Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Law and Justice Statistics 1985
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Law and Justice Statistics 1985 Edited by George Go Woodworth Papers presented in Las Vegas, Nevada,August 3- 4, 1985, at a workshop developed by the American Statistical Association Committee on Law and Justice Statistics. Workshop sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the American Statistical Association's Continuing Education Department with special acknowledgment to the Criminal Justice Statistics Association. NCJR5 6\UG 10 1988 14.0QUIEHT[·ON S 112230 u.s. Department of Justice National Institute of Justice This document .has been reprodur.:ed exactly as received fro ine~~fsn ~~~~~ae~~ationtohriginating it. Points of view or opinions :at~~ are ose of the authors and do t ~~~~~e~nt the official position or pOlicies of the Natio~oal 7~~:t~~:r~ Permission to reproduce this CnnurJ"""n..! material ha b granted by ~ seen Pub] ; C Doma in /B,TS ~." -. .... I U.s. Department of Justice American Statistical Association Bureau of JusHce Statistics Committee on Law and Justice Statistics Steven R. Schlesinger Director Robert M. Groves (1984-89), Chair This project was supported by Alan E. Gelfand (1980-86) Grant No. 82-BJ-CX-K044, Chair (1985-86) awarded to the American Statis tical Association by the Bureau Charles H. Alexander, Jr. of Justice Statistics, U.S. (1987-89) Department of Justice, under the Omnibus Crime Control and Lily E. Christ (1985-87) Safe Streets Act of 1968, as amended. The project was moni Owen B. Dall (1987-89) tored by Sue A. Lindgren of the Bureau of Justice Statistics. D. V. Gokhale (1981-86) Points of view or opinions stated in this document ar.e those of the Wayne S. Fisher (1987-89) authors and do not necessarily represent the official positions Thomas A. Henderson (1983-88) or policies of the U.S. Depart ment of Justice or the American John P. Lehoczky (1S86-88) Statistical Association. Colin K. Loftin (1984-89) The papers and discussion in this James P. Lepkowski (1986-88) proceedings volume are repro duced essentially as received S. James Press (1980-85) from the authors. The papers in this volume have been reviewed Albert J. Reiss, Jr. (1980-85) by the editor but have not been subjected to a formal refereeing John E. Rolph (1980-85) process. G. Diane Saphire (1987-89) Shanna H. Swan (1986-88) Katherine Wallman (1984-86) Herbert I. Weisberg (1986-88) NCJ-112230 George G. Woodworth (1985-87) The Assistant Attorney General, Office of JUBtice Programs, coor dinates the activities of the following program offices and bureaus: the Bureau of Justice ,Statistics, National Institute of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assist ance, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime. ii Foreword The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) is pleased to The conference from which these proceedings emanate have sponsored the third biannual llWorkshop on Law was cont.leived, designed, and arranged by the and Justice Statisticsll held in conjunction with the Committee on Law and Justice Statistics of the American Statistical Association's 1985 Annual American Statisncal Association. Our committee was Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada. The workshop, created to provide an interface for the association organized and conducted by the ASA Committee on with the legal, judicial, and criminal justice Law and Justice Statistics, provided a forum through communities. As such, it attempts to: which criminal justice statisticians and researchers, In e help disseminate information about law and justice both the private and public sectors and at all levels of statistics activities throughout the statistics government in the United States and Canada, could community meet to exchange ideM and discuss current work. o promote the development of quality statistical Improving such communication is fundamental to the activities in civil and criminal justice settings BJS gbal of improving the availability and CI consider and report upon relevant issues to dissemination of high-quality statistical information on guarantee the integrity of statistical programs crime ano :>.:it? criminal justice system. maintained by the U.S. Department of Justice and other appropriate agencies and organizations. By publishing these proceedings, we seek to share the papers with a much larger audience than the Amongst our educational activities we have produced individuals who were able to attend the sessions. We three biennial Workshops on Law and Justice believe that the potential benefits of peer interaction Statistics, 1981 in Detroit, 1983 in Toronto, and 1985 will be magnified many times as those who work daily in Las Vegas. These workshops were intended to bring with criminal justice statistics, whether in together workers and researchers in this area who are government, academia, or elsewhere, read the interested in methodology. These workshops have contributions of experts in various fields. generally been well received. This proceedings volume documents the most recent one. Our intent In The Bureau's interest in supporting the work of the publishing these technical