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The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse indicates that through August — the first 11 months of the government’s most recent fiscal year — prosecutions of all types were down almost 18 percent from five years ago.
I delved further into the figures and found that precious few of these were white-collar crime cases. According to the database, the largest number of cases pursued by prosecutors — representing almost 53 percent of the total — involved immigration. White-collar crime, by contrast, accounted for about 6,000 cases, or just 4.6 percent of the total so far this year.
That tally is far fewer than in previous periods. Compared with five years ago, for example, the number of cases is down 39 percent; going back a decade, near the height of the mortgage mania, cases have fallen by 19 percent.
“Criminal enforcement is required to deter criminal behavior, and the current Justice Department has more and more abandoned such activities,” said David Burnham, co-director of the records clearinghouse, who compiles the data.
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