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Analysis of cases declined in Ramsey County, Minnesota

By Justice Innovation Lab Staff

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Definitions

Below are select definitions used throughout this report. You can also learn more about the prosecutorial process and use of data in prosecution through Justice Innovation Lab’s criminal justice explainer.
  • Case: A single charge, or multiple charges, covering all crimes of which a person is accused, stemming from a single incident.
  • Charge: The crime, defined by law, of which a person is accused. An arrest charge is determined by the arresting agency, such as a police department. A charge may change during the criminal legal process; therefore, the arrest charge may differ from the filed charge (determined by the prosecuting authority) or the disposition charge (final charge of record when the case is resolved).
  • Charged: To be formally accused of committing a crime by RCAO, through the act of filing a complaint.
  • Declination: A declination occurs when RCAO decides not to file a charge that law enforcement has referred for prosecution. There are several potential reasons for declination decisions. See Table A1 of the Appendix for a list of declination reasons used by RCAO.
  • Dismissal: A dismissal occurs when RCAO decides to drop a charge after a complaint has been filed. Dismissals are not evaluated in this report, but this definition is useful in distinguishing referred charges that are dropped without a complaint being filed (declination) and those that are dropped after a complaint has been filed (dismissal).
  • Disposition: The final outcome of a case. When RCAO declines to prosecute a case, the disposition of that case is a declination.
  • Disproportionality: In the context of this report, disproportionality refers to the over- or under-representation of one group relative to the general population. For example, Black individuals are over-represented in charge referrals since the percentage of Black individuals referred for prosecution is greater than the percentage of Black people in the general population.
  • Lead charge: The most severe crime a person has been accused of in a given case. In the RCAO data, this charge is indicated by a “lead charge” flag. “Lead charge” may be used interchangeably with the term “top charge.”
  • Referral: A case that has been sent (“referred”) to RCAO by law enforcement for prosecution. Not all arrests result in a referral.
  • Statistically significant: The probability that the event happened purely by chance is sufficiently small (i.e., less than 5%) that it can be concluded that there is likely an external explanation for the outcome.