U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics December 2011, NCJ 234211 2007 National Census of State Court Prosecutors Prosecutors in State Courts, 2007 - Statistical Tables Steven W. Perry and Duren Banks, BJS Statisticians --------------------------------------------------- This file is text without graphics and many of the tables. A Zip archive of the tables in this report in spreadsheet format (.csv) and the full report including tables and graphs in .pdf format are available at: http://bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=1749 This reports is one in series. More recent editions may be available. To view a list of all reports in the series go to http://bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbse&sid=9 --------------------------------------------------- In 2007, 2,330 state prosecutors' offices served state judicial districts in the United States. The offices reported a total estimated budget of $5.8 billion in 2007 and employed nearly 78,000 attorneys, investigators, paralegals, and support staff . State prosecutors closed 2.9 million cases charged as felonies in state courts in 2007, approximately 94 cases for each prosecuting attorney on staff. The 2007 Census of State Court Prosecutors marked the second BJS survey of all prosecutors' offices in the United States. Th e first census, conducted in 2001, included the 2,341 offices in operation at that time. The second census included the 2,330 state court prosecutors' offices operating in 2007. Neither census included offices of municipal attorneys or county attorneys, who primarily operate in courts of limited jurisdiction. State court prosecutors serve in the executive branch of state governments and handle felony cases in state courts of general jurisdiction. By law, these prosecutors are afforded broad discretion in determining who is charged with an offense and whether a case goes to trial. The chief prosecutor, also referred to as the district attorney, county attorney, commonwealth attorney, or state's attorney, represents the state in criminal cases and is answerable to the public as an elected or appointed public official. The Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia is the only federal prosecutor included in the census. This unique office is responsible for prosecution of serious local crimes committed in the District and also for prosecution of federal cases, whether criminal or civil. These tables describe the operational and administrative functions of the offices that prosecute criminal offenses in state courts, including felony caseloads, office budgets and staffing, and prosecution of particular criminal offenses in 2007. ******************************* Tables and Figures Table 1. State prosecutors' offices, by population served, 2007 Table 2. State prosecutors' offices budget and staffing, by population served, 2007 Table 3. Percent of persons employed in state prosecutors' offices, 2007 Table 4. Felony cases closed by state prosecutors' offices, by population served, 2007 Table 5. Tenure and salary of chief prosecutors, by population served, 2007 Table 6. Assistant prosecutors' minimum and maximum salary in state prosecutors' offices, by population served, 2007 Table 7. State prosecutors' offices receiving threats and percent with staff who carry fi rearms, by population served, 2007 Table 8. Prosecution of specific felony offenses, by population served, 2007 Table 9. State court prosecutors' office use of DNA evidence, 2007 Table 10. Type of disposition information reported to data repositories by state court prosecutors' offices, 2007 Table 11. Standard errors of critical variables, by data source, 2007 Figure 1. Average assistant prosecutors salary, by experience and population served, 2007 Figure 2. Prosecutors' offices handling cases involving children and elderly victims or school crime, 2007 Figure 3. Type of disposition information reported to data repositories by state court prosecutors' offices, 2007 ************************************** Summary findings Populations served * In 2007, 2,330 prosecutors' offices across the United States served districts with populations ranging in size from 500 to 9.9 million residents (not shown in table). * Most (74%) prosecutors' offices served districts with a population of less than 100,000 residents. Fifteen percent of prosecutors' offices were part-time offices with no full- time chief prosecutor (table 1). * State prosecutors' districts (85%) generally correspond with county boundaries. Alaska, Delaware, Connecticut, and Rhode Island had a single prosecutors' office for the entire state (not shown in table). Operating budgets and staffing levels * The total operating budget ($5.8 billion) of state prosecutors' offices in 2007 decreased by 5% from the $6.1 billion budget for 2001 (inflation-adjusted to 2007 dollars) (not shown in table). * The average operating budget for full-time prosecutors' offices in 2007 ranged from $526,000 for those serving fewer than 100,000 residents to $49.3 million in jurisdictions serving more than 1 million. The average part-time office's budget was $157,000 (table 2). * State prosecutors' offices employed almost 78,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff in 2007.*Footnote****Full-time equivalent (FTE) is a computed statistic calculated by dividing the total number of hours worked by part-time employees by the standard number of hours for a full-time employee (40 hours per week) and then adding the resulting quotient to the number of full-time employees.