Legal Commentary

Number of Federal Prosecutions Rise to Highest Level

By Jeralyn

A new report shows that federal prosecution of crimes is at an all-time high. The increase is due to the number of immigration-related crimes. The breakdown by agency:

[T]he FBI — which at one time was the premier investigative agency with the largest share of investigations resulting in prosecutions — has now slid to fourth place, accounting for only 8.7 percent of the FY 2009 filings. Leading the pack last year was Customs and Border Protection in the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Border Patrol, with 46.5 percent of all prosecutions. Coming second was Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with 12 percent, also in Homeland Security. In third place was the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) which accounted for 9.5 percent of all prosecutions.

So the FBI and DEA together now account for only 18.2% of federal proseuctions. [More...]

Of the immigration cases, 92% were for two offenses:

[I]llegal entry of an alien and illegal re-entry of an alien under Title 8, Section 1325 and Section 1326, respectively, of the United States Code.

Only 3% of the immigration cases were for visa fraud-releated offenses.

What about white collar crime?

In FY 2009, for example, Justice Department data showed there were only 178 securities fraud prosecutions. While up 22 percent from 2008, this figure still only represents about a third of what it was in 2002, when there were 513 such prosecutions.

For another business category, corporate fraud, the data indicate a grand total of 82 prosecutions, down to about a quarter of what it was — 322 prosecutions — in 2003, the first year this category was used. Although such cases obviously are among the most difficult for the government to prove, they seem infinitesimal when compared to the 91,899 immigration prosecutions.

The New York Times crunches the numbers:

And while federal prosecutors decline to prosecute about half of the white-collar cases that are referred to them by law enforcement agencies, they prosecute 97 percent of the immigration cases, according to the Syracuse group.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 22, 2009 (boomark / email).