On November 30, 2021, the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) published new findings on 8-year recidivism rates of 5,659 federal firearms offenders released in 2010. This report is part of a larger multi-year recidivism study of more than 32,000 federal offenders and also serves as an update to a previous USSC report on firearms and recidivism that examined an earlier cohort released in 2005.
The data showed that 69% of firearms offenders were re-arrested within eight years post-release, compared with 45% of all other offenders (a difference of 24%), and the overall median time to re-arrest was 16 months. For both firearms offenders and non-firearms offenders, the most common offense at re-arrest was assault (26% and 19%, respectively), followed by drug trafficking (11.9% and 11.4%, respectively). Importantly, these findings support the idea that firearms-related offenders are more dangerous and more likely to recidivate than other types of offenders. This finding held regardless of criminal history and age, and may justify the need for sentence enhancements based on certain factors (e.g., use of a firearm).
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