Corporate and White-Collar Prosecutions At All-Time Lows

The latest available case-by-case records from the Department of Justice (DOJ) show that the prosecution of white-collar offenders in January 2020 reached an all-time low since tracking began during the Reagan Administration. Only 359 defendants were prosecuted in January 2020. Almost all of these were individuals rather than businesses. January 2020's prosecutions continued a downward slide, dropping 8 percent from a year ago, and were down 25 percent from just five years ago.

Federal white-collar prosecutions have fallen from their peak of over 1,000 in June 2010 and February 2011. Figure 1 and Table 1 show white-collar prosecutions on an annual basis starting with the Reagan Administration back in fiscal year 1986. During the Obama Administration in FY 2011, they reached over 10,000. If prosecutions continue at the same pace for the remainder of FY 2020, they are projected to fall to 5,175 - almost half the level of their Obama-era peak.

Few Businesses Prosecuted for White-Collar Crimes

Prosecutors chiefly pursue individuals when prosecuting white-collar crimes. Corporations and other business organizations are rarely prosecuted. Yet white-collar crimes typically involve some form of fraud or anti-trust violations involving financial, insurance or mortgage institutions; health care providers; securities and commodities firms; or frauds committed in tax, federal procurement or federal programs among others.

Since separate tracking for business entities began in FY 2004, only 1,300 business entities have been federally prosecuted for white-collar offenses compared with 124,402 defendants who were individuals. As shown in Figure 2, business entities made up just one (1) out of every 100 prosecutions during this period.

This one percent ratio has been fairly consistent over the period from FY 2004 through January of 2020. Thus, federal criminal prosecutions of business entities for white-collar crimes have mirrored overall declining numbers. In fact, both the number of white-collar and other offenses that business entities have been prosecuted for have been generally declining. See Figure 3.

These comparisons of the number of defendants charged with white-collar offenses are based on case-by-case information obtained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University after successful litigation against the Justice Department under the Freedom of Information Act.

Table 1. Federal Criminal Prosecutions for White-Collar Crimes, FY 1986 - FY 2020*

Presidential Administration	Fiscal Year	Total White Collar	Individuals	Business Entities
Reagan	1986	7,843	na	na
	1987	8,267	na	na
	1988	7,815	na	na
Bush	1989	8,551	na	na
	1990	8,716	na	na
	1991	9,582	na	na
	1992	10,419	na	na
Clinton	1993	10,906	na	na
	1994	10,269	na	na
	1995	10,909	na	na
	1996	10,698	na	na
	1997	9,938	na	na
	1998	9,412	na	na
	1999	9,488	na	na
	2000	9,532	na	na
Bush	2001	9,507	na	na
	2002	9,628	na	na
	2003	9,549	na	na
	2004	8,859	8,754	105
	2005	7,765	7,655	110
	2006	7,614	7,508	106
	2007	7,953	7,865	88
	2008	8,108	8,014	94
Obama	2009	8,477	8,396	81
	2010	9,722	9,643	79
	2011	10,162	10,097	65
	2012	8,433	8,359	74
	2013	8,373	8,292	81
	2014	7,864	7,792	72
	2015	6,935	6,873	62
	2016	6,253	6,190	63
Trump	2017	5,825	5,743	82
	2018	5,932	5,887	45
	2019	5,702	5,622	80
	*2020	5,175	5,136	39

na = not available
* FY 2020 projected; prosecutions during the first four months (Oct 2019-Jan 2020) were 1,712 individuals and 13 businesses.

TRAC offers free monthly reports on program categories such as white collar crime, immigration, drugs, weapons and terrorism and on selected government agencies such as the IRS, FBI, ATF and DHS. For the latest information on prosecutions and convictions, go to http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/bulletins/. In addition, subscribers to the TRACFed data service can generate custom reports for a specific agency, judicial district, program category, lead charge or judge via the TRAC Data Interpreter.