31 July 2007

Federal Prisoners By Sentence Imposed

These Bureau of Prisons numbers show overall, the length of the sentences that people currently in federal prison were sentenced to serve (as of a 2007 updated):

Less than 1 year: 3,227 (1.8%)
1-3 years: 23,096 (12.6%)
3-5 years: 28,209 (15.4%)
5-10 years: 54,459 (29.7%)
10-15 years: 34,937 (19.1%)
15-20 years: 15,953 (8.7%)
More than 20 years: 17,503 (9.6%)
Life: 5,708 (3.1%)
Death: 48

The principle offense of conviction is as follows:

Drug Offenses: 98,039 (53.6 %)
Weapons, Explosives, Arson: 26,279 (14.4 %)
Immigration: 19,464 (10.6 %)
Robbery: 9,578 (5.2 %)
Burglary, Larceny, Property Offenses: 6,903 (3.8 %)
Extortion, Fraud, Bribery: 7,980 (4.4 %)
Homicide, Aggravated Assault, and Kidnapping Offenses: 5,587 (3.1 %)
Miscellaneous: 2,157 (1.2 %)
Sex Offenses: 4,585 (2.5 %)
Banking and Insurance, Counterfeit, Embezzlement: 1,010 (0.6 %)
Courts or Corrections: 757 (0.4 %)
Continuing Criminal Enterprise: 569 (0.3 %)
National Security: 99 (0.1 %)

This mix, is, of course, very different from the mix in state prisons, as the federal criminal justice system focuses on drug, immigration and white collar crime cases.

A quick hit analysis here, shows that federal sentencing is broken. About 34% are first time, non-violent offenders, with drug cases involving people with minimal criminal records making up a big part of that number.

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