Research

Scope and Content Note

This series consists of incoming and outgoing correspondence; annual (more specifically entitled "interim") reports, studies, published and unpublished reports; newspaper clippings; rough notes; typescript, printed, and galley proofs of drafts of bills; minutes of public hearings; and memoranda generated and received by the Temporary State Commission to Revise the Penal Law and Criminal Code.

The records of the commission are arranged into four subseries: subject files; bill drafting files; hearing files containing transcripts and related records pertaining to hearings held by the commission; and publications and unpublished reports accumulated by and generated by the commission.

The subject files (six cubic feet) deal with a variety of questions dealt with by the Commission including abortion; adultery; arson; assault; birth control; bribery; burglary; capital punishment; disorderly conduct; entrapment;; extortion; extradition; firearms control; gambling; homocide; insanity; kidnapping; larceny; malicious mischief; obscenity; narcotics; parole; post-conviction remedies; public intoxication; prostitution; probation; prisons; restitution; search and seizure; sentencing; and youthful offenders.

The hearing files consist of two cubic feet of transcripts and typed copies of statements presented at various hearings held throughout the state by the commission. The subseries deals with several issues studied by the commission such as illegally seized evidence, capital punishment, pre-trial imprisonment, compulsory finger-printing and photographing, arrests without warrants, and electronic eaves-dropping.

The final subseries (one cubic foot) consists mainly of miscellaneous publications collected by the Commission during its existence. The records deal with the death penalty, prison industry, court reorganizations, birth control and welfare, prearraignment procedures, alcoholism, and criminal behavior. The subseries also contains the annual reports issued by the Commission from 1962 through 1968. These "interim" reports are particularly useful in determining the amount of revision acomplished by the Commission in a given year as well as citing specific problems or issues faced by them.