DOJ-003 — Prosecutorial Neutrality Monitoring and Congressional Oversight Act

A BILL

To amend existing Department of Justice statistical-reporting and inspector-general authorities to require federal charging and disposition statistics, independent anomaly review, protected reports to Congress, and preservation of executive responsibility for individual prosecutions.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the “Prosecutorial Neutrality Monitoring and Congressional Oversight Act.”

SEC. 2. PURPOSES.

The purposes of this Act are to preserve lawful prosecutorial discretion; build on existing Department of Justice statistical-reporting authority; require uniform documentation of federal charging and disposition decisions; assign statistical architecture to the Bureau of Justice Statistics; assign independent anomaly review and protected congressional notice to the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General; and enable legislative and oversight correction without authorizing OIG, BJS, GAO, or Congress to control individual prosecutions.

SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.

(a) Charging-decision lifecycle.

1. Proposed decision means a documented recommendation concerning a charge or disposition before final supervisory authorization.
2. Authorized decision means a decision approved by the official or officials whose approval is required by law or Department policy.
3. Final operative decision means the decision actually filed, communicated, implemented, or used to resolve the matter.

(b) Charging or disposition decision.

The term includes a final operative decision to initiate a prosecution; seek, add, remove, reduce, substitute, supersede, or dismiss a charge; decline prosecution after formal presentation; close a substantially investigated criminal matter without charge; enter or materially modify a plea, deferred-prosecution, or non-prosecution agreement; adopt a material sentencing position; depart materially from generally applicable charging policy; or take a substantially equivalent action designated by regulation.

(c) Anomaly.

An anomaly is a statistically or contextually material departure from an appropriate comparison group that may indicate inconsistent severity, leniency, retaliation, favoritism, selective enforcement, or political influence and is not adequately explained by legitimate case-specific factors.

(d) Judiciary Committees.

The term means the House and Senate Committees on the Judiciary.

SEC. 4. FEDERAL CHARGING AND DISPOSITION STATISTICS.

(a) Amendment to Bureau of Justice Statistics authority.

Section 302(c) of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (34 U.S.C. 10132(c)) is amended by adding at the end the following:

“(24) collect, analyze, publish, and disseminate, subject to lawful safeguards, statistics concerning Federal criminal charging and disposition decisions, including final operative decisions to initiate, decline, dismiss, reduce, substitute, supersede, or dispose of charges; plea, deferred-prosecution, and non-prosecution agreements; material sentencing positions; and material departures from generally applicable charging policy;

“(25) establish, in consultation with the Attorney General, the Inspector General of the Department of Justice, the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, the Comptroller General, prosecutors, defense practitioners, statisticians, privacy experts, and civil-rights specialists, uniform data standards for Federal charging and disposition transaction statistics;

“(26) require each United States Attorney’s Office and Department of Justice component participating in Federal criminal charging or disposition to create and transmit a standardized electronic record for each final operative decision, and to preserve proposed and authorized stages for audit where required by regulation;

“(27) require, to the maximum extent practicable, automated extraction of routine fields from existing case-management, court-filing, sentencing, and financial systems, and avoid duplicative manual entry of information reliably available in an authoritative system;

“(28) require charging and disposition records to include, as applicable, component, district, date, procedural stage, decision type, offenses considered, charges proposed and finally implemented, applicable charging policies, material departures, offense conduct, evidence strength and admissibility, culpability, criminal history, harm, cooperation, obstruction, venue, jurisdiction, limitations, resource considerations, plea terms, dismissal terms, deferred- or non-prosecution terms, sentencing positions, approving officials, outside consultation, known covered political contacts, and neutral explanatory fields designated by regulation;

“(29) limit any political-status or relationship field to public, case-relevant, and analytically necessary information, and prohibit inference of political status solely from race, religion, sex, national origin, residence, occupation, or private belief;

“(30) publish annual aggregate Federal charging and disposition statistics, methodological descriptions, data-quality measures, national and component trends, and generalized systemic findings in a manner that protects grand-jury material, classified information, sealed material, privileged information, fair-trial rights, confidential sources, law-enforcement-sensitive information, personal privacy, and uncharged persons; and

“(31) provide the Inspector General of the Department of Justice timely access to charging and disposition records and related source materials reasonably necessary for anomaly review, source-file audit, data-integrity review, and protected reporting required by law, subject to lawful safeguards for grand-jury, classified, sealed, privileged, privacy, and law-enforcement-sensitive information.”.

