ABSTRACT
Perhaps this model typified the justice system a half-decade ago, but it is atypical of sentencing practices in the 2000s. Some 1,132,290 persons were convicted of a felony offense in State courts in 2006, including 197,030 for a violent felony (Rosenmerkel, Durose, and Farole, 2009). A large number of convictions were for drug possession and trafficking, about 33 percent of the total number of felony convictions and almost two times the number of convictions for all crimes of violence totaled together (murder, robbery, rape, and aggravated assault). Federal courts convicted 78,009 persons of a felony in 2006. That number represents only 6 percent of the combined state and federal convictions in that year. See Table 3.1 for the types of sentences imposed by state courts.