*** * The nearly 25,000 FTE assistant prosecutors employed in 2007 represented a 7% increase from the number reported in 2001 (not shown in table). * Prosecutors' offices serving populations of 1 million or more employed an average of 535 FTE staff, including 187 assistant prosecutors, 31 supervisory attorneys, 16 victim advocates, 51 investigators, and 183 support staff. * In full-time offices serving fewer than 100,000 residents, on average, offices included one chief prosecutor, three assistant prosecutors, one victim advocate, one legal services staff, one investigator, and three support staff. * Assistant prosecutors comprised 32% of the total staff in prosecutors' offices in 2007. Support staff, including administrative and clerical staff, accounted for 33% of the total staff (table 3). Felony cases processing and dispositions * Prosecutors' offices reported closing 2.9 million cases charged as felonies in 2007 through convictions, acquittals, dismissals, or other dispositions (table 4). * Offices in districts with more than 1 million residents closed an average of 17,652 felony cases in 2007. Offices serving jurisdictions with 250,000 to 999,999 residents closed an average of 4,431 felony cases. * In 2007, prosecuting attorneys in offices in districts with 100,000 to 249,999 residents closed an average of 121 felony cases each. The average caseload per prosecuting attorney across all full-time offices was 94 felony cases. * The budgeted cost per felony case closed, calculated as the total office budget in 2007 divided by the number of felony cases closed, was $2,792 in offices serving 1 million or more residents. * Prosecutors' offices reported 2.2 million convictions for cases charged as felonies in 2007. * Prosecutors' offices serving 1 million or more residents had an average of 11,952 felony case convictions, while full- time offices serving populations of less than 100,000 had an average of 315 felony case convictions. * Felony cases adjudicated through jury verdicts were rare across state prosecutors' offices, accounting for an average of 3% of all felony case dispositions and 2% of dispositions litigated by offices serving 1 million or more residents. Tenure and salary * The average annual salary of a chief prosecutor in 2007 was $98,000, with mean salaries ranging from $165,700 for chief prosecutors in the largest offices to less than $45,000 in part-time offices (table 5). * In 2007, the average tenure of a chief prosecutor was 9 years. * Sixty-four percent of chief prosecutors had been in office for more than 5 years, and 38% had been in office for more than 10 years. The longest serving prosecutor had been in the position for 42 years. * The average annual salary for assistant prosecutors ranged from $33,460 for entry-level assistant prosecutors in part- time offices to $108,434 for assistant prosecutors with 6 or more years of experience in offices serving jurisdictions of 1 million or more residents (table 6) * In offices serving 1 million or more residents, the average assistant prosecutor's salary started at $51,354 for those with no experience and at $73,010 for those with 6 years or more experience, a difference of 42% (figure 1). * In offices serving between 250,000 and 999,999 residents, the average assistant prosecutor's salary started at $47,580 for those with no experience and at $65,400 for those with 6 years or more experience, a difference of 37%. * In full-time offices serving less than 100,000 residents, the average assistant prosecutor's salary started at $42,380 for those with no experience and at $53,113 for those with 6 years or more experience, a difference of 25%. * In part-time offices the average assistant prosecutor's salary started at $33,460 for those with no experience and at $36,481 for those with 6 years or more experience, a difference of 9%. Threats against prosecutors' offices * In 2007, almost half (47%) of prosecutors' offices had received a written threat, a threatening phone call, a face- to-face threat, or had staff who were victims of battery or assault (table 7). * About 26% of offices reported receiving written threats, while 32% received threatening phone calls and 29% received face-to-face verbal threats. About 3% of offices reported that one of their staff had been a victim of battery or assault. * Most offices (89%) serving populations of 1 million or more received a threat during 2007, as did most offices (69%) in jurisdictions with 250,000 to 999,999 residents. * More than two-thirds of offices serving populations of 100,000 or more reported that the chief prosecutor, an assistant prosecutor, or a staff investigator carried a firearm. * The percentage of offices reporting that a staff investigator carried a firearm (34%) was greater than the percentage reporting that the chief prosecutor (21%) or assistant prosecutors (18%) carried one. * The percentage of prosecutors' staff that reported carrying firearms has remained steady since 2001. * The majority (58%) of offices that had received a threat reported that office staff carried a firearm, compared to 37% of offices that had not received a threat (not shown in table). Specific felony offenses * In 2007, the majority of prosecutors' offices reported prosecuting felony cases involving methamphetamine production (71%), child exploitation involving the internet (58%), or elder abuse (55%) (table 8). Methodology The 2007 National Census of State Court Prosecutors (NCSP-07) included 2,330 chief prosecutors in the United States that handled felony cases in state courts of general jurisdiction. State court prosecutors serve districts determined by each state's court structure. Data collection. The Urban Institute collected the data on behalf of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The National District Attorneys Association helped review the data collection instrument, provided their national directory