"[D]rug mandatory minimum penalties continue to have a significant impact on the sentencing of drug offenders and on the federal prison population. The data demonstrates that offenders convicted of an offense carrying a drug mandatory minimum penalty continue to receive longer sentences than offenders not convicted of an offense carrying a drug mandatory minimum. These longer sentences, coupled with the fact that drug offenses are the most common offenses carrying mandatory minimum penalties, considerably affect the prison population.

In 2015, federal prisons held a total of 185,917 sentenced adult prisoners. Of those, 13,700 had a violent offense as the most serious charge for which they had been sentenced, 11,200 had a property offense as the most serious charge for which they had been sentenced, 92,000 had a drug offense as the most serious charge for which they had been sentenced, and 67,500 had a public order offense as the most serious charge for which they had been sentenced. Additionally, there were 1,400 for whom the charges were unknown or unspecified.

"• Forty-seven percent (81,900) of sentenced federal prisoners on September 30, 2016 (the most recent date for which federal offense data are available) were serving time for a drug offense (table 14; table 15).
"• More than a third (38% or 65,900 prisoners) of federal prisoners were imprisoned for a public order offense, including 17% (28,800 federal prisoners) for a weapons offense and 8% (13,300) for an adjudicated immigration offense.