(b) Timeliness.

Records required under paragraphs (26) through (31) of section 302(c) of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, as added by subsection (a), shall be transmitted within 30 days after the final operative decision, subject to narrowly tailored temporary delay for substantial operational risk.

SEC. 5. INSPECTOR GENERAL REVIEW OF FEDERAL CHARGING AND DISPOSITION ANOMALIES.

(a) Express authority.

The Inspector General of the Department of Justice shall have express authority to audit, inspect, review, and investigate Federal charging and disposition records, related source files, political-contact records, and related attorney conduct for purposes of this Act and the amendments made by this Act, notwithstanding assignment of professional-responsibility matters to another Department office. The Office of Professional Responsibility may exercise coordinated or concurrent jurisdiction.

(b) Duties.

The Inspector General shall validate completeness; conduct continuous and periodic anomaly review; compare outcomes across districts, components, administrations, offenses, and materially similar matters; conduct contextual human review; audit source files; investigate qualifying anomalies; and issue required reports.

(c) Access.

The Inspector General shall have timely access to records reasonably necessary for duties under this Act, including prosecutorial memoranda and political-contact records, subject to lawful safeguards for grand-jury, classified, sealed, privileged, privacy, and law-enforcement-sensitive information.

No Department officer may prevent the Inspector General from initiating, carrying out, or completing a duty required by this Act.

SEC. 6. ANALYTICAL METHODOLOGY AND VALIDATION.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Inspector General shall establish a transparent and periodically revised methodology developed with statisticians, prosecutors, defense practitioners, civil-rights specialists, privacy experts, and GAO. The methodology shall account for legitimate case differences, data completeness, sample size, multiple comparisons, and practical effect size.

No anomaly may be reported solely because an automated model generated a flag. A qualified Inspector General employee shall conduct and document contextual human review before any Level Two or Level Three anomaly is reported.

GAO shall review the methodology at least every three years for validity, neutrality, accuracy, manipulation risk, and disparate error.

SEC. 7. ANOMALY THRESHOLDS.

(a) Level One — Internal Review Anomaly.

A Level One anomaly exists when a decision or pattern materially departs from an appropriate comparison range and available data reveal no immediate neutral explanation. It requires preliminary OIG review but not congressional notice.

(b) Level Two — Reportable Anomaly.

A Level Two anomaly exists when contextual review confirms a statistically significant and practically material disparity; the disparity involves political contact, political status, repeated policy departure, or differential treatment capable of conferring political advantage or disadvantage; reliable data support the comparison; legitimate factors do not adequately explain it; and it affects multiple matters, a recurring class, a senior official or candidate, or a matter of substantial national importance.

(c) Level Three — Urgent Oversight Anomaly.

A Level Three anomaly exists when reasonable grounds indicate intentional political retaliation, favoritism, selective enforcement, or interference; senior DOJ or White House participation; concealment or data manipulation; a continuing substantial threat to neutral administration; or a risk that delayed notification would impair oversight.

(d) Standards.

OIG shall establish numerical and contextual thresholds requiring both statistical significance and meaningful effect size, appropriate multiple-comparison correction, minimum data quality, methods for rare but consequential decisions, and anti-evasion rules.

An anomaly is an oversight trigger. It does not by itself establish illegality, misconduct, discrimination, criminal conduct, or an impeachable offense.

