USSC's 2020 Year-in-Review

United States Sentencing Commission sent this bulletin at 01/14/2021 01:41 PM EST

2020 Year-in-Review

Even with the challenges presented by COVID-19, the U.S. Sentencing Commission has worked this past year to meet the growing demand for its products, information, and services, as evidenced by an impressive increase of over 20 percent in its website traffic for the second year in a row. In 2020, the Commission released several new publications addressing timely topics from sentencing disparities, to recidivism, to the impact of the First Step Act. It is the Commission's hope that these new publications serve as a resource for the Courts, Congress, and the criminal justice community.

The Commission also created and released its new, innovative tool, the Interactive Data Analyzer to build on the success of the mobile Guidelines App. Both tools have made the Commission's guidelines, data, and information more accessible and easily used.

Explore some of the Commission's work from 2020:

Digital Products

Launched in June, the Interactive Data Analyzer (IDA) is an online tool that can be used to explore, filter, customize, and visualize annual federal sentencing data.

IDA is an innovative tool that builds on previous resources such as the Guidelines App and Annotated Guidelines, continuing the Commission's efforts to make the Guidelines and sentencing data accessible to the public in an easy-to-digest way.

Remote Training

As a result of teleworking, USSC focused extensively on eLearning this past year and six training modules were released in 2020. The Commission also expanded its remote training sessions via video conferencing technology.

Additionally, the Case Law Concierge, Case Law Quarterly, and Subject Matter Primers continue to be updated to better assist in understanding and applying the sentencing guidelines.

Topical Research

The Commission published numerous research reports throughout 2020, including:

The First Step Act of 2018: One Year of Implementation;
Retroactivity and Recidivism: The Drugs Minus Two Amendment; and
two more publications in the Commission's series of reports on differences in federal sentencing practices after the Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in United States v. Booker.

Click here for a full list of reports published last year.

Current Data

USSC continued to collect, analyze, and publish on data last year. The most recent data update was published on January 4, to include preliminary FY2020 data. Additionally, USSC updated its full slate of Quick Facts for 2020.