Despite repeated claims to the contrary by top officials at the U.S. Department of Justice, the government's criminal prosecution of corporate violators has declined substantially in the last decade, falling by almost one third (29%) between FY 2004 and FY 2014.
According to DOJ data analyzed in this report by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, this number has gone down even though there has been little change in the number of times federal investigators has asked that criminal charges be brought against coporations (actually up 2.6%).
Parallel records on criminal convictions, obtained from a second independent record keeper, the U.S. Sentencing Commission, show similar trends to those revealed by the Justice Department data:
Meanwhile, the number of corporations has risen. According to data from the IRS, the total number of corporations (including partnerships, sole proprietorships and LLCs) in tax year 2012 was 24 percent greater than it was in 2002.
There has been no overall decrease in criminal prosecutions either: between FY 2004 and FY 2014, there was more than a 25 percent increase, in large part because of more aggressive criminal enforcement of immigration laws. While collar crime however, has seen a significant drop over the same period: more than a third down, according to this earlier study by TRAC.
And while non-prosecutions agreements (NPAs) made with the DOJ may be reducing the number of corporate defendants, their number isn't nearly enough explain the drop.
Read the full report: Justice Department Data Reveal 29 Percent Drop in Criminal Prosecutions of Corporations