News from TRAC

Major new offerings from TRAC

(06 Feb 2007) For several months, TRAC has offered on its public website at http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/bulletins/ very timely month-by-month reports and data tracking changes in the government's enforcement activities against white collar criminals, illegal drug peddlers, immigration violators and unlawful gun users and dealers. For these four broad areas, the public has been able to document what the government was doing almost as soon as it did it.

http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/bulletins/

TRAC has greatly expanded the offerings available at the bulletins link just above. For the latest available month, there are now twelve new reports containing information about both the recorded filings (prosecutions) and convictions for six specialized and revealing subjects: civil rights, environment, official corruption, organized crime, child pornography and government regulation. Now you can quickly get answers to questions like: "is the Bush Administration's monthly prosecution or conviction rate for each of these different areas up, down or about the same?"

These free summary reports in ten subject areas -- whether in broad categories like immigration or more focused groupings like official corruption -- are processed and updated by TRAC shortly after new data are received from the Justice Department.

In addition, TRAC is offering an entirely new service that provides a printer-ready PDF report containing detailed "listing" information about each defendant in a selected subject of special interest -- for example, those convicted of an environmental offense in a recent month in a particular federal judicial district. Although the Justice Department is withholding names and docket numbers (an action which TRAC has under appeal), the new listings still provide unique and very detailed information, organized by district, by statute and by judge. This new online listing service is not free, but is modestly priced: for example, for a $15 credit card charge, anyone can immediately obtain a great deal of information about the six defendants who were convicted in September in Los Angeles for crimes the government said involved child pornography and obscenity.