News from TRAC

Immigration still driving prosecutions upward

(29 May 2009) After several months of declines since reaching all-time highs in September, new immigration prosecutions in February were up 22% from the previous month. According to timely case-by-case data obtained and analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), these 8,179 cases represent an increase of about 90% from a year ago, and 250% from February 2004.

While immigration cases still account for more than half (53%) of all new federal prosecutions, new filings rose in nearly every other category as well, including drugs (up 49%), weapons (up 19%), white collar crime (up 24%) and government regulation (up 42%). Overall, new criminal cases are at the second-highest level recorded, up 27% from January and up 39% from a year ago.

TRAC provides free reports on current enforcement trends. Go to

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

for national summary reports on convictions and prosecutions, as well as reports on program areas and selected government agencies such as the IRS, FBI, DHS and DEA. The February 2009 criminal data are also available to TRACFED subscribers via the Express, Going Deeper and Analyzer tools. Go to http://tracfed.syr.edu for more information. Customized reports for a specific agency, district, program, lead charge or judge are available via the TRAC Data Interpreter, either as part of a TRACFED subscription or on a per-report basis. Go to http://trac.syr.edu/interpreter to start.

TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the US Federal government. To help support TRAC's ongoing efforts, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/sponsor/