 |
|
WASHINGTON ― Federal prosecutors brought fewer drug cases in the first full five months of the Trump administration than they did over the same period last year under former President Barack Obama, according to new statistics released Thursday. The 9 percent drop in federal drug prosecutions came despite Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ desire to step up federal enforcement of drug laws.
Just 8,814 alleged drug offenders were federally prosecuted from February through June, down from 9,687 during the same time frame last year, according to data released by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
The number of prosecutions brought last month dropped even further: Just 1,578 new drug cases were brought in June, down 16.1 percent from May. The number of drug prosecutions brought over the course of the past year was down more than 27 percent from the number from five years ago.
The data indicate that it may take a while for the Trump administration to undo the work of the Obama administration, which narrowed the types of cases prosecuted by federal authorities and the types of charges brought against lower-level offenders
|
|
|
|
