Data Study
Federal Sentencing: Key Statistics
The headline numbers from the U.S. Sentencing Commission's case-level data, computed across the full FY2015–FY2025 corpus. Free to cite and link (CC0).
- 728,223
- Cases analyzed
- 93
- Federal districts
- FY2015–2025
- Period
The corpus in one line
According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission FY2025 Individual Offender Datafiles, Western Texas District is #1 of 93 by FY2025 caseload (10,416 cases) at average-sentence rank 85 of 88 districts with at least 100 cases (21.2 months) ≠ Southern Iowa District #1 longest average at 129.3 months (caseload #57).
- 10,416
- Western Texas District cases (#1 caseload)
- 129.3 months
- Southern Iowa District avg (#1 longest)
- #85
- Western Texas District average-sentence rank
- #57
- Southern Iowa District caseload rank
Caseload rank covers every district with at least one FY case. Average-sentence rank covers districts with at least 100 cases so a thin docket cannot top the list. Offense ranks cover the 30 published guideline types. Averages follow offense mix, not court character.
FY2025 guideline disposition (classifiable cases)
Exclusive within / below / above counts across 60,889 classifiable FY2025 sentences. Segments sum to the classifiable set (not the full caseload), distinct from the caseload-vs-sentence dual above.
Key findings
Each figure is computed live from the USSC datafiles. Sentence-length variation reflects each district's offense mix, not a measure of court severity.
- 25,102 cases involved immigration, the most common offense type in the latest year - immigration cases, averaging 10.2 months.
- 129.3 mo the longest average sentence of any district (the Southern Iowa District, 343 cases) - a reflection of its offense mix, not a measure of court severity.
- 728,223 federal sentences analyzed: every USSC individual-offender record from FY2015 to FY2025, across 93 districts.
- 51.9 mo the average federal prison sentence in FY2025 (66,518 cases).
- 49.4% of FY2025 sentences fell within the advisory guideline range; most fell below it (44.4% below, 6.3% above).
- +3% change in the average sentence over the decade, from 50.5 months in FY2015 to 51.9 in FY2025.
- 90.2% of FY2025 cases resulted in a term of imprisonment.
- 64.9% of FY2025 cases were resolved by a guilty plea.
Source: United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) Individual Offender Datafiles · FY2015–FY2025 Figures computed by PlainSentencing from the public-use datafiles. These statistics are released to the public domain (CC0): free to cite, quote, and republish with attribution to PlainSentencing.
PlainSentencing is rendered directly from the United States Sentencing Commission Individual Offender Datafiles, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of August 2026.
Open data: download the per-district dataset as CSV (93 districts) - CC0, free to reuse with attribution.
See the methodology for how each figure is computed, or explore the data by district, offense, and ranking.