SEC. 8. MANDATORY CONGRESSIONAL REPORTING.

A Level Two anomaly shall be reported confidentially within 30 days to the chair and ranking minority member of each Judiciary Committee. A Level Three anomaly shall be noticed confidentially within 7 days, followed by a fuller report when lawful and operationally safe.

Reports shall describe the methodology, comparison group, magnitude and persistence, neutral explanations considered, data limitations, political contacts or policy departures, investigative status, leadership interference, and recommendations. Where identity, office, candidacy, donor status, party role, personal relationship, official relationship, or other political connection is material to the anomaly, the report shall include enough information for the Judiciary Committees to understand the nature of the political relationship, the treatment disparity, the comparator group, and the oversight significance.

OIG may anonymize, classify, delay details, redact identifying information, or use secure channels only to the minimum extent required by law or reasonably necessary to protect active matters, grand juries, fair-trial rights, witnesses, confidential sources, classified information, law-enforcement-sensitive information, and uncharged persons.

Anonymization, classification, delay, redaction, or secure-channel reporting may not be used to prevent the Judiciary Committees from determining the nature of the anomaly, the politically relevant actor or relationship when material, the comparator group, the treatment disparity, and the oversight action required. If identifying details cannot lawfully or safely be included in the written report, OIG shall provide a secure means for the chair and ranking minority member of each Judiciary Committee, and appropriately cleared or authorized committee counsel designated by them, to review the identifying information necessary for oversight, subject to lawful safeguards.

OIG may not withhold the existence of a Level Three anomaly solely because a matter remains active.

Unresolved Level Two and Level Three anomalies shall receive confidential status reports at least every 90 days and a final report upon completion.

SEC. 9. PUBLIC REPORTING.

BJS shall publish annual aggregate data, national and component trends, methodological descriptions, and reporting-compliance measures. OIG shall publish annual aggregate anomaly counts, generalized systemic findings, methodological changes, corrective actions, and recommendations. Public reports shall protect uncharged persons and information barred from disclosure.

SEC. 10. DATA INTEGRITY AND RANDOM AUDIT.

OIG shall conduct risk-based and random source-file audits comparing submitted records against case-management systems, court records, decision memoranda, and other authoritative sources.

Knowing or repeated failure to report, concealment of a decision, falsification, manipulation of categories or comparison groups, omission of political contacts, threshold evasion, or retaliation shall be investigated and referred for appropriate discipline or prosecution.

Each component head shall certify annual material compliance. OIG shall report materially deficient components quarterly to the Attorney General and Judiciary Committees.

SEC. 11. PROTECTION AGAINST INTERFERENCE.

A request by DOJ leadership to delay, limit, modify, or terminate an anomaly review shall be written and preserved. OIG shall notify the Judiciary Committees within 7 days of a material attempt to obstruct, suppress, delay, or interfere. Removal or replacement of the Inspector General shall not terminate an existing review, and all files shall remain preserved for continuation by career personnel.

SEC. 12. LIMITATION ON AUTHORITY.

Nothing in this Act authorizes BJS, OIG, GAO, or Congress to initiate or terminate an investigation; direct strategy; approve, disapprove, delay, or veto a charge; require prosecution or declination; dictate a plea, dismissal, or sentencing position; or otherwise exercise prosecutorial authority.

Individual criminal matters remain with officers otherwise authorized by law. Monitoring and reporting serve oversight, accountability, administration, discipline, legislation, and institutional correction only.

This Act creates no private right of action and does not independently require dismissal, suppression, or vacation of a conviction.

SEC. 13. INFORMATION SAFEGUARDS.

BJS and OIG shall establish access, retention, cybersecurity, disclosure, and audit-log safeguards for grand-jury information, classified and sealed material, privilege, personal data, confidential sources, investigative methods, fair-trial rights, and uncharged persons.

SEC. 14. IMPLEMENTATION.

