Offender based transaction statistics (OBTS), 1981

The Offender Based Transaction Statistics consist of data which allow examination of offender characteristics and patterns of court action and case disposition. Collected by individual states from existing data, the dataset includes all cases which reached disposition during the calendar year 1981. Using the individual adult offender as the unit of analysis, selected information is provided about the offender and his or her arrest, prosecution, and court disposition. Examples of variables included are: arrest and level of arrest charge, date of arrest, charge filed by the prosecution, prosecutor or grand jury disposition, type of counsel, type of trial, court disposition, sentence type, and minimum and maximum sentence length. Dates of disposition of each stage of the process allow for tracking of time spent at each stage. Derived variables dealing with elapsed time between arrest and police disposition, prosecution/grand jury disposition, final court disposition, and final sentencing are included. In cases where the offender is charged with multiple offenses the most serious charge and most serious outcome at each stage of the process (from the offender's point of view) are provided.