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Feds tolerate white collar crimes more than drug offenses

You're a lot more likely to wind up in a federal prison if you're arrested on a drug charge, according to the US Sentencing Commission, than you are for engaging in larceny, fraud, or white collar crime. According to a new report by the USSC titled "Alternative Sentencing in the Federal Criminal Justice System" (pdf), a whopping 92% of drug convictions resulted in a prison sentence, compared to 39% of convictions for larceny, 60% of convictions for fraud, and just 57% of convictions for white collar crime.With the national financial system melting down before our eyes, one wonders whether such relative leniency for white collar transgressions - particularly the decline in white collar prosecutions over the last five years and the advent of so-called deferred prosecution agreements for corporate wrongdoers - may have contributed to the nation's current economic woes?continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on February 09, 2009 (boomark / email).