Long before the World
Wide Web became an established media, TRAC published a thick report
using federal court data to examine the performance of "big city"
U.S. Attorneys. Ron Ostrow, who had covered the Justice Department
for the Times for many years, noted that the data showed that
from 1980 to 1997 the drug prosecution rate in Los Angeles was
the lowest among the selected districts. Ostrow's November 15,
1989 article noted that the relatively small number of assistant
U.S. Attorneys in the Central District of California district
and the office's concentration on fraud among the area defense
contractors may have been factors in the comparatively low rate
of drug cases even though the area was considered the "nation's
cocaine warehouse."
