In early 2009, an Exploratory Committee was formed to investigate the potential creation of a Veterans Court in Maricopa County, Arizona. The Committee’s initial efforts have focused on examining existing Veterans Courts and determining the size and scope of the problem (i.e., the number of veterans in the county jail). This report provides an overview of information on veterans in the Maricopa County Jail System, drawing on data collected by the Arizona Arrestee Reporting Information Network (AARIN). This report is intended to assist the work of the Veterans Court Exploratory Committee.

The purpose of this report is to use data from a sample of recently booked arrestees in Maricopa County to examine the scope and nature of Maricopa County’s gang problem. In particular, this report supplements data presented in the bi-annual report on gangs conducted by the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission, which relies on official police data and their occasional white paper on gangs that relies on self-report data from school youth. We organized our analyses around six research questions: (1) what proportion of adult arrestees are involved in a gang, and what are the socio-demographic differences between those who are associated with a gang and those who are not; (2) what are the rituals associated with gang joining; (3) how do gang and non-gang arrestees differ in their experiences with crime, drug use and victimization; (4) what is the organizational structure and composition of gangs; (5) how do members socially identify with their gang; and (6) how and why do members leave their gang?

This report is one of several from Statistical Research Inc. written to develop the Cultural and Historic Resources Element of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. Divided into four parts, the report summarizes available information that reflects the experience of (1) ancient peoples of Southern Arizona; (2) indigenous peoples; (3) non-indigenous peoples of the historical period; and (4) Pima County today.

This contains two reports. The first is by authors from Statistical Research, Inc. that provides background information on the definition and application of the traditional cultural places designation under the National Historic Preservation Act. The second report is from the National Forest Service and expands on the first with examples of how traditional cultural places can be considered as part of land management planning.

This study covers the time period after 1200 A.D. in terms of the domestic landscape, the agricultural landscape, and the social landscape as the residents of southern Arizona adjust to upheaval and change in environmental and social conditions. This memorandum summarizes the study about the Classic Period and provides a comparison of findings and theories about area residents from both before and after 1200 A.D., which is the approximate time frame of the collapse and restructuring of cultural landscapes.

In 2006, the Bureau of Justice Statistics awarded a State Justice Statistics grant to the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission’s Statistical Analysis Center to conduct research on homicide in Arizona. The Center, with assistance from local law enforcement officials, and researchers from the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University, collected homicide data from the following sources: Supplemental Homicide Reports, law enforcement homicide case files, and autopsy reports. The purpose of this report is to provide a general description of the scope and nature of the homicide problem in Arizona. Specifically, this report examines the general characteristics of victims and offenders, the circumstances surrounding homicide incidents, temporal patterns when homicides occur, and the geographic characteristics where homicides took place.

Over the past year anecdotal evidence from media reports has suggested disproportionate levels of crime and violence occurring at Circle K stores in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Criminal events depicted by the media often took the form of individuals engaging in some type of minor criminal activity at a Circle K, and the events spiraling out of control. As a consequence of these observations, and subsequent federally sponsored research examining problem places in Glendale, Arizona, faculty and staff from the Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety at Arizona State University reached out to several valley police departments and requested official data to more systematically examine this potential problem. This report presents our findings and our recommendations.