Simple Possession of Drugs in the Federal Criminal Justice System
September 21, 2016
(September 2016) The number of federal offenders whose most serious offense was simple drug possession increased nearly 400 percent during the six-year period between fiscal years 2008 and 2013. A change of this magnitude over a relatively short period of time triggered further investigation into these cases using data on offender and offense characteristics routinely collected by the United States Sentencing Commission, as well as additional data collected specifically for this project.