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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 8:18 pm
Time: 8:18 pm
Results for prosecutorial decision-making
1 results foundAuthor: Sideman, Olivia Title: Prosecution and Racial Justice in New York County - Partnership Report Summary: The number of blacks and Latinos involved in the criminal justice system is disproportionately large compared to their numbers in the general population. This phenomenon, known as minority overrepresentation in the criminal justice system, has attracted the attention and concern of researchers, policymakers, and advocates nationwide. Yet attempts to understand the factors contributing to this disproportion historically have been limited by some inherent aspects of the justice system structure. Specifically, the system grants prosecutors broad, largely unchecked, and virtually unreviewable discretion in filing, changing, or reducing charges, plea bargaining, and making sentencing recommendations. Despite the vast influence of prosecutors in the criminal justice system, there is little existing research that adequately examines the extent to which prosecutors may contribute to unwarranted racial and ethnic disparities. Researchers rarely get access to the data necessary to investigate the relationship between race or ethnicity and prosecutorial outcomes; indeed, most jurisdictions do not systematically capture this information. When researchers are able to use available data, they typically examine the data in isolation from prosecutorial practices. The results are of relatively little use to prosecutors concerned with developing a more deliberate approach to the exercise of discretion within their offices and with ensuring the equitable treatment of defendants. With an interest in addressing this gap in the research and providing practical findings and evidence-based technical assistance, the Prosecution and Racial Justice Program (PRJ) of the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) has partnered with a number of district attorneys' (DAs') offices around the country, using a unique researcher-practitioner model. This report describes Vera's most recent partnership, with the New York County District Attorney's Office (DANY), which was funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). The partnership allowed Vera to place two-to-three researchers, depending on the phase of the project, at DANY for 20 months to work closely with DANY staff and analyze felony and misdemeanor cases disposed in 2010 and 2011. The study began in January 2012. It aimed to explore the influence of defendants' race and ethnicity on case acceptance for prosecution; detention status; plea offers to a lesser charge and custodial punishment offers; case dismissals; sentencing; and charge dynamics while considering a host of other factors influencing prosecutorial decision making (e.g., prior record or charge seriousness). The project involved: (1) evaluating and analyzing existing administrative data; (2) conducting prosecutorial semi-structured interviews to better understand case processing and data limitations; (3) collecting additional data from a sample of 2,409 case files; (4) hosting meetings to discuss research findings and their policy implications; and (5) disseminating findings through reports, peer-reviewed publications, and conference presentations. Details: New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2014. 31p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 28, 2014 at: http://www.vera.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/race-and-prosecution-manhattan-partnership.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://www.vera.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/race-and-prosecution-manhattan-partnership.pdf Shelf Number: 133152 Keywords: Case ProcessingEthnic DisparitiesProsecution (New York)Prosecutorial Decision-MakingProsecutorial DiscretionProsecutorsRacial Disparities |