Crimes Explained: Federal

The main body of federal criminal law, in its official text and annotated. Each section is color-coded to show the prohibited act, the mental state the law requires, and the penalty, and every citation to another law links to its official source.

• Select any section to open its own page with the official text of the law. Below the text, each crime in the section is broken out: the act (with + attempt / + conspiracy when those are covered), who can commit it when the law limits that, the federal basis, the mental state required, conditions, exceptions and defenses, the penalty with any conditions that change it, and other consequences such as forfeiture. What applies to every crime in a section is shown once at the top.
• In the official text, the prohibited act (what a person does that makes it a crime) is highlighted in orange, the mental state the law requires (knowledge, intent, recklessness or negligence, such as willfully or with intent to) in teal, conditions by their if or unless in purple italics (such as if death results), and penalties in red. The mental state often decides whether something is a crime at all.
• Dotted-underlined words are legal terms. Tap or hover to see what they mean.
• References to other laws are links. Links to sections on this page jump there; others open the official text on GovInfo.
• The colored bar on each card shows the maximum prison time. Most people convicted receive less. Actual sentences depend on the facts and the federal sentencing guidelines.
• How common: the number of people sentenced in federal court in a fiscal year (October to September) with at least one conviction under the section, from the U.S. Sentencing Commission's individual datafile. A person convicted under several sections counts once for each. It covers federal prosecutions only, not how often the conduct happens, and sections often cited together (such as § 922 with § 924, or § 2) rank high because they are charged alongside other crimes.
• A felony is a crime punishable by more than one year in prison; a misdemeanor is one year or less.