2002's summer of big-name corporate scandals and bankruptcies
prompted further examinations of how white-collar crime laws are
enforced. While many Americans clamored for stricter sentences
and jail-time to curb corporate abuses, Walter Hamilton of the
L.A. Times examined the difficulties of putting white-collar criminals
behind bars.
Using TRAC data, Hamilton illuminated a critical but inefficient
link between the SEC —a lead agency in the investigation
of certain kinds of business crimes—and the Justice Department
attorneys who are responsible for prosecuting them. Hamilton discovered
that of 523 cases referred by the SEC over the last decade, Justice
Department attorneys declined to prosecute over half - 292. The
L.A. Times article also cited TRAC when it focused on the notoriously
short prison terms for white collar criminals.
