Prosecution of Corporate Crime Has Plummeted Under Obama Administration: Report

In the lead-up to their first debate tonight in Las Vegas, the Democratic presidential candidates have been calling for a tough-on-crime stance by the federal government against major corporations. A new report documenting a precipitous decline in corporate prosecutions could intensify those demands. The analysis by Syracuse University finds that the government’s criminal prosecution of corporations has dropped 29 percent in the past decade -- particularly remarkable as the decline not only followed headline-grabbing scandals at financial, accounting and energy firms but also occurred even as the number of corporate crime cases referred to prosecutors has increased.