US Sentencing Commission releases latest "compassionate release" data through March 2024

The US Sentencing Commission today updates some of its data on sentence reduction motions on this webpage, particularly though this new Compassionate Release Data Report running through the second quarter of USSC Fiscal Year 2024 (meaning through the end of March 2024).   Notably, the latest data run includes information for nearly six months after the Commission's new "sentence reduction" guideline became law, and nearly a year after the Commission submitted this guideline to Congress.

As I have noted before, the long-term data going back to the height of the COVID pandemic period reveals, unsurprisingly, that we now see many fewer sentence reduction motions filed or granted than in years past.  Though there are month-to-month variations, it would be roughly accurate to say recent months see, on average, a few dozen compassionate release motions granted and a couple hundred  motions denied nationwide.  And the number of motions resolved and the grant rates from various districts remain quite different within and among circuits.

There are all sorts of other interesting data points in this new report relating to both the crimes and backgrounds of defendants bringing these motions and getting sentence reductions.  Especially because there are so many elements to sentence reduction motions and so much discretion in the hands of district judges when considering these motions, I continue to find these data stories fascinating, and I am hopeful researchers (and the USSC) will keep exploring how this part of the First Step Act continue to function.