CONTEXT Under current federal law, many persons with prior convictions for misdemeanor offenses pass criminal records background checks and legally purchase handguns. OBJECTIVE To determine whether authorized handgun purchasers with prior misdemeanor convictions are more likely than those with no criminal history to be charged with new crimes, particularly offenses involving firearms and viol...

There are an estimated 60,000 evaluations annually for competence to stand trial for felony indictments and likely more for misdemeanor indictments. Thus, there is an increasing interest in determining factors associated with a defendant's likelihood of being restored to competence to stand trial. Although previous studies have found that a misdemeanor charge predicts significantly less likelih...

Individuals convicted of violent misdemeanor crimes are at greatly increased risk for subsequent violence, but may purchase firearms under federal law. Felons may not. This 2013 study re-analyzed data collected in 1999 for 787 violent misdemeanants who purchased handguns in California in 1989 or 1990. Nearly 40% had violent misdemeanor convictions resulting from felony charges and would have be...

Alcohol availability has been linked to drunk driving, but research has not examined whether this relationship is the same for first-time and repeat offenses. We examined the relationship between the business hours of alcohol outlets licensed to serve alcohol for on-premises consumption and misdemeanor-level (first offense) and felony-level drunk driving (repeat offense) charges in New York Sta...

Every year, there are substantial numbers of juveniles who come into contact with police and the legal system. In 2000, 2.4 million juveniles (17 years or younger) were formally arrested, 32% (758,208) of whom aged 14 years and younger (Snyder, 2002). Many more children interact with law enforcement but are not officially arrested. And, as the above quote indicates, what occurs during the polic...