United States Sentencing Commission

Recidivism Among Federal Firearms Offenders United States Sentencing Commission

The Commission's Ongoing Recidivism ResearchThe United States Sentencing Commission1 began studying recidivism shortly after the enactment of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 ("SRA"). The Commission's March 2016 publication, Recidivism Among Federal Offenders: A Comprehensive Overview, discusses the history of its recidivism studies in greater detail.2 Recidivism information is central to three of the primary purposes of punishment described in the SRA-specific deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation-all of which focus on prevention of future crimes through correctional intervention. Information regarding recidivism rates is also relevant to the Commission's obligation to formulate sentencing policy that "reflect[s], to the extent practicable, advancements in knowledge of human behavior as it relates to the criminal justice process."3 The Commission's consideration of recidivism by federal offenders was also central to its initial work in developing the criminal history provisions in the Guidelines Manual.4 Additionally, public attention to the size of the federal prison population and the costs of incarceration5 have highlighted the importance of studying recidivism among federal offenders.6 These factors remain important and continue to be a key consideration in the Commission's work. The Commission's current recidivism research substantially expands on the scope of previous Commission recidivism projects.7 In addition to a different set of offenders-U. S. citizen federal offenders released in 2005-the current project's study group is much larger than those in previous Commission studies. A larger study group provides the opportunity to develop useful conclusions about subgroups of federal offenders. This Report: Recidivism Among Federal Firearms OffendersPrevious Commission research has examined recidivism among federal offenders generally, as well as recidivism among offenders convicted of specific categories of offenses, including drug trafficking8 and violent offenses.9 This report provides a recidivism analysis of federal offenders convicted of firearms and ammunition offenses. The offenders in this report were selected using criteria that placed them into four groups that collectively form the "firearms offenders: "