Bureau of Justice Statistics releases “Federal Justice Statistics, 2023”

The Bureau of Justice Statistics just released this new report, titled “Federal Justice Statistics, 2023,” which is decribed this way in the email sent my way:

The Bureau of Justice Statistics, in the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, today released Federal Justice Statistics, 2023. This report describes cases processed by the federal criminal justice system, including the U.S. Marshals Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, Federal Bureau of Prisons, and U.S. Sentencing Commission.

This is the 37th report in an annual series based on data from BJS’s Federal Justice Statistics Program, which began in 1979. It provides national statistics on the federal response to crime for fiscal year 2023 and some statistics on changes over time. The report describes case processing in the federal criminal justice system, including investigations by U.S. attorneys, prosecutions and declinations, convictions and acquittals, sentencing, probation and supervised release, and imprisonment.

This document has an extraordinary amount of interesting data, and here is a small portion of the case processing and sentencing particulars:

About 91% of the 71,866 defendants adjudicated in FY 2023 were convicted (table 6). Nearly all defendants charged with immigration (98%), weapons (94%), drug or other regulatory offenses (both 92%) offenses were convicted. About 89% of defendants adjudicated pled guilty. Two percent of defendants were convicted through a bench or jury trial. Defendants adjudicated in U.S.Mexico border districts had a higher conviction rate (96%) than defendants in non-border districts (88%).  Among felony offenses, rates of nonconviction ranged from 2% for immigration offenses to 12% for public order regulatory offenses.  The largest percentage of adjudicated cases that were not convicted were dismissed or otherwise concluded by the judge or prosecutor (9%).  Acquittals (median 475 days), dismissals (median 469 days), and guilty pleas (median 302 days) took less time to process from case filing to disposition than trials that ended in convictions (median 797 days)….

Of the 65,482 defendants convicted in U.S. district court in FY 2023, more than three-quarters (76%) were sentenced to prison (table 7).  The remainder received probation only (8%), a fine only (2%), or other sentence (15%), which includes case dismissals, sealed cases, or sentences to time served.  In 2023, about 79% of persons convicted of a felony received a prison sentence.  Persons convicted of violent (93%), drug (90%), or weapons (89%) felonies were most likely to receive prison terms. Twenty-one percent of persons convicted of a misdemeanor received a prison sentence in FY 2023….

Convicted defendants received a median sentence of 108 months in prison for a violent offense, 72 months for a drug offense, and 60 months for a nonregulatory public order offense.  Nonregulatory public order offenses include receipt and distribution of child sexual exploitation materials, or child pornography.  These offenses carry lengthy mandatory minimum penalties, which will increase the overall sentence length of this group of offenses. The median prison term for immigration defendants convicted of a felony was 14 months.