of district attorneys, and provided a medium for advertisement via their bi-monthly publication, The Prosecutor. The Urban Institute conducted the collection through a mailed questionnaire and a web automated instrument. The NCSP-07 form is available on the BJS website at www.bjs.gov. Response rates. The NCSP-07 had an overall response rate of 95.6% from the 2,330 prosecutors' offices across the nation. After the initial mailings, BJS followed up to obtain a returned survey from each prosecutors' office. The follow-up process involved phone calls, email, fax communications, a second mailing of questionnaires, and follow-up letters. Completed surveys were received from 1,303 (56%) prosecutors' offices. Follow-up telephone calls, emails, and faxes resulted in an additional 924 (40%) offices providing a sufficient partially completed form, to make a final total of 2,227 responses from the eligible 2,330. A total of 4.4% (103) of the offices either did not respond (47) or directly refused participation (56). Among the 103 court prosecutors' offices that did not respond, 84% were in districts that served populations of less than 250,000. Calculated variables. Several variables were calculated using reported and imputed data collected from the survey instrument. * Full-time equivalent (FTE) is a computed statistic calculated by dividing the total number of hours part-time employees worked by the standard number of hours for a full-time employee (40 hours per week), and then adding the resulting quotient to the number of full-time employees. (See U.S. Census Bureau Government Employment, 1997, at http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/ meta/long_58632.htm.) * Attorneys carrying a caseload (supervisory attorneys, assistant prosecutors, and chief prosecutors) were included as FTE prosecuting attorneys. Managing attorneys who did not prosecute cases were excluded. * Cases closed per prosecuting attorney was calculated for each office by dividing the number of felony cases closed by the office in 2007 by the number of FTE prosecuting attorneys on staff in 2007. * The budgeted cost per felony case closed was calculated for each office by dividing the total office budget in 2007 by the number of felony cases closed. * The proportion of felony cases closed by jury verdict was calculated for each office by dividing the number of felony cases closed by jury verdict by the number of felony cases closed in 2007. Data Imputations BJS used a combination of hot and cold deck approaches to impute values for nine critical variables. These variables included the number of chief prosecutors, number of full-time assistant prosecutors, number of full-time staff, number of part-time staff, annual salary of chief prosecutor, total office operating budget, number of felony cases closed, number of felony cases resulting in a conviction, and the number of felony cases tried before a jury. Data were missing for approximately 6% of all offices for staffing critical variables, 16% of offices were missing budget information, and 23% of offices were missing caseload information (table 9). The 2007 data file was merged with the 2001 Census of State Court Prosecutors data file to allow imputation from previously collected valid data from the same prosecutorial office. For each jurisdiction with valid 2001 and 2007 data, an adjustment ratio was calculated as the ratio of the critical variable's 2001 value to its 2007 value. All ratios greater than the 90th percentile were discarded for imputation purposes. Where only 2001 data were available, a hot deck imputation procedure was employed to impute the adjustment ratio value from the jurisdiction's nearest neighbor in terms of state and population size. Where there were no suitable donors in the same state, a donor of similar population size was used. The 2001 data were then adjusted using the imputed adjustment ratio to create the imputed 2007 value for the missing critical variable. Adjusting for Inflation Financial data for fiscal years preceding 2007 were inflation adjusted using Gross Domestic Product (GDP) deflators prepared by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The GDP deflator chain-type price index, as appropriate for state and local government salaries, was applied to 2001 prosecutors' office salary data. The constant dollar salaries were then used to impute 2007 salary data for offices that did not provide salary data. (See table B-7, Chaintype price indexes for gross domestic product, 1962-2010, Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/ eop/tables11.html for further details.) ******************************************** Office of Justice Programs * Innovation * Partnerships * Safer Neighborhoods * http://www.ojp.gov ********************************************* ********************************************* The Bureau of Justice Statistics is the statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Justice. James P. Lynch is the director. These Statistical Tables were prepared and supporting text written by Steven W. Perry and Duren Banks. Howard Snyder verified the report. Catherine Bird and Jill Thomas edited the report, Barbara Quinn produced the report, and Jayne Robinson prepared the report for final printing under the supervision of Doris J. James. December 2011, NCJ 234211 The full text of each report is available in PDF and ASCII formats on the BJS website at www.bjs.gov. Tables are also available in PDF and CSV formats. Related datasets are made available on the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data website at http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/NACJD/index.jsp. ******************************************** 12/19/2011/JER/11:12am