Research

Research
The Commission collects, analyzes, and disseminates a broad array of information on federal crime and sentencing practices. The Office of Research and Data collects data from documents submitted by the courts in each case in which a defendant is sentenced. From that data, the Commission prepares and disseminates public reports on a wide variety of sentencing issues. The Commission also uses this data in its consulting capacity to the courts, Congress, and the Executive Branch.


Explore our research and data reports below or download our datafiles and perform your own analysis.

Federal Sentencing Statistics


Sourcebooks contain descriptive statistics on the application of the federal sentencing guidelines and provides selected district, circuit, and national sentencing data. The Interactive Data Analyzer (IDA) is an online tool that can be used to explore, filter, customize, and visualize federal sentencing data for research, policymaking, and sentencing purposes.



Research Reports
Data Reports
  • (December 2024) The preliminary data in these reports present selected quarterly sentencing information submitted to the Commission by the U.S. Courts.

  • (October 2024) This report provides an analysis of the compassionate release motions filed with the courts. 

  • (October 2024)  These retroactivity reports present data on either: 1) the potential impact of retroactive application of a guideline amendment, or 2) motions for a reduced sentence considered as a result of a retroactive federal statute or guideline amendment.

  • (July 2024) When possible, the Commission performs sentencing and prison impact reports as part of its consideration of amendments to the federal sentencing guidelines and when requested by Congress.

  • (May 2024) These annual reports provide data on the frequency of application of specific guidelines, including increases for aggravating factors and decreases for mitigating factors.

  • (April 2024) These reports compare FY 2023 federal sentencing statistics for each judicial district, judicial circuit, and state to the nation as a whole.

Data Briefings
Commission Datafiles

The Commission's individual datafiles provide information on the sentences imposed in cases involving individuals. In these datafiles the individual is the unit of analysis. These datafiles do not contain information from the Commission's Organizational, Resentencing, or Appeals Databases.

The Commission's organizational datafiles provide information on the sentences imposed in cases involving organizations (i.e., corporations, partnerships, and other entities having a legal existence separate from the individuals having an interest in them).

Commission datafiles that are used in various reports to Congress. These datafiles may contain information collected during a special coding project performed for a particular report and, therefore, will not be available in the Commission's fiscal year datafiles.

 

Quick Facts
  • Of the 64,124 cases reported to the Commission in fiscal year 2023, 4,855 involved Theft, Property Destruction, and Fraud. Of those cases, 4.1% involved Securities and Investment Fraud, down 19% since fiscal year 2019. [1], [2], [3] Click the cover for the PDF handout or learn more below. Individual...

  • Of the 64,124 cases reported to the Commission in fiscal year 2023 17,080 involved an offense carrying a statutory mandatory minimum penalty. 16.3% of all individuals were subject to a mandatory minimum penalty at sentencing. [1] Click the cover for the PDF handout or learn more below. Overview 26.6...