Court Caseload Statistics

The Uses of Court Statistics

Judges, court administrators, and other court personnel are the direct consumers of court statistics. For these individuals, statistics are the raw material of information essential for operational, management, and planning functions. The most basic use of court statistics is for operational control, which consists of ensuring that employees carry out routine, day-to-day activities at the local court level. Court clerks, administrators, jury commissioners, and the like use court statistics for such operational purposes as calendar preparation, attorney and witness notification lists, scheduling of courtrooms, bail accounting, and jury use.

Management control at the local and especially at the state level should aim at optimum use of resources and procedures in the court system as a whole. To facilitate this kind of decision making, the data collected for operational purposes must be culled and augmented to produce both exception data and summary data. Then, one can meaningfully compare these data with already-existing and potential problem areas. The goal is using caseload data to gain improvements to court processes and systemwide efficiencies in the use of court resources. Stress is on integration of operational tasks and optimum use of resources to achieve such management objectives as reductions in case delay, workload analysis to determine judge need and allocation, and comparing case-processing time to established norms or guides.

Planning and research require the use of sound and comprehensive court statistical data to establish longterm objectives and to identify evolving problems and litigation trends. Comparability of published statistics among states assists goal setting and policy planning by providing a relative yardstick against which states can assess performance and measure the possible impact of legislation and of procedures for forecasting budget requirements. Appropriate caseload statistics are useful for analyzing reversal rates and sentencing disparities, studying bail availability and uniformity, and reviewing effects of plea negotiation.

There are many uses for judicial statistics beyond those necessary to serve the operational, management, and planning functions of courts. The other branches of government, the media, and the public at large all have a stake in our court system; and their awareness and understanding of court operations are essential if they are to be knowledgeable in their relations with the courts. Legislatures and executive agencies require data effectively to plan structural and procedural changes that affect the courts. Because legislatures must provide the statutes that authorize court reforms, statistical data substantiating arguments of state court officials should be furnished to them.

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