Legal Terms
Case: A case is a collection of all charges against a defendant arising out of a one or more incidents. In this dashboard, cases are classified by their most serious charge (the crime that a defendant is accused of committing).
Conviction: The outcome of criminal case when a defendant is determined to be guilty of a crime.
Crime: An act prohibited by statute that is punishable by imprisonment (incarceration in jail or the prison system). A person found guilty of a crime can also be placed on probation or receive a fine.
Defendant: The person against whom a criminal case is pending.
Disposition: The resolution of a case, which may include deferral, dismissal, read in, acquittal, or a conviction through guilty plea or trial.
Filing a case: Prosecutors review arrest reports/referrals for each case referred by law enforcement. If the prosecutor determines the evidence supports a good faith belief in conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, the case is filed and continues until resolution.
Plea agreement: An agreement between the prosecution and the defendant defining the specific conditions and crimes to which a defendant chooses to plead guilty.
Referred: A case is referred when it is submitted to the District Attorney’s Office for review by law enforcement. This includes investigations, arrests, warrants, notices to appear, citations, and other requests for prosecution.
Sentence: The sanction imposed by court following conviction in a criminal case, which may include fines, community service, probation, jail, or prison.
Victim: A victim is a person who has suffered direct or threatened physical psychological, or financial harm as a result of the commission or attempted commission of a crime.
Charge Levels
Felony: Felonies are the most serious criminal violations of Wisconsin state laws, and include crimes such murder, rape, robbery, and burglary. In Wisconsin, any crime punishable by imprisonment in the Wisconsin state prisons is a felony. Sentences following conviction for a felony may include fines, probation, jail, and prison.
Misdemeanor: Misdemeanors are less serious criminal violations of Wisconsin state laws, and include any crime not punishable by a sentence in the Wisconsin state prisons. A person convicted of a misdemeanor cannot be sentenced to state prison, unless the misdemeanor sentence is served simultaneously (concurrently) with a felony sentence. Misdemeanors cover a wide range of offenses, including operating while intoxicated (OWI), simple assault, or disorderly conduct.
Offense Types
Bail Jumping/Escape: Includes the crime of failing to comply with the terms of pretrial release. If the original offense with which the person was charged is a misdemeanor, bail jumping is misdemeanor; if the original offense with which the person was charged is a felony, bail jumping is a felony.
Drug: Includes crimes that involve controlled substances, such as all crimes related to possession, possession for sale, and sale of illegal drugs.
OWI/Driving: Includes crimes that involve driving under the influence, hit and run, careless driving, driver’s license violations, driving without insurance, leaving the scene of an accident, reckless driving, and other vehicle/traffic charges.
Person: Includes crimes that involve physical harm to a person, such as homicide, assault, domestic violence, child abuse, kidnapping, human trafficking, false imprisonment, stalking, neglect, or robbery.
Property: Includes crimes that involve harm to property or are financial in nature, such as burglary, car theft, hit and run, and many theft related crimes.
Public Order/Other: Includes all other crimes, such as contributing to the delinquency of a minor, bribery or tampering, retaliation against judge/prosecutor, disorderly conduct, false report/emergency, escape, or violations of an order of protection.
Sex: Includes sexual assault (including sexual assault on a child and sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust), sexual contact, sexual exploitation, incest, enticement, internet luring, sexual human trafficking, prostitution charges, indecent exposure and public indecency.
Weapon: Includes crimes that involve the possession or use of a weapon, such as possession of a weapon, carrying a concealed weapon, or other weapons charges.
Dispositions
Acquitted: A case is acquitted when a judge or jury at trial determines that the defendant is not guilty of the crime for which the individual has been charged.
Deferred:A Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) in Wisconsin is a voluntary contract between the District Attorney and an accused individual. It allows a defendant to avoid formal conviction by completing specific court-ordered conditions in exchange for having their charges reduced or completely dismissed
Dismissed: A case is dismissed when all the criminal charges in the case are terminated after the case is filed, either by the court or by the prosecutor. There can be several reasons for why a case is dismissed, including: a lack of evidence or unavailability of a witness or as part of a plea agreement.
Diverted: Diversion is an alternative solution that can take many forms, but it usually involves a suspension of formal criminal proceedings against a defendant, where after completion of certain conditions (such as treatment that addresses the underlying causes of criminal behavior), the defendant has their charges dismissed.
Found Guilty: A defendant is found guilty when found guilty at trial of any charge.
Pled Guilty: A defendant pleads guilty when they admit a factual basis for the plea and acknowledges guilt for a charge, sometimes in exchange for a more lenient sentence.
Read In:“Read-in crime” means any crime that is dismissed as part of a plea agreement that the defendant agrees to be considered by the court at the time of sentencing in the current case or in another case.
Sentences
Jail: A custodial sentence to local incarceration, generally for misdemeanor cases and some felonies.
Non-custodial sentence: Includes sentences in which the defendant does not serve any incarceration, including fines, community service, and probation. Probation is a sentence to supervision of a defendant in the community involving standard terms and conditions.
Prison: A custodial sentence to state prison. A prison sentence can be imposed only following conviction for a felony offense.
Probation: A sentence to supervision of a defendant in the community involving standard terms and conditions, as well as special conditions imposed by a court.
Demographics
Age: Defendant and victim age is calculated at the time the case is filed.
Gender: Gender is defined as determined by law enforcement in the following categories: Male, Female, Other.
Population by sex was generated from information publicly available through the United States Census Bureau.
Race/Ethnicity: Race is defined as the racial category as determined by law enforcement in the following categories: Asian, Black, Latino/a, and White. Because we believe that Hispanic individuals are underreported in the data from the case management system, we used defendants' last names to better identify Hispanic individuals. Based on procedures employed by the Colorado Department of Public Safety in their CLEAR Act Reporting, we recategorized any individual as Hispanic who met the following criteria: 1. their race was identified as "White," "other," or their race was missing and 2. the 2010 census file ("surnames occurring 100 or more times") identified their surname as having 85% or more individuals with that surname as "Hispanic or Latino."
Population by race/ethnicity was generated from information publicly available through the United States Census Bureau. In 2020 the U.S. Census collected race and ethnicity as two questions: one for ethnicity, “Hispanic or Latino” and “Not Hispanic or Latino”, and another for race with six categories: “White,” “Black or African American,” “American Indian or Alaska Native,” “Asian”, “Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander”, and “Some Other Race”. To best compare the general population to the population of individuals with criminal cases filed, we have used similar logic to categorize individuals. If the individual is identified as Latino/a and White, they are categorized as Latino/a. If the individual’s race is logged as Black, they are categorized as Black regardless of their ethnicity.