News from TRAC

Federal Criminal Referrals and Prosecutions Begin Slow Recovery in June

(20 Jul 2020) The latest case-by-case data show that federal criminal referrals and prosecutions increased modestly from their abnormally depressed levels since the Trump administration issued new guidance on Sunday evening, March 15, allowing some federal employees to work from home.

Overall referrals for criminal prosecutions to federal prosecutors from investigative agencies were 9,666 in June, up slightly from 8,490 during May. However, June levels were still 45 percent below referrals levels in February before COVID-19 impacts were generally felt.

June prosecution numbers (6,176) rebounded considerably from May levels (3,652). June figures, however, still represented a 55.4 percent drop from February 2020 federal prosecution levels.

The least overall declines in referrals and prosecutions were registered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The two immigration enforcement agencies - Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) - experienced the largest declines between February and June 2020.

These comparisons were based upon case-by-case Department of Justice records obtained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University after successful litigation under the Freedom of Information Act.

To read the full report with month-by-month details on criminal referrals and prosecutions for the five lead investigatory agencies go to:

https://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/crim/618

In addition to these most recent figures, TRAC continues to offer free monthly reports on selected government agencies such as the FBI, ATF, DHS and the IRS. TRAC's reports also monitor program categories such as immigration, drugs, weapons, and terrorism. Even more detailed criminal enforcement information for the period from FY 1986 through June 2020 is available to TRACFed subscribers via Express and Going Deeper 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

https://trac.syr.edu/interpreter

If you want to be sure to receive a notification whenever updated data become available, sign up at:

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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:

https://trac.syr.edu/cgi-bin/sponsor/sponsor.pl