papers is to extend the Committee on Law and Justice Statistics goes beyond awareness of important methodological issues in law biannual workshops. The committee represents a and justice statistics and to encourage greater resource to the Bureau of extensive expertise in the interaction among tiie individuals from the diverse field of criminal justice statistics, a resource that the disciplines who are interested in this methodology. Bureau frequently draws upon for a variety of purposes. Most significant, perhaps, is the access the We are currently witnessing a substantial growth in committee gives us to methodological and statisticnl research at this statistical interface. The Increase in talents to address thorny issues in data collection and activity level of our committe" reflects this exciting statistical application. circumstanea. For 1987 we developed lin intensive workshop on the National Crime Survey. The relationship that has developed between the American Statistical Association's Committee on Law We continue to be grateful to the American Statistical and Justice Statistics and the Bureau of Justice Association and to the Bureau of Justice Statistics for Statistics has proven to be a mutually satisfying one their sponsorship and their strong emotional support. that allows the Federal Government to utilize the talents and experience of national experts in criminal justice statistics, allows comment from highly Alan E. Gelfand sophisticated users of BJS data, and provides input Chair, Committee on Law and from those users and others into the design of data Justice Statistics of the collection and analysis and into dissemination American Statistical Association strategies tOi increase the utility of the data for a wide range of analytic needs. That relationship between the committee and BJS is an example of our commitment to produce high-quality data that meet the needs of all of their potential users. Steven R. Schlesinger Director Bureau of Justice Statistics iii list of contributors The authors, discussants, and workshop organizers are listed with their affiliations at the time the papers printed here were prepared. Their complete mailing addresses are presen ted in appendix B. David C .. Baldus John P. Lehoczky University of Iowa Carnegi e-Mellon U ni versity Alfred Blumstein Russell V. Lenth Carnegie-Mellon University University of Iowa Lily E. Christ Colin Loftin City University of New York University of Maryland Piet de Jong Thomas J. Marx University of British Marx Social Science Columbia Research, Inc. Barry D. Gaudette Carla M. Noziglia Royal Canadian Mounted Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Police Department Alan E. Gelfand Raymond Paternoster University of Connecticut University of Maryland Samuel R. Gross Charles A. Pulaski, Jr. University of Michigan Arizona State University James J. Heckman John E. Rolph University of Chicago The RAND Corporation 'l'homas A. Henderson Steven R. Schlesil1llger Criminal Justice Statistics U.S. Bureau of JUSItice Association Statistics Joseph B. Kadane George G. Woodworth Carnegie-Mellon University University of Iowa Richard P. Kern Virginia Statistical Analysis Center Paul F. Kolmetz Virginia Statistical Analysis Center iv Preface These proceedings are a record of presentations given at the third Workshop on Law and Justice Statistics held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the American Statistical Association (ASA) on August 3 and 4, 1985, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The goal of the three biennial workshops was to encourage statisticians, social scientists, and law and justice professionals to exchange information about problems in the law and justice system and about statistical research applicable to these problems; the fact that over 200 individuals have participated in these workshops suggests th,a t they have achieved that goal. Thanks are due to many people who helped to bring the third workshop together. They include other members of the Law and Justice Statistics Committee who organized workshop sessions: Lily Christ, Alan Gelfand, Thomas Henderson, Colin Loftin, and John Rolph. They include the discussants who kept the sessions lively: James Heckman and Joseph Kadane. Thanks go to Carla M. Noziglia of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department who opened the forensic science session with a fascinating presentation of forensic science in action. Finally, many thanks to Sue Lindgren at BJS and Ede Denenberg and Jo Prezystas at ASA. George G. Woodworth Editor Workshop Organizer The papers and discussions in this proceedings volume are reproduced essentially as received from the authors~ The papers in this volume have been reviewed by the editor but have not been subjected to a formal refereeing process. Statements or positions taken by the authors do not necessarily represent the views of either the Bureau of Justice Statistics or the American Statistical Association. v Contents Foreword iii List of contributors iv Preface v Thomas A. Henderson, Organizer statistical tools tor law and justice administration Steven R. Schlesinger Redesign of the National Crime Survey and the Uniform Crime Reporting Program 1 Richard P.