As is repeated throughout this report, ones opinion about what counts as a federal crime drives the count of federal crimes. Simply focusing on the penalty may not be sufficient because one penalty often applies to several acts. While federal law classifies crimes by penalties, federal law does not provide a clear definition of crime that would allow distinctions among separate criminal acts. That makes any count subject to argument. At the very least, however, this report can conclude the following: Based on the growth of federal crime legislation since the count in the early 1980s by the Office of Legal Policy in the Department of Justice, the United States Code today includes at least 4,450 offenses which carry a criminal penalty, and the rate at which Congress passes new crimes has not waned since at least the 1980s.
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 03:01:25 +0000
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