| Federal White Collar Crime Prosecutions At 20-Year Low |
| (29 Jul 2015)
The federal prosecution of individuals charged with white collar crimes is significantly lower than it was 20 years ago, according to thousands of case-by case records analyzed by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).
Records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that the overall decline began under President Clinton, and indicate that for the full 2015 fiscal year under President Obama such prosecutions will be at their lowest level since 1995.
As categorized by the Justice Department, white collar crime involves a wide range of actions such as health care fraud and the violation of tax, securities, federal procurement and other laws. The decline in such prosecutions does not necessarily indicate that white collar crime is on the wane but may reflect changing and sometimes unannounced enforcement priorities set by the executive branch and Congress. The records indicate that during the first nine months of FY 2015, the government brought 5,173 white collar crime prosecutions. If the monthly number of these kinds of cases continues at the same pace until the end of the current fiscal year on September 30, the total will be only 6,897 such matters, about one third (36.8%) fewer than twenty years ago. To read the full report on the long term collapse of federal white collar crime prosecutions, including total filings and rankings for each federal district, go to: http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/crim/398/In addition to this report on white collar crime prosecutions, TRAC continues to offer free monthly reports on program categories such as immigration, drugs, weapons and terrorism. TRAC's reports also monitor selected government agencies such as the IRS, FBI, ATF and DHS. For the latest information on prosecutions and convictions through June 2015, go to: http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/bulletins/Even more detailed criminal enforcement information for the period from FY 1986 through June 2015 is available to TRACFed subscribers via the Express and Going Deeper tools. Go to http://tracfed.syr.edu for more information. Customized reports for a specific agency, district, program, lead charge or judge are available via the TRAC Data Interpreter, either as part of a TRACFed subscription or on a per-report basis. Go to http://trac.syr.edu/interpreter to start. To keep up with TRAC, follow us on Twitter @tracreports or like us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/tracreportsTRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the US Federal government. To help support TRAC's ongoing efforts, go to: http://trac.syr.edu/sponsor/ |
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