NCJ Number
140591
Date Published
1992
Length
20 pages
Annotation
The governor of New York recently called for greater cooperation among the States to stop illegal firearm trafficking, enhance enforcement efforts, and develop prevention, education, and public health strategies for dealing with this issue.
Abstract
The first analysis presented here examines the punishment likely to result from an arrest event in which the top charge is a weapons offense and how this would differ from penalties assessed for non-weapons offenses. The primary outcome measures for the analysis are total conviction rate, felony conviction rate, and likelihood of incarceration in either prison or jail. The second section uses similar outcome measures to evaluate the influence of secondary weapons arrest charges on the processing of arrests for other crimes. Prosecutors often use secondary weapons charges to maximize a different set of prosecution opportunities which could lead to different outcomes than for arrest events without such secondary weapons charges. The findings show that cases involving weapons offenses generally do not yield more severe sentences than other types of crimes at similar class levels. Likewise, the presence of secondary weapons charges had little influence on the average minimum sentences imposed. 12 tables