October 1, 1999    NCJ 176328

Presents national-level statistics describing all aspects of processing in the Federal criminal justice system, including investigations by U.S. attorneys, prosecutions and declinations, pretrial release and detention, convictions and acquittals, sentencing, appeals, and corrections for 1997. Interactive tabulations of Federal criminal case processing data are available from the Federal Justice Statistics Resource Center.

Highlights include the following:

• During 1997 U.S. attorneys initiated criminal investigations of 110,034 suspects. They concluded investigations of 99,459 suspects.
• Criminal charges were filed in U.S. district courts against 69,351 defendants during 1997. Criminal cases were concluded against 64,956 defendants during 1997. Eighty-seven percent (or 56,570) of all defendants were convicted. Most felony convictions were obtained by guilty plea (93%).
• Drug defendants comprised 42% of felony convictions, defendants charged with property and public-order offenses each comprised 26% of the felony convictions, and defendants charged with violent offenses comprised the remaining 6% of felony convictions.

Part of the Compendium of Federal Justice Statistics Series

Full Report (PDF 827K)
Full Report - no tables (ASCII file 172K)
Introduction (PDF 142K)
Chapter 1: Prosecution (PDF 129K)
Chapter 1: Prosecution - 6 Spreadsheets (Zip format 18K)
Chapter 2: Pretrial release (PDF 171K)
Chapter 2: Pretrial release - 10 Spreadsheets (Zip format 35K)
Chapter 3: Adjudication (PDF 129K)
Chapter 3: Adjudication - 5 Spreadsheets (Zip format 35K)
Chapter 4: Sentencing (PDF 134K)
Chapter 4: Sentencing - 6 Spreadsheets (Zip format 22K)
Chapter 5: Appeals (PDF 120K)
Chapter 5: Appeals - 5 Spreadsheets (Zip format 19K)
Chapter 6: Corrections (PDF 237K)
Chapter 6: Corrections - 16 Spreadsheets (Zip format 63K)
Methodology (PDF 165K)
Codebooks and Datasets

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