BJS, OIG, and the Attorney General shall issue proposed regulations within 180 days; BJS shall establish the Federal charging and disposition statistics system within one year; complete submissions shall begin within 18 months; formal anomaly reporting shall begin within two years; and, where practicable, DOJ shall supply at least five years of historical data for baseline analysis.

Before formal anomaly reporting begins, BJS and OIG shall conduct a staged validation period using historical data, pilot submissions from selected districts and components, privacy-impact review, data-quality testing, and methodology validation with GAO. During the staged validation period, BJS and OIG may issue internal data-quality findings and implementation recommendations, but OIG may not treat a preliminary model output as a Level Two or Level Three anomaly until the human-review and methodology standards required by this Act are operational.

SEC. 15. AUTHORIZATION AND SEVERABILITY.

There are authorized to be appropriated $30,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2027 through 2031 to carry out this Act, including secure infrastructure, automated data extraction, historical-data validation, source-file audits, methodology review, and qualified legal, statistical, audit, investigative, privacy, and cybersecurity staff.

If any provision or application is held invalid, the remainder shall not be affected.

Budgetary Impact Statement

The bill authorizes $30,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2027 through 2031. This authorization is a proposal-design figure, not an official cost estimate. PREA's BJS data-and-research authorization provides a historical analogue at $15,000,000 per year for fiscal years 2004 through 2010.

Note: Preliminary ARRP assessment only; not a CBO, OMB, agency, or legislative-counsel score.

Drafting Notes

• The statute creates universal visibility, not universal preclearance.
• The bill now amends existing DOJ statistical-reporting authority rather than relying on a wholly freestanding data architecture.
• BJS owns the statistical architecture, public aggregate reporting, data standards, and transaction dataset; OIG owns source-file audit, contextual anomaly review, protected congressional notice, and interference reporting.
• Final operative decisions supply the principal analytical dataset; earlier stages remain available to detect political alteration within the decision chain.
• Automated extraction limits administrative burden; manual narratives are targeted to decisions where neutral explanation matters most.
• Political data are restricted to public, case-relevant, analytically necessary facts.
• Confidential congressional reporting is not anonymized by default. Redaction, anonymization, classification, delay, or secure-channel reporting may protect legally sensitive information, but may not be used to defeat Congress's ability to understand a material political relationship, comparator group, treatment disparity, and oversight need.
• Random source-file audits address concealment and category manipulation.
• The staged validation period is meant to reduce false positives, privacy risk, data-quality failures, and implementation shock before formal anomaly reporting begins.
• The $30,000,000 annual authorization is a starting proposal figure anchored to PREA's historical $15,000,000 annual authorization for BJS prison-rape statistics, data, and research, adjusted upward because DOJ-003 covers a more complex DOJ-wide charging and disposition data system.
• Bipartisan confidential reporting reduces, but cannot eliminate, politicization of congressional oversight.
• The Act is intentionally corrective and deterrent. It does not promise prevention of every first abuse; it creates an institutional avenue for detection, exposure, correction, discipline, and legislative response.

Source Notes

• Source review should include the Inspector General Act, now classified in 5 U.S.C. chapter 4, and GAO evaluation authority under 31 U.S.C. § 717.
• Statistical-reporting analogues should include BJS authority under 34 U.S.C. § 10132, PREA statistical review under 34 U.S.C. § 30303, Death in Custody Reporting Act reporting under 34 U.S.C. § 60105, and Attorney General crime-record authority under 28 U.S.C. § 534.
• Appropriations review should include PREA's historical authorization of $15,000,000 per year for prison-rape statistics, data, and research in Public Law 108-79, section 4(e).
• Privacy and sensitive-information review should include the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a, Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e), and the Classified Information Procedures Act where classified information may be implicated.
• DOJ institutional-fit review should include BJS's existing statistical authority, DOJ OIG's statutory oversight role, and DOJ OPR's current jurisdiction over professional-misconduct allegations involving Department attorneys.