Sanctions in the justice system, 1942-1977

The purpose of this data collection was to evaluate the effectiveness of judicial intervention and varying degrees of sanction severity by comparing persons who have been processed at the juvenile or adult level in the justice system with persons who have not. The main research question was whether the number of judicial interventions and severity of sanctions had any effects on the seriousness of offenders' future offenses or the decision to desist from such behavior. Variables include characteristics of the person who had the police contact as well as items specific to a particular police contact. Others are the number of police contacts, seriousness of police contacts, severity of sanctions, and age, cohort, and decade the contact occurred.