Federal Drug Prosecutions Declined for Past Five Years

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Law Enforcement: Federal Drug Prosecutions Declined for Past Five Years 6/2/06

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/438/fewer.shtml

The latest Justice Department data show that federal drug prosecutions have been declining for the past five years, Syracuse University's Transactional Records Analysis Clearinghouse (TRAC) reported this week. Based on the most recent available figures, federal prosecutors filed 1,965 drug cases in January, down 8.7% from the previous month, 8.1% from the previous year, and 39.3% from January 2001. If US Magistrate Courts, which typically handle federal drug misdemeanors, are included, the five-year decline is a smaller 28.8%.

TRAC did not attempt to identify reasons for the decline. Federal white collar crime prosecutions are also down over the five-year period, with a 34.5% decline, and felony immigration prosecutions also dropped by 2.7%. (On immigration prosecutions, however, the number of cases tried in US Magistrate Courts rose by 102%.) Federal firearms prosecutions, on the other hand, increased by 32.5% over the last five years.

The 1,965 federal drug cases filed in January accounted for more cases than weapons and white collar crime combined. There were 761 federal weapons cases filed in January and 517 white collar crime cases. Federal prosecutors also initiated more than 3,000 immigration-related cases, but most of them will be handled by US magistrates.

As befits its role as the federal government's lead drug-fighting agency, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) accounted for 57% of all new prosecutions. Referrals from state and local law enforcement came in second at 12%, followed by the Department of Homeland Security (11%), the FBI (7%), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (5%).

Federal drug law prosecutions vary by region, but the most recent figures show some surprises. The most federal drug prosecutions per capita in January occurred in the Northern District of West Virginia, with 37 per 100,000 population. An unsurprising second was the Western District of Texas with 26 per 100,000. The rest of the top ten in rank order are the Northern District of Mississippi, the Eastern District of Oklahoma, the Eastern District of Tennessee, Wyoming, South Dakota, Montana, the Eastern District of Missouri, and the Southern District of Alabama. Except for Alabama and its sea coast and Texas and the Mexican border, all of the top ten are rural areas of the country not normally associated with massive drug problems. Except for Western Texas, where smuggling remains a constant, only West Virginia was in the top ten five years ago, coming in at number ten.