Background
The Plea Tracker presented here was developed by the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke University School of Law to provide a tool to allow for evidence-based, data-driven prosecutorial decision making. It has been widely documented that the vast majority of criminal convictions in the U.S. are the result of pleas and that there is a dearth of information on how prosecutors and defendants arrive at plea terms. The goal of this plea tracker is to give prosecutorial offices a means to better understand this black box of plea terms.
Workflow
The Plea Tracker is designed to collect data on cases that have concluded through either a plea agreement or trial (or in some instances a dismissal). For such cases, line prosecutors complete a set of questions that describe defendant and case characteristics, information on plea offers and agreements, trials (if relevant), and case outcomes. Some questions may need to be tailored by jurisdiction and/or context within which an office is using this tool. This information can be used in aggregate to understand how aspects of a case, victim impact or demographics, and defendant factors influence prosecutorial decision-making. Offices can examine information on "distance travelled" of a case by following the initial charge to the final plea offer. Importantly, offices can learn what factors affected negotiations of plea agreements. By having aggregate information, offices can explore how factors affecting plea agree may differ by defendant characteristics, types of charges, and across various teams within the office.
The Plea Tracker
This Plea Tracker link is intended to share the tracker that we have developed with and for local offices. It is NOT intended to collect real data; thus certain fields have been turned off (e.g., names, birthdates). For implementation in new districts, certain questions may need to be tailored to align with the jurisdiction's policies and practices. Further, depending upon local data collection procedures and the ability to integrate those data with other sources, certain questions may not be necessary as they would otherwise be duplicative.
Coming soon
We will post updates to the tracker as well as tools for analyzing the data including a codebook and R Code for descriptive statistics and share an example memorandum of understanding.
Acknowledgements
This work is supported by funding from the Arnold Ventures, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies.
The plea tracker was developed by a team. Contributors are listed below (alphabetically)
Lauren Clatch, JD/PhD
William E. Crozier, PhD
Kevin Dahagi, PhD
Kelly E. Evans, MPH
Brandon L. Garrett, JD
Elizabeth J. Gifford, PhD
Catherine A. Grodensky, MPH
Adele Quigley-McBride, PhD
Jennifer Teitcher, PhD
We would also like to thank the members of our partner offices from Durham, North Carolina and Berkshire, Massachusetts for their input, feedback, and efforts in implementing the plea tracker.
Usage Policy
Use of the plea tracker and/or subsequent implementation of the content presented here is free of charge. We do ask for the following:
- Send us an email at wcsj@law.duke.edu to let us know that you are planning to (or are) using the tracker. Please include:
- A point of contact (name, title, email, mailing address)
- The jurisdiction(s) in which this will be used
- The types of cases that will be track
- Anticipated start of data collection
- Send us feedback on your experiences with the plea tracker
- Cite us!: Wilson Center for Science and Justice (2023). Plea Tracker Version Spring 2023. Duke Law School. Durham, North Carolina
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