NCJ Number
96904
Date Published
1979
Length
18 pages
Annotation
Data on felony case processing in two Michigan counties are analyzed. The data were collected manually, partly to demonstrate the usefulness of Offender Based Transaction Statistics (OBTS) data.
Abstract
Almost all felony cases in both counties fell into one of four disposition categories: plea, trial, remand to lower court, or dismissal. In County 1, some 86 percent of the cases were pleaded, as opposed to 55 percent in County 2. A second disparity existed in the percentage of cases that went to trial: County 2 had trials in 11 percent; County 1, in 8 percent. Overall, County 1 plea cases lasted about 3 weeks longer than those in County 2. The four sentence types that accounted for almost all cases were prison, jail, probation with an initial jail sentence, and straight probation. The counties showed identical rates of sentencing to prison (29 percent). However, County 1 imposed jail sentences in 14 percent of its cases, and County 2, in 3 percent. Defendants charged with crimes against persons rarely pleaded to the original charge and were unlikely to have concurrent cases filed against them. Larceny, fraud, and drug offenders infrequently used reduced or partial pleas and were more often involved in multiple cases of relatively short duration. Crime categories that took the longest to process were criminal sexual conduct and drugs. These data highlight the need for integrated planning for either a manual or an automated data collection effort. Eight figures and tables are included.