Study: Drugs Remain Top Federal Crime; Immigration Close Behind

Nearly one-third of all federal crimes are related to drugs, the vast majority of them dealing with trafficking, a new study finds.

Key results in the Drug Sentences Across America study from the Delphi Health Group, which looked at data from 2010-2017:

• 30.8 percent of all federal crimes were drug-related in 2017. Of those, 19,043 were trafficking offenses.
• The number of convicted felons in federal drug crimes fell from 26,560 in 2012 to 20,607 in 2017, but the offenses accounted for between roughly 29% and 32% of all federal crimes from 2010-2017.
• The number of drug offenders for methamphetamine (+71.2%) and heroin (+74.3 percent) has increased dramatically from 2010-2017. That is compared to drops in offenders for crack cocaine (-68.4%), marijuana (-37.4%), and powder cocaine (-28.7%).
• In 2017, drugs were the most prevalent federal crime. Immigration was a close second at 30.5% of all federal crimes, followed by firearms (12.1%) and fraud (9%).
• At 61.2%, Vermont has the highest percentage of drug cases compared to other federal cases. That is followed by Connecticut (54.8%), Hawaii (50%), Kentucky (48.8%), and Arkansas and West Virginia (both 47.4%).
• U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded 67,292 seizures of methamphetamine in 2018, a 376.2% increase from 2012.

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