Congress divided the country into 94 federal judicial districts, and in each district there is a federal district court. The U.S. district courts are the federal trial courts—the places where cases are tried, witnesses testify, and juries serve. Congress placed each of the 94 districts in one of 12 regional circuits, and each circuit has a court of appeals. If a trial is lost in district court, the case can be appealed, and the court of appeals can review the case to see if the district judge applied the law correctly. Figure 1 depicts a map of the United States that shows the geographical boundaries of the 94 district courts and the 12 regional circuit courts (including 11 numbered circuits and the District of Columbia Circuit.) There is also a Federal Circuit whose court of appeals is based in Washington, D.C., but hears certain types of cases from all over the country. The Court of Claims is the trial court from which the appeal arises for the Federal Circuit. Under the law, offenders in federal court may be ordered to pay a fine or restitution at sentencing. The court is to impose a fine in all cases, except where the defendant establishes that he or she is unable to pay and is not likely to become able to pay any fine, according to guidelines issued by the USSC, which interpret federal law. In establishing the USSC, Congress sought, as one objective, uniformity in sentencing by narrowing the wide disparity in sentences imposed for similar criminal offenses committed by similar offenders. USSC’s Guidelines state that the amount of the fine should always be sufficient to ensure that the fine, taken together with other sanctions imposed, is punitive. Except where the fine is established by specific statute, the fine should be within a range established by the USSC. The range is based on the offense level. The base offense level, which is a numerical score, is established in the Guidelines for each type of crime. Adjustments can be made to the base offense level for such things as offense characteristics, offender’s role, the victim, obstruction of justice, and acceptance of responsibility. For example, the Guideline range for fines for offense level 8 is $1,000 to $10,000; for offense level 38 the guideline range for fines is from $25,000 to $250,000. There is also a criminal history category that helps the judge determine whether an offender should be sentenced higher or lower within the Guideline range. According to the USSC Guidelines, in determining the amount of the fine, the court should consider, among other factors, the need for the combined sentence to (1) reflect the seriousness of the offense (including the harm or loss to the victim and the gain to the defendant), (2) promote respect for the law, (3) provide just punishment, and (4) afford adequate deterrence. According to the USSC Guidelines, the court should also consider any evidence presented on the offender’s ability to pay a fine in light of the offender’s earning capacity and financial resources, as well as the burden that the fine places on the offender and his or her dependants, any restitution or civil obligations the offender is required to make, other consequences of conviction such as civil obligations, whether the offender has been previously fined for a similar offense, and any other pertinent equitable considerations. The court may waive the fine or impose a lesser fine if it has been established that the offender is not able and is not likely to become able to pay all or part of the fine, even with the use of a reasonable installment schedule. The court may also waive the fine or impose a lesser fine if the imposition of a fine would unduly burden the defendant’s dependents. Since passage of the Victims of Crime Act of 1984 (P.L. 98-473), most fines have been used to support DOJ’s Crime Victims Fund. The fund provides, among other things, grants for victim assistance programs and compensation to victims. Restitution is to be paid to the victim of the crime and should reflect actual losses suffered as a result of the crime. However, mandatory restitution as part of a federal criminal sentence is a relatively recent idea. Initially, the courts did not recognize restitution as a separate term of a criminal sentence. This changed with the Victim and Witness Protection Act of 1982 (P.L. 97-291), which was the first statute that broadly addressed victim restitution in general. Before enactment, imposition of an order of restitution was completely within the discretion of the court and could only be ordered as a condition of probation. Later, in 1992, with the enactment of the Child Support Recovery Act (P.L. 102-521), Congress introduced the idea of “mandatory” restitution into federal law. The act mandated that courts impose restitution on defendants convicted of willful failure to pay past due child support. In the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (title IV of P.L. 103-322), Congress identified certain other types of crimes subject to mandatory restitution, such as sexual abuse, sexual exploitation and other abuse of children, domestic violence, and telemarketing. On April 24, 1996, MVRA was enacted as title II of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-132), reforming restitution and altering the way it is to be enforced. MVRA now requires the court to order restitution for each offender who has been convicted or has pled guilty to the following charges, without regard to the offender’s economic situation: a crime of violence (as defined in 18 U.S.C. 16); an offense against property under title 18 of the U.S. Code, including any offense committed by fraud or deceit; or an offense relating to tampering with consumer products (18 U.S.C. 1365). According to MVRA, there must be an identifiable victim or victims who have suffered a physical injury or monetary loss. The only other exception to mandatory restitution is for an offense against property if the court finds that the number of identifiable victims is so large that it makes paying restitution impractical or determining complex issues of fact related to the cause or amount of the victims’ losses would complicate or prolong the sentencing process to a degree that the need to provide restitution to any victim is outweighed by the burden on the sentencing process. Prior to MVRA, the law provided that the court could consider, in determining whether to impose an order of restitution, the financial resources of the offender, the financial needs of the offender and his or her dependents, and other factors the court deemed appropriate. Under MVRA, the court cannot waive restitution based on the offender’s economic circumstances. However, the court can order the offender to make nominal periodic payments if the offender’s economic circumstances do not allow for (1) the payment of any amount of a restitution order or (2) the payment of the full amount in the foreseeable future, under any reasonable schedule of payments. According to the legislative history, an intent of MVRA was to establish one set of procedures for the issuance of restitution orders in federal criminal cases. The history cited fiscal year 1994 USSC statistics that showed that about 20 percent of federal criminal cases had restitution orders. The history also cited rates for specific types of crimes, such as about 55 percent of offenders sentenced for robbery were ordered to pay restitution. The history cited these figures as indications that more progress in ordering restitution remained to be made. The objectives of this report are to (1) identify the percentage of offenders who were ordered to pay fines or restitution in fiscal year 1997 and those who were not, (2) identify differences across judicial circuits and districts in the percent of offenders who were ordered to pay fines or restitution and those who were not, and (3) provide officials’ opinions about possible reasons for those differences. We also documented changes in the rate at which offenders were ordered to pay restitution before and after MVRA was enacted April 24, 1996. To identify the number of offenders who were ordered to pay fines or restitution and those who were not, we used USSC data for fiscal year 1997. USSC maintains a computerized data collection system, which forms the basis for its clearinghouse of federal sentencing information. USSC requests that each probation office in each judicial district submit the following documents on every defendant sentenced under the guidelines: indictments, presentence report, report on the sentencing hearing, written plea agreement, and judgment of conviction. Data from these documents are extracted and coded for input into USSC’s databases. We did not independently verify the accuracy of the USSC data. However, USSC takes several steps to insure the reliability and completeness of the data system. To identify the differences across the judicial circuits and districts in the percentage of offenders who are ordered to pay fines or restitution and those who are not, we used USSC’s data for fiscal year 1997 to identify the percentage of offenders who received a fine or restitution by court district. Because we found that type of offense was strongly related to whether fines or restitution was ordered, we also analyzed the differences among judicial circuits and districts in fines and restitution ordered by selected types of offenses. To determine the percentage of offenders ordered to pay fines, we selected larceny, fraud, and drug trafficking crimes because of the large number of offenders sentenced under USSC guidelines in federal courts for these crimes. To determine the percentage of offenders ordered to pay restitution, we selected robbery, larceny, and fraud crimes because (1) there were a large number of offenders sentenced in federal courts and (2) these crimes involve an act upon another person, so we believed there was the reasonable expectation of an identifiable victim. To identify possible reasons for sentencing differences among judicial circuits and districts, we analyzed the overall percent of fines and restitution ordered by circuits and districts and for the specific types of crimes we chose.