Conviction rate

The conviction rate of a prosecutor or government is the number of convictions divided by the number of criminal cases brought.

The criminal justice system of Japan has a conviction rate that exceeds 99% (Note that it includes guilty plea cases.), which has been attributed to low prosecutorial budgets impelling understaffed prosecutors to present judges with only the most obviously guilty defendants. In the U.S. federal court system, the conviction rose from approximately 75 percent to approximately 85% between 1972 and 1992. For 2012, the US Department of Justice reported a 93% conviction rate. The conviction rate is also high in U.S. state courts. Coughlan writes, "In recent years, the conviction rate has averaged approximately 84% in Texas, 82% in California, 72% in New York, 67% in North Carolina, and 59% in Florida." The Crown Court has a conviction rate of 80%, according to the BBC.