US Sentencing Commission starts releasing latest “Quick Facts” publications
I noticed that the US Sentencing Commission has started releasing a new set of its terrific “Quick Facts” publications with updates drawing on the USSC’s full fiscal year 2023 data. Long-time readers have long heard me praise the USSC for producing these convenient and informative short data documents, which are designed to “give readers basic facts about a single area of federal crime in an easy-to-read, two-page format.” Here are the newesr postings by the USSC on the “Quick Facts” page:
Offender Groups
- NEW Individuals in the Federal Bureau of Prisons (May 2024)
- NEW Career Offenders (May 2024)
Drugs
- NEW Drug Trafficking (May 2024)
- NEW Methamphetamine Trafficking (May 2024)
- NEW Fentanyl Trafficking (May 2024)
- NEW Fentanyl Analogue Trafficking (May 2024)
There are any number of interesting factual nuggets in these documents that are fascinating, but I continue to be struck by how much of the federal caseload (and federal prison population) is consumed by drug cases and especially methamphetamine and various opioid. Crack cocaine and marijuana cases, which have long garnered so much attention, are now just a tiny piece of an otherwise still large federal drug war reality.