> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.bodiesburied.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Mandatory Minimums: How Many Federal Sentences Are Set by Congress - URL: https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/federal-mandatory-minimum-sentences/ - Published: 2026-11-03T01:37:50.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-03T01:37:50.000Z - Description: A mandatory minimum applied to 158,762 of 641,782 people sentenced in federal court from fiscal year 2016 to 2025 (25%). The rate depends on the offense: 61% for drug trafficking, 73% for sexual abuse, 10% for firearms, and less than 1% for immigration. The UCMJ has mandatory minimums for only a few - Author: Jocelyn C. Stewart - Tags: Understanding Trends, Federal [Trends](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/) › [Federal Prosecution Analysis](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/federal/) › Mandatory Minimums **In brief:** A mandatory minimum applied to 158,762 of 641,782 people sentenced in federal court from fiscal year 2016 to 2025 (25%). The rate depends on the offense: 61% for drug trafficking, 73% for sexual abuse, 10% for firearms, and less than 1% for immigration. The UCMJ has mandatory minimums for only a few offenses. Updated November 2, 2026 · Sources: U.S. Sentencing Commission and Federal Judicial Center, fiscal years 2016–2025 · Military Trial Results This post uses the U.S. Sentencing Commission's records of 659,036 people sentenced in federal court in fiscal years 2016 to 2025, compared with court-martial results from this site's Military Trial Results data (updated November 2, 2026). 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](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/federal/) series, which builds on [Military Moves Toward Sentencing Guidelines to Mirror the Federal System](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/military-sentencing-guidelines-federal-system/). How the numbers were built: [How the Federal Comparison Data Was Built](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/federal-data-methodology/). ## What a Mandatory Minimum Is A mandatory minimum is a prison term that Congress sets by statute. A federal judge cannot go below it unless a specific exception applies. This differs from the sentencing guidelines, which a judge may depart from. The U.S. Sentencing Commission records whether a statutory minimum applied to each person sentenced. For fiscal years 2016 to 2025, it applied to 158,762 of 641,782 people with the minimum recorded. That is 25%. The Commission's data counts only people who were convicted and sentenced. Acquittals and dismissals are not in it. ## The Share Changed by Fiscal Year The share of people with a mandatory minimum was 21% in fiscal years 2016 and 2017\. It was 24% in 2018 and 25% in 2019 and 2020. It was 30% in 2021 and 29% in 2022, the highest in the table. It was 27% in 2023, 25% in 2024, and 21% in 2025. The number of people sentenced also changed. It was 74,135 in 2019 and 55,699 in 2021\. The records show these changes, and they do not show what caused them. | Fiscal year | People sentenced | Mandatory minimum applied | | ----------- | ---------------- | ------------------------- | | 2016 | 65,894 | 21% | | 2017 | 65,260 | 21% | | 2018 | 67,580 | 24% | | 2019 | 74,135 | 25% | | 2020 | 62,067 | 25% | | 2021 | 55,699 | 30% | | 2022 | 62,979 | 29% | | 2023 | 62,930 | 27% | | 2024 | 60,462 | 25% | | 2025 | 64,776 | 21% | ## Drug Trafficking and Sexual Offenses Had the Highest Rates Drug trafficking accounted for the most mandatory minimums by count: 113,367 of 184,984 cases (61%). Safety-valve relief, which applies in drug cases, was given to 65,432 people. Sexual abuse cases had the highest rate in the table: 8,755 of 12,073 (73%). Child pornography (images of child exploitation) cases were next at 8,860 of 13,669 (65%). The second table lists offense types in order of how many mandatory minimums each had. The counts and the rates tell different things. Drug trafficking had the largest count, and sexual abuse had the highest rate. Murder had a mandatory minimum in 1,509 of 3,747 cases (40%). Robbery had one in 5,843 of 14,836 (39%). The 1,509 murder figure counts people sentenced in federal court, and it does not describe the military murder minimum discussed below. | Offense type | People | Mandatory minimum | | ------------------------ | ------- | ------------------ | | Drug Trafficking | 184,984 | 113,367 (61%) | | Child Pornography | 13,669 | 8,860 (65%) | | Sexual Abuse | 12,073 | 8,755 (73%) | | Firearms | 78,755 | 7,830 (10%) | | Fraud/Theft/Embezzlement | 57,128 | 6,866 (12%) | | Robbery | 14,836 | 5,843 (39%) | | Money Laundering | 12,145 | 2,811 (23%) | | Murder | 3,747 | 1,509 (40%) | | Immigration | 210,624 | 922 (less than 1%) | | Assault | 7,256 | 742 (10%) | ## Offenses Where Mandatory Minimums Were Less Common Money laundering had a mandatory minimum in 2,811 of 12,145 cases (23%). Fraud, theft, and embezzlement had one in 6,866 of 57,128 (12%). Firearms had one in 7,830 of 78,755 cases (10%), and assault in 742 of 7,256 (10%). Immigration, the largest offense type by count with 210,624 people, had one in 922 cases, which is less than 1%. Immigration cases are the largest group and rarely carried a minimum. The overall rate of 25% is therefore not a good guide to any one offense. ## Mandatory Minimums in the UCMJ The UCMJ has mandatory minimums for only a few offenses. Rape and sexual assault under Article 120 carry a mandatory dishonorable discharge or dismissal. Premeditated murder carries confinement for life with eligibility for parole. The military minimums are different in kind from the federal ones. A federal minimum is a number of months in prison. The Article 120 minimum is a type of discharge and does not set a length of confinement. The records used here do not give a count of court-martial sentences with a mandatory minimum, so no rate is compared. ## What the Records Cannot Show A mandatory minimum applying to a case does not mean the sentence equaled it. The records here show only that a minimum applied, not the term imposed or the term served. The rates also depend on how the Commission groups offenses. The offense types are the Commission's own, and a reader looking for a specific statute will not find it in these tables. The data also does not show whether a prosecutor chose a charge with a minimum or chose one without it. Those decisions are not recorded in the Sentencing Commission data, so the figures cannot be used to judge them. ### How We Counted Everyone sentenced in fiscal years 2016 to 2025 with the statutory minimum recorded (641,782), U.S. Sentencing Commission (STATMIN greater than zero). 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 **Mandatory minimum sentences.** Many federal statutes on drugs, images of child exploitation, child sex abuse, and firearms carry mandatory minimum prison terms. The UCMJ has mandatory minimums only for a few offenses (a dishonorable discharge or dismissal for rape and sexual assault, and life for premeditated murder). Federal sentences for these offenses are partly set by Congress, not by the judge. **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. ## Related Analysis - [Military Moves Toward Sentencing Guidelines to Mirror the Federal System](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/military-sentencing-guidelines-federal-system/) (the background article) - [Federal Prosecution Analysis](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/federal/) (all federal posts) - [How the Federal Comparison Data Was Built](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/federal-data-methodology/) (sources and method) - [Are Courts-Martial More Likely to End in Acquittal Than Federal Trials?](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/federal-trial-acquittal-rates-vs-courts-martial/) - [Guilty Pleas in Federal Court vs. Courts-Martial, Year by Year](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/federal-guilty-plea-rates-vs-courts-martial/) - [Child Pornography Sentences: Federal Court vs. Courts-Martial, 2016–2025](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/federal-child-pornography-sentences-vs-courts-martial/) - [Federal Law Has No Crime of Drug Use: How Article 112a Cases Compare](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/federal-no-crime-of-drug-use-article-112a/) - [Drug Distribution and Importation: Federal vs. Court-Martial Sentences, 2016–2025](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/federal-drug-distribution-importation-vs-article-112a/) - [Sexual Abuse of an Adult: Federal Cases vs. Article 120 Courts-Martial](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/federal-sexual-abuse-adult-vs-article-120/) - [Child Sexual Abuse and Enticement: Federal Cases vs. Article 120b Courts-Martial](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/federal-child-sexual-abuse-enticement-vs-article-120b/) - [Theft and Fraud by Dollar Loss: Federal Sentences vs. Article 121 Courts-Martial](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/federal-theft-fraud-dollar-loss-vs-article-121/) - [U.S. Sentencing Commission, Individual Offender Datafiles](https://www.ussc.gov/research/datafiles/commission-datafiles?ref=bodiesburied.com) (source) - [Federal Judicial Center, Integrated Database (criminal defendants)](https://www.fjc.gov/research/idb?ref=bodiesburied.com) (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](https://www.ucmj-defender.com/?ref=bodiesburied.com). This analysis is for education and information only. It is not legal advice, and every case is different.