and office where the defendant was charged, type of action, year of birth and sex of the defendant, major offense charge, and results of initial and detention hearings. The Parole Decisions data (Part 9) contain information from various parole hearings such as court date, appeal action, reopening decision, sentence, severity, offense, and race and ethnicity of the defendant. The Offenders Under Supervision files (Parts 15-16 and 37-40) focus on convicted offenders sentenced to probation supervision and federal prisoners released to parole supervision. The Federal Prisoner files (Parts 18 and 20) supply data on when an offender entered and was released from confinement, as well as the amount of time served for any given offense.Years Produced: Annually.NACJD has prepared a resource guide for the Federal Justice Statistics Program.

The data contain records of defendants in criminal cases filed in United States District Court before or during fiscal year 2011 and still pending as of year-end. The data were constructed from the Administrative Office of the United States District Courts' (AOUSC) criminal file. Defendants in criminal cases may be either individuals or corporations. There is one record for each defendant in each case filed. Included in the records are data from court proceedings and offense codes for up to five offenses charged at the time the case was filed. (The most serious charge at termination may differ from the most serious charge at case filing, due to plea bargaining or action of the judge or jury.) In a case with multiple charges against the defendant, a "most serious" offense charge is determined by a hierarchy of offenses based on statutory maximum penalties associated with the charges. The data file contains variables from the original AOUSC files as well as additional analysis variables, or "SAF" variables, that denote subsets of the data. These SAF variables are related to statistics reported in the Compendium of Federal Justice Statistics, Tables 4.1-4.5 and 5.1-5.6. Variables containing identifying information (e.g., name, Social Security number) were replaced with blanks, and the day portions of date fields were also sanitized in order to protect the identities of individuals. These data are part of a series designed by the Urban Institute (Washington, DC) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Data and documentation were prepared by the Urban Institute.

The disposition data presented in this report reflects the culmination of the fact-finding process that leads to the resolution of a case. Included in this data set are the defendant counts by race and disposition, their associated offense type, and year.

The disposition data presented in this report reflects the culmination of the fact-finding process that leads to the resolution of a case. Included in this data set are the defendant counts by city/suburb and disposition, their associated offense type, and year.

The disposition data presented in this data reflects the culmination of the fact-finding process that leads to the resolution of a case. Included in this data set are the defendant counts by disposition and year.

The disposition data presented in this report reflects the culmination of the fact-finding process that leads to the resolution of a case. Included in this data set are the defendant counts by disposition, their associated offense type, and year.

Investigator(s): Bureau of Justice Statistics These surveys provide a broad-based, systematic examination of the nature of general civil litigation (e.g., tort, contract, and real property cases) disposed in a sample of the nation's 75 most populous counties. Data collection was carried out by the National Center for State Courts with the assistance of WESTAT. Data collected includes information about the types of civil cases litigated at trial, types of plaintiffs and defendants, trial winners, amount of total damages awarded, amount of punitive damages awarded, and case processing time. In addition, information was collected on general civil cases concluded by bench or jury trial that were subsequently appealed to a state's intermediate appellate court or court of last resort. The appellate datasets examine information on the types of civil bench and jury trials appealed, the characteristics of litigants filing an appeal, the frequency in which appellate courts affirm, reverse, or modify trial court outcomes and cases further appealed from an intermediate appellate court to a state court of last resort.

The disposition data presented in this report reflects the culmination of the fact-finding process that leads to the resolution of a case. Included in this data set are the defendant counts by age and disposition, their associated offense type, and year.

The sentencing data presented in this report reflects the judgement imposed by the court on people that have been found guilty. The data is recorded by count, meaning by each individual cause of action, and each count receives a sentence. Included in this data set are the defendant counts by sentence and year.