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National Pretrial Reporting Program Series
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.
Complete Metadata
| @type | dcat:Dataset |
|---|---|
| accessLevel | restricted public |
| bureauCode |
[
"011:21"
]
|
| contactPoint |
{
"fn": "Ask BJS Bureau of Justice Statistics (USDOJ)",
"@type": "vcard:Contact",
"hasEmail": "mailto:askbjs@usdoj.gov"
}
|
| dataQuality |
false
|
| description | 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. |
| distribution |
[
{
"@type": "dcat:Distribution",
"title": "National Pretrial Reporting Program Series",
"accessURL": "https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/series/130"
}
]
|
| identifier |
"2434"
|
| issued | 1991-05-03T00:00:00 |
| keyword |
[
"case processing",
"courts",
"criminal histories",
"criminal justice system",
"defendants",
"disposition (legal)",
"felons",
"felony courts",
"offenses",
"pretrial detentions",
"pretrial hearings",
"pretrial procedures",
"pretrial release",
"sentencing"
]
|
| language |
[
"eng"
]
|
| license | http://www.usa.gov/publicdomain/label/1.0/ |
| modified | 2013-06-12T16:38:47 |
| programCode |
[
"011:061"
]
|
| publisher |
{
"name": "Bureau of Justice Statistics",
"@type": "org:Organization",
"subOrganizationOf": {
"id": 22,
"name": "Office of Justice Programs",
"acronym": "OJP",
"parentOrganization": {
"id": 10,
"name": "Department of Justice",
"acronym": "DOJ"
},
"parentOrganizationID": 10
}
}
|
| title | National Pretrial Reporting Program Series |
