We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

SENTENCING COMMISSION RELEASES STUDY ON MANDATORY MINIMUMS IN SEX CRIMES

The US Sentencing Commission issued a report last week examining the application of mandatory minimum penalties specific to federal sex offenses.

Relying on 2016 data, the 81-page report analyzes the two types of federal sex offenses with mandatory minimum penalties, sexual abuse and child pornography (CP) as well their impact on the Federal Bureau of Prisons population. Among its findings:

x

• Two out of three sex offenders receive a mandatory minimum sentence, and half of those sentences are for at least 15 years incarceration.

• Sex offenders convicted comprised only 4.2% of federal defendants sentenced in 2016, but sex offenses accounted for 19.4% of offenses carrying a mandatory minimum penalties.

• Between 2011 and 2016, sex offenses, however, increased in number and as a percentage of the federal docket, and sex offenders were more frequently convicted of an offense carrying a mandatory minimum penalty.

• Sex offenders are demographically different than offenders convicted of other offenses carrying mandatory minimum penalties. Native Americans are a larger percentage of sex abuse offenders than of any other offense carrying a mandatory minimum penalty. White offenders constituted over 80% of offenders convicted of a CP offense (80.9%). The average age for all CP offenders was 42, five years older than the average age for federal offenders convicted of any other mandatory minimum penalty.

• While there is little distinction between CP receipt possession offenses, the average sentence for receipt offense defendants, which carries a five-year mandatory minimum, is 30 months longer than the average sentence for offenders convicted of a possession offense, which carries no mandatory

US Sentencing Commission, Mandatory Minimum Penalties for Federal Sex Offenses (Jan. 2, 2019)

– Thomas L. Root