COSG's (Council of State Government's) Suggested State Legislation on Criminal Justice - Final Evaluation Report

• NCJ Number: 81956
• Author(s): M B Fischel
• Date Published: 1978
• Length: 93 pages
• Grant Number(s): 75-DF-99-0061
• Sponsoring Agency: Council of State Governments; US Dept of Justice
• Corporate Author: Mitre Corporation
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Mitre Technical Report MTR-7994

Annotation

This final report completes the evaluation of the Council of State Government's project that suggested State legislation on criminal justice standards and goals.

Abstract

The legislative models suggested were (1) a Plea Negotiations Act, which provides for formalization of the plea bargaining process to give the process a degree of visibility to the offender and the public; (2) a Diversion Program Act, which defines criteria for the use of prosecutor-based diversion and requires local prosecutors to establish formal procedures for the use of diversion programs; and (3) a Private Security Licensing and Regulatory Act, which establishes requirements for the State licensing of all contract security organizations and sets of registration and training criteria for the employees of these companies. Based on extensive telephone contacts with the legislative drafting agencies in the States, the study examined the extent of status of legislation similar in intent to the Council's three legislative models. Legislation similar to the Council's three model acts has been drafted 34 times since a dissemination of the model acts in August 1976. Through similar intent, much of the legislation identified differed in language, format, and in the extent to which it approached and included many of the specific points of the Council's models. There were, however, some instances of near verbatim use of the models. Most of the draftsmen surveyed found all of the topic areas to be relevant concerns for model legislation. Draftsmen also provided numerous comments regarding the general utility of the suggested State legislation format in promoting legislation in particular topic areas and for assisting bill draftsmen in developing the text of legislation. There was less agreement, however, about the utility of the format as a tool for assisting bill draftsmen to develop the text of specific legislative proposals. Tabular data are provided. The model acts and a State-by-State chart showing citation and status of legislation similar to the model acts are appended. (Author summary modified)