NCJ Number
143376
Date Published
1977
Length
32 pages
Annotation
This report highlights interim findings and implications from a 6-year study of normal prosecution and court operations in the District of Columbia, using data stored in PROMIS (Prosecutor's Management Information System).
Abstract
Some of the issues being examined in the study are enhancement of the policymaking utility of crime data, the repeat offender as a priority for prosecutors, police effectiveness in terms of arrests that result in convictions, and the prosecuting attorney as a manager. Among the interim findings are that more than 25 percent of felony arrests in 1974 in the District of Columbia involved defendants on some form of conditional release. Also, over a period of almost 5 years in the District of Columbia, 7 percent of the defendants accounted for almost one quarter of all arrests. Another finding is that from a crime-control perspective, targeting prosecutory resources on repeat offenders appears to be a productive policy. The study has found that performance measures appropriate for individual agencies may obfuscate their effectiveness as a team. A relatively small number of officers made a disproportionately large volume of arrests in the District of Columbia in 1974. These and other findings from the study have already had an impact on criminal justice system operations not only in Washington, D.C., but also elsewhere in the United States. Appended discussion of the background of PROMIS