CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER

Report: White-Collar Prosecutions Slide

19 Corporate Crime Reporter 38(3), September 28, 2005

Federal white-collar criminal prosecutions are on the decline, according to a report released today by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).


The report found that while the information from the U.S. Attorneys showed the totals for white collar prosecutions had remained essentially unchanged from 2000 to 2003, the number of prosecutions declined about ten percent from 2003 to 2004.


Estimates for 2005 indicate that the decline is continuing.


The report found marked increases in immigration and weapons enforcement, while drug and white collar prosecutions slid in recent years.


The report found that in 2003, the number of weapons prosecutions surpassed the number of white collar crime prosecutions.


The group, based at Syracuse University, did a case-by-case study of more than half a million individual federal prosecutions.


The report showed two broad sorts of change: a large increase in the overall number of cases being prosecuted each year by the government and dramatic shifts in the kinds of matters it brought to court.


The report focused on four major categories:


* Immigration. Individual prosecutions categorized by the U.S. Attorneys as immigration matters more than doubled from 2000 to 2004 -- surging from 16,724 to 37,854. This very large jump means they now make up the single largest category of federal crimes surpassing even drug prosecutions.


* Drugs. The second largest broad category of federal criminal prosecutions in 2004 -- 30,988 of them -- concerned the enforcement of the drug laws. For this group, the filing of criminal charges leveled off during the first years of the Bush Administration and went into a decline in 2004. Estimates based on the first six months of data indicate that the decline is continuing for 2005.


* Weapons. Weapons was the third largest criminal enforcement area in 2004. The upward trend in the prosecution of weapons matters, which started during the Clinton administration, soared during the Bush years, jumping from 5,490 in 2000 to 10,937 in 2004.


* White-Collar Crime. Of the four principle groupings of federal prosecutions, the smallest concerned white collar crime violations -- 8,626 prosecutions in 2004.

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