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Glossary

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Total incarceration rate

The number of inmates held in the custody of state or federal prisons or in local jails, per 100,000 U.S. residents.

Total inmates in custody count

To have custody of a prisoner, a state or the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) must physically hold that person in one of its facilities. A state may have custody of a prisoner over whom another state maintains jurisdiction. This count includes inmates held in any public facility run by a state or the BOP, including halfway houses, camps, farms, training/treatment centers, and hospitals. This number includes the number of inmates held in local jails as reported by correctional authorities in the Annual Survey of Jails.

Total Maximum Sentence Length

The longest length of time as stated by the court that the offender could be required to serve.

Trial court

The court in which a controversy is first adjudicated.

Tribal court

As defined in the Indian Tribal Justice Technical and Legal Assistance Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-559), the term "tribal court," "tribal court system," or "tribal justice system" means the entire judicial branch, and employees thereof, of an Indian tribe, including, but not limited to, traditional methods and fora for dispute resolution, trial courts, appellate courts, including inter-tribal appellate courts, alternative dispute resolution systems, and circuit rider systems, established by inherent tribunal authority whether or not they constitute a court of record.

Tribal jurisdiction

Tribal law enforcement agencies respond to both felony and misdemeanor crimes. For most of Indian country, the federal government provides felony law enforcement concerning crimes by or against American Indians and Alaska Natives. Certain areas of Indian country are under P.L. 83–280, as amended (commonly referred to as P.L. 280). P.L. 280 conferred jurisdiction over Indian country to certain states and suspended enforcement of the General Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. § 1152) and Major Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. § 1153) in these areas. Tribes retain concurrent jurisdiction to enforce laws in Indian country where P.L. 280 applies.

Tribal police powers

Authority to exercise criminal jurisdiction over all tribal members and the authority to arrest and detain non-Indians for delivery to state or federal authorities for prosecution. These tribal police powers are generally limited to tribal lands.

Tribal wellness courts

Courts within the tribal justice system that incorporate the wellness concept to meet the specific substance abuse needs of each tribal community. They include tribal healing to wellness courts and tribal hybrid courts.

Type of Admission to Prison

The reason an offender entered into the physical custody of a correctional facility.

Type of Release from Prison

The method of, or reason for, departure from the custody of your prison system on the reported date of release.

Types of financial release

Surety bond—Bail bond company signs a promissory note to the court for the full bail amount and charges the defendant a fee for the service (usually 10% of the full bail amount). If the defendant fails to appear, the bond company is liable to the court for the full bail amount. Frequently the bond company requires collateral from the defendant in addition to the fee.

Deposit bond—Defendant deposits a percentage (usually 10%) of the full bail amount with the court. The percentage of the bail is returned after the disposition of the case, but the court often retains a small portion for administrative costs. If the defendant fails to appear in court, he or she is liable to the court for the full bail amount.

Full cash bond—The defendant posts the full bail amount in cash with the court. If the defendant makes all court appearances, the cash is returned. If the defendant fails to appear in court, the bond is forfeited.

Property bond—Involves an agreement made by a defendant as a condition of pretrial release requiring that property valued at the full bail amount be posted as an assurance of his or her appearance in court. If the defendant fails to appear in court, the property is forfeited. Also known as "collateral bond."

Types of nonfinancial release

Release on recognizance (ROR)—The court releases the defendant on a signed agreement that he or she will appear in court as required. This includes citation releases in which arrestees are released pending their first court appearance on a written order issued by law enforcement or jail personnel.

Unsecured bond—The defendant pays no money to the court but is liable for the full amount of bail should he or she fail to appear in court.

Conditional release—Defendants are released under specified conditions. Monitoring or supervision, if required, is usually done by a pretrial services agency. In some cases, such as those involving a third-party custodian or drug monitoring and treatment, another agency may be involved in the supervision of the defendant. Conditional release sometimes includes an unsecured bond.

U.S. CERT

The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team is a partnership between the Department of Homeland Security and the public and private sectors. Established in 2003 to protect the nation's Internet infrastructure, U.S. CERT coordinates defense against and responses to cyber attacks across the nation.

Unconditional release

Expirations of sentences, commutations, and other unspecified unconditional releases.

Unit

The N-DASH can display three different types of estimates: number of victimizations, rate of victimization, or percentage of victimizations for the characteristics selected. See User’s Guide section on How to Interpret Dashboard Results for information on how these estimates are calculated and how to interpret them.

Urban areas

The largest city (or grouping of cities) in a Metropolitan Statistical Area. See "Metropolitan Statistical Area."

Use of excessive force

The application of force beyond what is reasonably believed to be necessary to gain compliance from a subject in any given incident.

Use of force

The amount of effort required by law enforcement to gain compliance from an unwilling subject.

Veterans courts

Serve justice-involved veterans and sometimes active duty personnel. Courts link veterans facing mental illness, drug addiction or abuse, or reintegration issues to services, intensive treatment, and support while promoting sobriety, recovery, and stability. Services may include a coordinated response from traditional partners and the Department of Veterans Affairs healthcare networks, Veterans Benefits Administration, State Departments of Veterans Affairs, volunteer veteran mentors, and organizations that support veterans' families. They include veterans drug treatment and mental health courts.

Victim

The recipient of a criminal act, usually used in relation to personal crimes, but also applicable to households.

Victim services use

A measure of whether victims received any help or advice from victim service agencies. This is asked of victims of both personal and property victimization. Victim service agencies are publicly or privately funded organizations that provide victims with support and services to aid their physical and emotional recovery, offer protection from future victimizations, guide them through the criminal justice system process, and assist them in obtaining restitution.

The data visualization tool uses this coding for victim services use:

  • Yes (Services received from victim service agencies)
  • No (No services received from victim service agencies)

Victim-offender relationship

A classification of a crime victim’s relationship to the offender for crimes involving direct contact between the two. For the analysis tool, this applies to crimes that involve contact between the victim and the offender (personal victimization); this distinction is not made for property victimization.

The data visualization tool uses this coding for victim-offender relationship:

  • Intimate Partners (i.e., current or former spouses, boyfriends, and girlfriends)
  • Other relatives (i.e., parents, stepparents, children, stepchildren, brothers, sisters, and other relatives)
  • Well-known/casual acquaintances (i.e., friends or former friends, roommates or boarders, schoolmates, neighbors, people at work, and other known nonrelatives)
  • Strangers (i.e., anyone not previously known by the victim)
  • Don’t know relationship
  • Don’t know number of offenders

Victimization

A crime as it affects one individual person or household. For personal crimes, the number of victimizations is equal to the number of victims involved. The number of victimizations may be greater than the number of incidents because more than one person may be victimized during an incident. Each crime against a household is assumed to involve a single victim, the affected household.

Victimization rate

A measure of the occurrence of victimizations among a specified population group. For personal crimes, this is based on the number of victimizations per 1,000 residents age 12 or older. For property crimes, the victimization rates are calculated using the number of incidents per 1,000 households.

Personal victimization rate
(Number of victimizations × 1,000) / Number of persons

Household victimization rate
(Number of victimizations × 1,000) / Number of households

Victimize

To commit a crime against a person or household.