The data contain records of defendants in federal criminal cases filed in United States District Court during fiscal year 1997. The data were constructed from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA) Central System file. According to the EOUSA, the United States attorneys conduct approximately 95 percent of the prosecutions handled by the Department of Justice. The Central System data contain variables from the original EOUSA files as well as additional analysis variables, or "SAF" variables, that denote subsets of the data. These SAF variables are related to statistics reported in the Compendium of Federal Justice Statistics. Variables containing identifying information (e.g., name, Social Security Number) were replaced with blanks, and the day portions of date fields were also sanitized in order to protect the identities of individuals. These data are part of a series designed by the Urban Institute (Washington, DC) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Data and documentation were prepared by the Urban Institute.