Trends in Sentencing of Federal Drug Offenders: Findings From U.S. District Courts 2002–2017

• Author: Alexander Testa,Jacqueline G. Lee
• DOI: 10.1177/0022042620959071
• Date: 01 January 2021
• Published date: 01 January 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0022042620959071

Journal of Drug Issues

2021, Vol. 51(1) 84 –108

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0022042620959071

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Article

Trends in Sentencing of Federal

Drug Offenders: Findings From

U.S. District Courts 2002–2017

Alexander Testa1 and Jacqueline G. Lee2

Abstract

This study uses 16 years (2002–2017) of federal criminal drug sentences from the U.S. Sentencing

Commission (USSC) to examine trends in two criminal sentencing outcomes: whether a

defendant received a prison sentence and the length of a prison sentence. Logistic and ordinary

least squares regression analyses were used to assess criminal sentencing outcomes. Moderation

analyses are conducted to assess variation in sentencing for specific drug offenses over time.

Results demonstrate that sentencing for federal drug crimes has become less severe over time.

However, there is substantial heterogeneity in sentencing across different drug types, with

pharmaceutical opioid cases receiving the least leniency over time regarding the incarceration

decision and methamphetamine cases experiencing the lowest reduction in the length of prison

sentences from 2002 to 2017. Finally, our analysis stratified by race/ethnicity suggested that

there is heterogeneity in sentencing outcomes for federal drug offenders, conditional on racial

and ethnic background.

Keywords

drugs, drug crime, punishment, federal court, sentencing

Introduction

Across the United States, opioid and methamphetamine use and overdose deaths have been

steadily increasing over the last several years (Ellis et al., 2018; Gladden et al., 2019; Hedegaard,

et al., 2020), although attention has tended to more heavily focus on the opioid epidemic (Harris,

2018). Between 1999 and 2018, the rate of drug overdose mortality for natural and semisynthetic

opioids increased from 1.0 to 3.8 per 100,000 population, and the methamphetamine overdose

death rate increased from 0.2 to 3.9 during this same period (Hedegaard et al., 2020). Although

public health research has acknowledged the increase of both substances and the concurrent

polydrug use of both opioids and methamphetamines (Al-Tayyib et al., 2017; Gonzales et al.,

2010; Jones et al., 2020; Murthy, 2016; Ruhm, 2019; Strickland et al., 2019), there has been

much less research exploring how criminal courts are responding to either, or both, of these cri-

ses. The current study aims to fill this gap by examining (a) trends in criminal sentencing for drug

offenses in federal district courts from 2002 to 2017, (b) whether punishment severity for opioid

1The University of Texas at San Antonio, USA

2Boise State University, ID, USA

Corresponding Author:

Alexander Testa, Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice, The University of Texas at San Antonio, 501 W.

Cesar Chavez Blvd., San Antonio, TX 78207, USA.

Email: alexander.testa@utsa.edu

959071JODXXX10.1177/0022042620959071Journal of Drug IssuesTesta and Lee

research-article2020

Testa and Lee 85

or methamphetamine cases has differed over time relative to other types of drugs, and (c) whether

trends in drug sentencing over time vary conditional on race or ethnicity.

Punishment for Drug Offenses During Epidemics and Over Time

Drug policy in the United States has changed substantially over time and many scholars argue

that moral panics and racial and ethnic biases have motivated many of these changes (Musto,

1999; Provine, 2011; Reinarman & Levine, 1997). For example, the criminalization and regula-

tion of opiates and cocaine by the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 was in part motivated by racial

bias: “cocaine raised the specter of the wild Negro, opium the devious Chinese, morphine the

tramps of the slums” (Musto, 1999, p. 65). Many controlled substances and their corresponding

user populations have been demonized throughout the history of the United States, but most

recently, the War on Drugs targeted users of cocaine—particularly crack cocaine—which was

most prominently associated with use among African Americans living in urban areas (Musto,

1999). The U.S. news media jumped on this new drug and it was frequently decried as an “epi-

demic” or “plague” and politicians from both sides backed a feverish antidrug campaign

(Reinarman & Levine, 1997).

Much research has demonstrated that previous drug epidemics have also often been met with

severe sentencing responses from criminal courts. In the 1980s, the federal government led the

way with implementation of harsh laws delineating punishments for cocaine. This included the

notorious 100:1 crack powder cocaine disparity stemming from the requirement of the Federal

Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which mandated a 5-year mandatory minimum sentence for pos-

sessing 5 g of crack cocaine or 500 g of powder cocaine. Although the USSC (1997) claimed no

racial bias in the writing of the law, approximately 85% of federal crack cocaine defendants were

Black, whereas powder cocaine defendants were predominately White (18%) and Hispanic

(51%; Blumstein, 2003). Although the tough-on-crime stance stemming from the War on Drugs

has somewhat waned in recent years (e.g., The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 reduced the crack

cocaine disparity from 100:1 to 28:1; USSC, 2015b), its influence on U.S. sentencing policy and

correctional populations lingers (Alexander, 2010; Lynch, 2012; Reinarman & Levine, 1997).

Many unanswered questions remain, including whether current drug epidemics are being treated

as harshly as earlier epidemics.

Drug sentencing in the federal system has generally demonstrated that both legal (e.g., charge

severity, criminal history) and extralegal (e.g., defendant race/ethnicity, gender) factors are

important in determining sentence severity (Albonetti, 1997; LaFrentz & Spohn, 2006; Sevigny,

2009). These findings are often replicated in studies of state drug sentencing (both with and with-

out sentencing guidelines) as well (Brennan & Spohn, 2008; J. G. Lee & Testa, 2020). However,

most research assesses drug offense punishment at a single time point and little research has

examined how treatment of drug cases has varied over time. In one exception, Lynch & Omori’s

(2014) study of sentencing of drug trafficking cases in United States District Courts from 2002

to 2009 found that there were considerable differences in sentencing practices across courts,

although they also found that sentencing practices within specific courts remained stable over

time, even in response to changes in federal sentencing policy. Other research demonstrates that

the enactment of strict drug laws during the War on Drugs era disproportionately affected African

Americans (Alexander, 2010; Tonry, 1994), although recent research has found that overall racial

disparities in criminal sentencing declined in recent years, with changes in federal drug laws

aligning with some of this reduction in disparity (King & Light, 2019).

With the current “twin epidemics” of opioids and methamphetamines, there are no clear indi-

cations regarding whether courts are responding more or less harshly to defendants facing charges

for these two substances. For instance, there are indications that in contrast to drug use and addic-

tion being framed more as a criminal justice problem in the past, recent drug epidemics are being