Recently released court statistics show a growing percentage of prisoners sentenced for federal drug crimes in southern Indiana are heroin offenders.
A U.S. Sentencing Commission report shows that heroin accounted for nearly 13 percent of the sentences for federal drug crimes in the region during the 2015 fiscal year. That’s up from 5 percent in 2014.
More than 37 percent of criminals sentenced in southern Indiana’s four federal courthouses in 2015 were for drug crimes, up from 30 percent the previous year.
Methamphetamine cases still overwhelmingly account for the largest percentage of drug offense sentences in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Indiana at more than 51 percent in 2015, up from 42 percent in the previous year.
(story by AP)