Massachusetts statewide criminal justice guidelines evaluation, 1979

About this book

This project was established to study the development, implementation, and use of statewide sentencing guidelines and to report on the perceptions of criminal justice system personnel and inmates regarding those guidelines. Funded by the National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, the project was carried out by the Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice. The Massachusetts Sentencing Data contains information on a random sample of convicted defendants sentenced in the Massachusetts Superior Court between November 1977, and October 1978. The sample represents approximately one third of the actual number of defendants sentenced in the Massachusetts Superior Court during a one-year period. The cases were selected and coded by the Massachusetts Sentencing Guidelines project during 1979. The variables include information about each defendant's social and economic background, juvenile and adult criminal history, characteristics of the current offense, and the elements of the disposition of the current offense.