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Evaluating Anti-Gang Legislation and Gang Prosecution Units in Clark and Washoe Counties, Nevada, 1989-1995

Metadata Updated: March 12, 2025

In response to several high profile, violent crimes by minority males, which were reported by law enforcement officials as being gang-related, Nevada lawmakers enacted an array of anti-gang legislation, much of it drafted by law enforcement personnel. This study attempted to provide answers to the following research questions: (1) How often and under what specific conditions were the various anti-gang statutes used in the prosecution of gang members? (2) How had the passage of anti-gang statutes and the development of the gang prosecution units influenced the use of more conventional charging practices related to gang cases? and (3) Did specialized gang prosecution produce higher rates of convictions, more prison sentences, and longer prison terms for gang offenders? Court monitoring data were collected from both Clark and Washoe counties to document the actual extent and nature of gang crime in both jurisdictions over several years. Variables include the year of the court case, whether the defendant was a gang member, total number of initial charges, whether all charges were dismissed before trial, whether the defendant was convicted of any charge, the length of the prison sentence imposed, whether the defendant was charged with a gang enhancement statute, and whether the defendant was charged with murder, sexual assault, robbery, kidnapping, burglary, auto theft, larceny, a drug offense, a weapon offense, or assault. Demographic variables include the race, sex, and age of the defendant.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: us-pd

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date August 18, 2021
Metadata Updated Date March 12, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOJ JSON

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date August 18, 2021
Metadata Updated Date March 12, 2025
Publisher National Institute of Justice
Maintainer
Identifier 3187
Data First Published 2002-03-07T00:00:00
Language eng
Data Last Modified 2005-11-04T00:00:00
Public Access Level public
Aicategory Not AI-ready
Bureau Code 011:21
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://www.justice.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id cd49a3bb-dd99-400e-9769-64dc6b157a5f
Harvest Source Id 3290e90a-116f-42fc-86ac-e65521ef3b68
Harvest Source Title DOJ JSON
Internalcontactpoint {"@type": "vcard:Contact", "fn": "Jennifer Scherer", "hasEmail": "mailto:Jennifer.Scherer@usdoj.gov"}
Jcamsystem {"acronym": "OJP_EXT", "id": 8, "name": "External system not available in CSAM"}
License http://www.usa.gov/publicdomain/label/1.0/
Metadatamodified 9/2/2022 6:22:00 PM
Program Code 011:060
Publisher Hierarchy Office of Justice Programs > National Institute of Justice
Sourceidentifier https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02753
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 47b58348b498e6847929129cc411672eb25355f397fcdbd321f9cf662c396d55
Source Schema Version 1.1

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