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Local prosecutors' offices data

Prosecution Statistics

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    Summary findings | Publications | About the data collection | Related sites

Go to Data Online for statistics on each prosecutors' office in the United States.

Summary findings

• Half the prosecutors' offices Nationwide employed 9 or fewer people and had a budget of $355,000 or less
  
  
• The 2,344 State court prosecutors' offices employed over 78,000 attorneys, investigators, and support staff; a 27% increase from 1992 and 9% from 1996.
  
  
• A quarter of the prosecutors offices participated on a State or local homeland security task force, with a third having staff that attended homeland security training.
  
  
• 60% of the prosecutors’ litigated a variety of crimes related to computer and electronic commerce fraud (felony or misdemeanor), a 20% increase compared to 2001.
  
  
• 70% of prosecutors’ prosecuted at least one case involving the transmission of child pornography, an increase of 40% compared to 2001.
  
  
• Approximately 70% of the prosecutors’ Nationwide litigated an identity theft case, an increase of 50% since 2001.
  
  
• A quarter of the prosecutor offices reported their district maintains an offender DNA database.
  
  
• About 24% of prosecutors' offices assigned prosecutors to handle community-related activities.
  
  

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BJS Publications

This list is in order of the most recent publication first. Additional titles are listed on other topical pages and a comprehensive list is contained on the BJS publications page. To see a full abstract of a publication with links to electronic versions of the publication, click on the title below.

Federal Prosecution of Child Sex Exploitation Offenders, 2006, 12/07. Presents Federal criminal case processing statistics on child sex offenses, including sex transportation, sexual abuse, and child pornography. NCJ 219412

Prosecutors in State Courts, 2005, 07/06. Presents findings from the 2005 National Survey of Prosecutors, the latest in a series of data collections about the Nation's 2,300 State court prosecutors’ offices that tried felony cases in State courts of general jurisdiction. NCJ 213799

Prosecutors in State Courts, 2001, 05/02. NCJ 193441

Prosecutors in State Courts, 1996, 7/98. NCJ 170092

Prosecutors in State Courts, 1994, 10/96. NCJ 151656

Prosecutors in State Courts, 1992, 12/93. NCJ 145319

Reporting by Prosecutors' Offices to Repositories of Criminal History Records, 6/05. Examines the reporting of case dispositions by State court prosecutors to State criminal history repositories. NCJ 205334

State Court Prosecutors in Small Districts, 2001, 01/03. Presents results from the 2001 National Survey of Prosecutors (NSP), which collected data on all chief prosecutors that handled felony cases in State courts of general jurisdiction. The report covers prosecutor's offices that served a district with less than 250,000 population. NCJ 196020

Defense Counsel in Criminal Cases, 11/00. Examines issues of legal representation for defendants in Federal district court and large local jurisdictions, and inmates in local jails and Federal and State prison. NCJ 179023

Juveniles Prosecuted in State Criminal Court, 3/97. Presents findings from the 1994 BJS National Survey of Prosecutors and other BJS statistical series, as well as data collected by the National Center for Juvenile Justice on juveniles proceeded against in State criminal courts. NCJ 164265

Performance Measures for the Criminal Justice System, 10/93 . This compendium of Discussion Papers represents the work of the BJS-Princeton University Study Group on Criminal Justice Performance Measures. NCJ 143505

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BJS Prosecution data collection

National Survey of Prosecutors, a biennial series, collects data on resources, policies, and practices of local prosecutors from a nationally representative sample of 308 chief litigating prosecutors in State court systems. The survey obtains basic information on staffing and operations and collects data on current topics such as the use of innovative prosecution techniques, intermediate sanctions, juvenile cases transferred to criminal court, actions against prosecutors and other professional staff, and work-related assaults and threats. The 2001 National Survey of Prosecutors is a census as opposed to a sample of all State court prosecutors.
1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2001, 2005

2005 National Survey of Prosecutors Questionnaire, Acrobat file (60K)

     2001 version(57K) | 1996 version(30K)

Codebooks and Datasets

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Related sites

From BJS

• Courts and Sentencing

Other relevant sources

• Office of Justice Programs
• Tribal Justice and Safety in Indian Country Website
  
• 
• Courts page from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service

Bureau of Justice Statistics
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Page last revised on December 20, 2007