§2A3.5 Failure to Register as a Sex Offender: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2018
Of the 360 people sentenced in fiscal year 2018 with §2A3.5 as the primary guideline, 359 pleaded guilty and 1 was convicted after a trial. 348 (97%) were sent to prison, and the median prison term was 18 months. The records list no mandatory minimum for any of the 360.
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In brief: Of the 360 people sentenced in fiscal year 2018 with §2A3.5 as the primary guideline, 359 pleaded guilty and 1 was convicted after a trial. 348 (97%) were sent to prison, and the median prison term was 18 months. The records list no mandatory minimum for any of the 360.
This post uses the U.S. Sentencing Commission's records of 360 people sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2018. Acquittals and dismissals come from a second source, the Federal Judicial Center's records of 753,808 federal defendants whose cases ended in fiscal years 2016 to 2025. It is part of the Federal Prosecution Analysis series, which builds on Military Moves Toward Sentencing Guidelines to Mirror the Federal System. How the numbers were built: How the Federal Comparison Data Was Built.
One Trial Conviction Among 360 People
The U.S. Sentencing Commission counted 360 people in fiscal year 2018 whose primary guideline was §2A3.5, which the manual calls "Failure to Register as a Sex Offender." Guilty pleas accounted for 359 of them (more than 99%).
The 1 person convicted after a trial received 18 months in prison. The median after a guilty plea was also 18 months. A single case cannot show how trials and pleas compare.
Written plea agreements were part of 63% of the guilty pleas. The other 37% were straight pleas with no agreement.
Who Went to Prison and Who Did Not
Prison terms went to 348 of the 360 people (97%). Probation only, meaning no prison or other confinement, went to 5 people (1%).
Among those sent to prison, the median term was 18 months. The longest quarter of terms were 24 months or more. The shortest quarter were 12 months or less. Terms here are the ones the court imposed, which can differ from time actually served.
Mandatory Minimums, Fines, and Restitution
A mandatory minimum prison term applied to 0 of the 360 people (0%). The fiscal year 2016 and 2017 groups each had 2 people with one.
Courts ordered a fine for 11 people (3%) and restitution for none (0%).
Below the Guideline Range Without a Government Request
For the 360 people, 57% of sentences (204) were within the guideline range. 33% (118) were below the range without a government request. Another 8% (29) were below it at the government's request, and 3% (9) were above it.
The within-range share was 60% in fiscal year 2017 and 62% in fiscal year 2019. Across every guideline in fiscal year 2018, it was 51%.
Supervised Release and Criminal History
Supervised release after prison was ordered for 345 people (96%), with a median term of 60 months. 12 people (3%) were ordered to serve it for life.
Only 3% of the group was in criminal history category I, the lowest, while 15% was in category VI, the highest. Court-martial files have no criminal history field to compare.
How the Year Fits the Full Table
The table below shows the count, median prison term, and guilty plea share for each fiscal year from 2016 to 2025. Fiscal year 2018 ran from October 1, 2017 to September 30, 2018.
Fiscal years 2016 to 2025 together include 3,269 people under this guideline. 96% were sent to prison, the median prison term was 18 months, 99% pleaded guilty, and 55% were within the range.
In fiscal year 2018, all guidelines combined covered 69,425 people. Their median prison term was 24 months, and 97% pleaded guilty.
| Fiscal year | People sentenced | Median prison | Pleaded guilty |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 427 | 18 months | 99% |
| 2017 | 384 | 20.5 months | 99% |
| 2018 | 360 | 18 months | more than 99% |
| 2019 | 360 | 18 months | more than 99% |
| 2020 | 291 | 18 months | 99% |
| 2021 | 257 | 18 months | more than 99% |
| 2022 | 307 | 18 months | 97% |
| 2023 | 282 | 18 months | 98% |
| 2024 | 310 | 18 months | 98% |
| 2025 | 291 | 18 months | more than 99% |
What Cannot Be Learned Here
The Commission classifies these cases as Obscenity/Other Sex Offenses. Its files list only people who were convicted and sentenced, and they say nothing about the facts of individual cases.
The crosswalk used on this site has no close court-martial counterpart to this guideline, so the numbers stand alone.
How We Counted
Everyone sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2018 whose primary sentencing guideline was §2A3.5 (360), U.S. Sentencing Commission individual data files. The primary guideline is the one that set the offense level for the most serious count.
Federal fiscal years run from October 1 to September 30. No person, judge, or lawyer is identified in any of these records.
What to Keep in Mind
No parole in federal prison; credit for good conduct. Federal prison has no parole for crimes committed on or after November 1, 1987. A federal prisoner can earn up to 54 days of good conduct credit for each year of the sentence the judge imposed, which is about 15%. Some federal prisoners can also earn First Step Act time credits, but many offenses make a person ineligible. The numbers in this post are the sentences judges imposed, not the time people actually served.
Federal supervised release. Most federal prison sentences are followed by a term of supervised release that the judge sets as part of the sentence. A person who violates it can be sent back to prison. A court-martial cannot sentence anyone to supervision after release. Military parole and mandatory supervised release are decided later by a board, not by the judge at trial.
Who decides the sentence, and under what rules. Federal judges sentence every federal case. They must calculate the Sentencing Guidelines range, which is advisory, and must impose any mandatory minimum the statute requires unless an exception applies. In courts-martial, the accused could choose sentencing by members until the rules changed. For cases in which every guilty finding is for an offense committed after December 27, 2023, a military judge sentences alone, within sentencing parameters. Courts-martial tried in 2024 and later include both old-rule and new-rule cases, and the data cannot tell them apart.
Time periods. Federal numbers are by federal fiscal year (October 1 to September 30), based on the sentencing date. The military numbers are by trial date. Neither source has the date of the offense, so a change in law shows up in either data set gradually.
How life sentences and "time served" are counted. In the federal numbers, a life sentence is counted as 470 months, and any other sentence longer than 470 months is counted as just under 470 months. A sentence of "time served" is counted as one day (0.03 months). Averages are affected by these rules; medians much less.
Related Analysis
- Military Moves Toward Sentencing Guidelines to Mirror the Federal System (the background article)
- Federal Prosecution Analysis (all federal posts)
- How the Federal Comparison Data Was Built (sources and method)
- §2A3.5 Failure to Register as a Sex Offender: Federal Sentences, FY2016–2025 (overview)
- §2A3.5 Failure to Register as a Sex Offender: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2017 (previous or next fiscal year)
- §2A3.5 Failure to Register as a Sex Offender: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2019 (previous or next fiscal year)
- How Often Federal Judges Sentence Outside the Guideline Range
- Mandatory Minimums: How Many Federal Sentences Are Set by Congress
- U.S. Sentencing Commission, Individual Offender Datafiles (source)
- Federal Judicial Center, Integrated Database (criminal defendants) (source)
About the author. Jocelyn C. Stewart is a retired Army JAG with more than 24 years of trying courts-martial and more than 200 jury trials. She hosts Where All The Bodies Are Buried and runs the Law Office of Jocelyn C. Stewart. This analysis is for education and information only. It is not legal advice, and every case is different.