§2A3.5 Failure to Register as a Sex Offender: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2022
In fiscal year 2022, 97% of the 307 people sentenced under §2A3.5 as the primary guideline pleaded guilty (298), which is the lowest plea share in the sheet's yearly table. 9 people were convicted after a trial. 293 (95%) received a prison term, and the median was 18 months.
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Trends › Federal Prosecution Analysis › §2A3.5 Failure to Register as a Sex Offender › §2A3.5: FY2022
In brief: In fiscal year 2022, 97% of the 307 people sentenced under §2A3.5 as the primary guideline pleaded guilty (298), which is the lowest plea share in the sheet's yearly table. 9 people were convicted after a trial. 293 (95%) received a prison term, and the median was 18 months.
This post uses the U.S. Sentencing Commission's records of 307 people sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2022. 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.
A Plea Share of 97%
The yearly table below lists the guilty plea share for each fiscal year from 2016 to 2025. The 97% in fiscal year 2022 is the lowest figure listed there, and the other years show 98% or higher.
Of the 307 people, 298 pleaded guilty and 9 were convicted after a trial. The records do not show why the trial count was larger than in some other years, and 9 people are too few to call a trend.
| 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% |
Trial Sentences Compared With Plea Sentences
The median prison term after a guilty plea was 18 months. After a trial, it was 22.5 months. The trial median rests on 8 people, because 1 of the 9 trial convictions did not lead to a prison term in the data.
Among the guilty pleas, 73% came with a written plea agreement, and 26% were straight pleas.
Who Received Prison and Who Received Probation
The Sentencing Guidelines Manual calls §2A3.5 "Failure to Register as a Sex Offender." In fiscal year 2022, 293 people (95%) were sent to prison, and 9 (3%) received probation only.
For those sent to prison, the median term was 18 months. The longest quarter of terms were 24 months or more, and the shortest quarter were 12 months or less. These figures are imposed terms.
The Guideline Range Comparison
A sentence within the range was given to 157 people (51%). A sentence below the range without a government request was given to 102 (33%), and a sentence below it at the government's request to 34 (11%). A sentence above the range was given to 14 (5%).
The previous year had 52% within the range, and the next year had 52%. All guidelines in fiscal year 2022 had 42%.
Release Conditions and Financial Penalties
291 people (95%) were ordered to serve supervised release after prison, for a median of 60 months. 6 people (2%) got a lifetime term.
A fine was ordered for 14 people (5%) and restitution for 1 (less than 1%). A mandatory minimum applied to 0 of the 307 people (0%).
Criminal History
6% of the group was in category I, the lowest criminal history category, and 19% was in category VI, the highest. Court-martial records have no criminal history field.
Wider Federal Numbers
Fiscal year 2022 ran from October 1, 2021 to September 30, 2022. Across fiscal years 2016 to 2025, 3,269 people were sentenced under this guideline, and 99% pleaded guilty.
Across all guidelines in fiscal year 2022, 64,142 people were sentenced, with a median prison term of 30 months and a guilty plea share of 97%. That all-guidelines plea share matches the §2A3.5 share for the year.
What the Records Cannot Show
The Commission classifies these cases as Obscenity/Other Sex Offenses, and only people who were convicted and sentenced are counted. The crosswalk on this site has no close court-martial counterpart for this guideline, so the numbers here stand alone.
How We Counted
Everyone sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2022 whose primary sentencing guideline was §2A3.5 (307), 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 2021 (previous or next fiscal year)
- §2A3.5 Failure to Register as a Sex Offender: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2023 (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.