Name: Sentencing data (Lagföringsdata)
Period(s): 1968-1984 (SMS) Code book: IV

Information
Information on the cohort members’ criminality has been collected from the National police register (Person- och belastningsregistret, PBR) for convicted persons. The information available includes the date of the conviction, the number and types of crimes in the conviction and also the imposed sanction. The data on the individuals begins when reach the age of 15 and continues until they turn 31 years (first half of 1984). The register contains only sentences, waiver of prosecutions and orders of summary penalties. Breach-of-regulations fines (e.g., parking tickets and minor traffic and/or customs infractions) are thus not included.

The data file comprises of a large number of crimes, coded in 66 different categories. For every conviction there is information about the type of sanction. In the cases where the cohort member has been sentenced to imprisonment, the imposed time is available. This sentencing data has been estimated in such a way as to reflect the actual amount of time an individual spends in custody (i.e., it takes early release and re-incarceration due to parole violations into
consideration).

There may be more than one count in each conviction. In addition, each count may include more than one crime. The number of crimes the individual has been convicted for in one count is in the PBR file coded as 1 – 9, ‘more than nine crimes’ or ‘unknown’. In the data file, ‘more than nine crimes’ is coded as ten, and when the number of crimes is unknown, the number is coded as one.

A conviction may contain more than one count of the same type of crime, which may have been committed on different occasions. A conviction during a specific year might, therefore, contain crimes committed in the current and/or previous year(s).