Conviction rate

The conviction rate of a prosecutor or government is the number of convictions divided by the number of criminal cases brought.

Japan has a conviction rate that exceeds 99% (Note that it includes guilty plea cases.[1]), which has been attributed to low prosecutorial budgets impelling understaffed prosecutors to present judges with only the most obviously guilty defendants.[2] In the U.S. federal court system, the conviction rose from approximately 75 percent to approximately 85% between 1972 and 1992.[3] For 2012, the US Department of Justice reported a 93% conviction rate.[4] The conviction rate is also high in U.S. state courts. Coughlan writes, "In recent years, the conviction rate has averaged approximately 84% in Texas, 82% in California, 72% in New York, 67% in North Carolina, and 59% in Florida."[5] The Crown Court has a conviction rate of 80%, according to the BBC.[6] China had 99.93 percent conviction rate in 2013.[7]

References

  1. ↑ Hideki Igeta (Jan 2001), Conviction Rate in the U.S. is 99%? (Amerika no yuzairitsu wa 99%?) 1044, Hanrei Taimuzu, pp. 54–59
  2. ↑ J. Mark Ramseyer and Eric B. Rasmusen (Jan 2001), Why Is the Japanese Conviction Rate so High? 30 (1), The Journal of Legal Studies, pp. 53–88
  3. ↑ Sara Sun Beale, Federalizing Crime: Assessing the Impact on the Federal Courts 543, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
  4. ↑ "United States Attorneys’ Annual Statistical Report for Fiscal Year 2012" (PDF). United States Department of Justice. Retrieved 2014-10-28.
  5. ↑ Peter J. Coughlan (Jun 2000), In Defense of Unanimous Jury Verdicts: Mistrials, Communication, and Strategic Voting 94 (2), The American Political Science Review, pp. 375–393
  6. ↑ "FA defends its discipline system". BBC News.
  7. ↑ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/03/11/china-scored-99-9-percent-conviction-rate-last-year/