TRAC: Weapons prosecutions decline

Tuesday, April 19, 2011, By News Staff

The latest available data from the Justice Department show that during January 2011, the U.S. government reported 484 new weapons prosecutions, the lowest level since January 2001. The comparisons of the number of defendants charged with weapons-related offenses are based on case-by-case information obtained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) under the Freedom of Information Act from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys.

The number of filings of weapons prosecutions is down 7.9 percent from January 2010, and down 28.8 percent from levels reported in January 2006.

To read the full report, go to http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/crim/249/

TRAC is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization at Syracuse University. The purpose of TRAC is to provide the American people—and institutions of oversight such as Congress, news organizations, public interest groups, businesses, scholars and lawyers—with comprehensive information about staffing, spending and enforcement activities of the federal government.