Criminal Law Data

What is CrimLaw Data?

GianCarlo Canaparo (Heritage Foundation), Patrick A. McLaughlin (Mercatus Center), Jonathan Nelson (Mercatus Center), and Liya Palagashvili (Mercatus Center) developed an algorithm to quantify the number of statutes within the U.S. Code that create one or more federal crimes. The data produced from that algorithm are available here.

As of 2019, the algorithm found 1,510 statutes that create at least one crime. This represents an increase of nearly 36 percent relative to the 1,111 statutes that created at least one crime in 1994. Although the algorithm cannot precisely count discrete crimes within sections, Canaparo et al. estimate the number of crimes contained within the Code as of 2019 at 5,199. These findings support the conclusion that the number of federal crimes has increased, while also bolstering concerns that federal crimes are too diffuse, too numerous, and too vague for the average citizen to know what the law requires.

The main research paper associated with the CrimLaw data can be found here.

 

CrimLaw Data Research:

+ Count the Code: Quantifying Federalization of Criminal Statutes

BY: Giancarlo Canaparo, Patrick McLaughlin, Jonathan Nelson, Liya Palagashvili
DATE: January 7, 2022

Abstract: We develop an algorithm to quantify the number of statutes within the United States Code that create one or more federal crimes. This is the first effort to “count the Code” since 2008 and is unique among previous efforts in that it employs an algorithm to sift through Code using carefully selected keywords to count the number of statutes that create crimes. We find 1,510 statutes in the Code as of 2019 that create at least one crime. This represents an increase of nearly 36 percent relative to the 1,111 statutes that created at least one crime found in the 1994 United States Code. Although the algorithm cannot precisely count discrete crimes within sections, we estimate the number of crimes contained within the Code as of 2019 at 5,199. These findings support the conclusions of other studies that the number of federal crimes has increased over time, while also bolstering the concerns raised by numerous scholars that federal crimes are too diffuse, too numerous, and oftentimes too vague for the average citizen to know what the law requires of him or her. Lastly, we present preliminary ideas for further investigation using our new dataset.