TRAC: Non-immigration federal prosecutions fall

Wednesday, February 2, 2011, By News Staff

According to a new analysis of Justice Department data and other records by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), federal criminal enforcement under President Obama is significantly different than it was during the last two years of the Bush Administration. One key finding is that with the increasing focus on immigration, other kinds of felony prosecutions—particularly in those districts not on the border with Mexico—have actually gone down. This decline has occurred even though the number of federal prosecutors and investigators has risen.

To read the full report, go to: http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/crim/245.

Also uncovered during the study by TRAC were pronounced geographic shifts where federal prosecutions occur. One aspect of these shifts is information about enforcement changes in each of the 94 judicial districts.

In its examination, TRAC analyzed the enforcement efforts of the two administrations by comparing more than 500,000 case-by-case records obtained from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys under the Freedom of Information Act, as well as information from the Office of Personnel Management and other sources.