Examines how court decisions and sentencing policy changes have affected sentencing behavior in federal drug trafficking cases. Changes at the district level and in mandatory minimum sentencing were a particular focus. Data were obtained from the Defendants Sentenced Under the Sentencing Reform Act data from the United States Sentencing Commission from fiscal years 1992-2009. These data were then merged with federal district-level indicators for the 89 federal districts from the Federal Court Management Statistics website, and state level demographic data from the United States Census Bureau. Drug trafficking cases were identified by using the sentencing guideline offense, which resulted in a sample 0f N=376,637 cases.
