Sponsors (5)
The bill increases transparency and clarity about federal criminal statutes and enforcement—helping citizens, lawyers, businesses, and oversight—at the cost of imposing substantial data-collection burdens on agencies that could produce delays, uneven reporting, or politicized scrutiny without additional resources.
All Americans (citizens and lawyers) will have clearer access to federal criminal law because DOJ must publish every federal criminal statute with elements, mens rea, and penalties online.
Taxpayers and oversight bodies will gain better visibility into enforcement trends because DOJ and agencies must report prosecution counts over the past 15 years, improving government accountability.
Defendants, defense counsel, and prosecutors will face fewer risks of inadvertent criminalization because clarified mens rea requirements help courts and lawyers apply intent standards more consistently.
Federal agencies and DOJ staff will need to compile extensive statutory and historical enforcement data without new appropriations, diverting staff time and potentially delaying other work.
Agencies face tight 1–2 year deadlines to assemble 15 years of prosecution data, creating a high risk of incomplete or inaccurate counts that could mislead the public.
Smaller or under-resourced agencies may struggle to identify and report all criminal regulatory offenses, producing uneven completeness across agencies and leaving gaps in the public record.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires DOJ and certain federal agencies to inventory and publish federal criminal statutory and regulatory offenses with elements, mens rea, penalties, and 15 years of enforcement/referral data.
Requires the Attorney General and specified federal agencies to create and publish a comprehensive inventory of federal criminal offenses. Agencies must report detailed information about statutory criminal offenses and agency-enforced criminal regulatory offenses, including legal elements, mental-state requirements, potential penalties, and 15 years of enforcement or referral data, then publish searchable online indexes within set deadlines.
Introduced March 14, 2025 by Charles Roy · Last progress March 26, 2026