Injury Evidence, Forensic Evidence and the Prosecution of Sexual Assault, United States, 2005-2011

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.
This project explored the use and impact of injury evidence and biological evidence through a study of the role of these forms of evidence in prosecuting sexual assault in an urban district attorney's office in a metropolitan area in the eastern United States. The research questions addressed in this summary overview were as follows:
How frequent were different forms of injury evidence and biological evidence in the sample?; Is the presence of injury evidence and biological evidence correlated with the presence of other forms of evidence?; Which types of cases and case circumstances are more likely to yield injury evidence and biological evidence?; Do the presence of injury evidence and biological evidence predict criminal justice outcomes, taking into account the effects of other predictors?; In what ways do prosecutors use injury evidence and biological evidence and what is their appraisal of their impact on case outcomes?; The collection contains 1 SPSS data file, DataArchiveFile_InjuryEvidenceForensicEvidenceandthe ProsecutionofSexualAssault4-7-17.sav (n=257; 417 variables).The qualitative data files were excluded from deposit with ICPSR and are not available as part of this data collection at this time.