By Mark A. Motivans
This report provides national statistics on the federal response to crime for fiscal year 2023 and some statistics on changes over time. It describes case processing in the federal criminal justice system, including investigations by U.S. attorneys, prosecutions and declinations, convictions and acquittals, sentencing, probation and supervised release, and imprisonment. It also includes a new section detailing the federal criminal justice system’s response to immigration violations. This is the 37th report in an annual series based on data from BJS’s Federal Justice Statistics Program, which began in 1979.
Highlights
During fiscal year (FY) 2023, 94,411 suspects were arrested by federal law enforcement and booked by the U.S. Marshals Service, a 3% decrease from 96,857 in FY 2022.
Of the 25,110 Drug Enforcement Administration arrests in FY 2023, the most common type of drug involved was methamphetamine (7,381 arrests), followed by other opioids (6,688 arrests), which includes fentanyl.
The median number of days from the receipt of an investigation to the decision by a U.S. attorney to prosecute or decline a matter was 61 days in FY 2023, similar to FY 2022.
U.S. attorneys prosecuted 61% of suspects in matters concluded in FY 2023. The percentage of suspects prosecuted was highest in immigration (70%), drug offenses (70%), and weapons offenses (68%).
Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2025. 37p.
