CONGRESS CREATES OVER 500 NEW FEDERAL CRIMES A DECADE

John S. Baker, Jr, Heritage The most complete count of federal crimes, done by the U.S. Department of Justice in the early 1980s, put the number at 3,000. . . [A later] report estimates that there were 4,000 federal crimes at the start of 2000 This report updates that total through 2007, finding 452 additional crimes created since 2007, for a total of at least 4,450 federal crimes.

The growth of federal crimes continues unabated. The increase of 452 over the eight-year period between 2000 and 2007 averages 56.5 crimes per year-roughly the same rate at which Congress created new crimes in the 1980s and 1990s. So for the past twenty-five years, a period over which the growth of the federal criminal law has come under increasing scrutiny, Congress has been creating over 500 new crimes per decade. That pace is not steady from year to year, however; the data indicate that Congress creates more criminal offenses in election years.

Although [a 1998] ABA Report did not actually count the number of crimes, it drew the following dramatic conclusion from the available data: "The Task Force's research reveals a startling fact about the explosive growth of federal criminal law: More than 40% of the federal provisions enacted since the Civil War have been enacted since 1970."