About PlainSentencing
Every figure on PlainSentencing traces back to a named public source and documented pipeline. PlainSentencing is accountable for the data framing, methodology, and corrections described here.
Every figure published on PlainSentencing is traced to the U.S. Sentencing Commission's Individual Offender Datafiles (728,223 federal sentencing cases, FY2015 to FY2025) and computed by deterministic pipelines, not hand-entered. Our methodology sets out exactly how each dataset is sourced, computed, and refreshed, and the about page explains how we handle corrections when a reader flags something. PlainSentencing is accountable for that data framing, methodology, and corrections.
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Federal Sentencing Data Publishing · PlainSentencing
PlainSentencing is a data journalism portal that examines federal sentencing disparities using public data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission to highlight patterns in the justice system. PlainSentencing provides detailed analyses, visualizations, and resources for the public, with content that is compiled by PlainSentencing. PlainSentencing does not accept payment from entities it covers to ensure impartial coverage.
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PlainSentencing is a data-journalism publisher: we compile public datasets, verify them against their official sources, and present them in plain language. Editorial standards, sourcing, and how we handle corrections are described on our about and methodology pages.
Download the federal sentencing-by-district CSV cited on this page: plainsentencing-districts.csv (CC0).