Rethinking the Prosecution, and Sentencing, of White-Collar Offenders

Discussion of crime tends to be limited to violent acts. This chapter focuses on the counterpart to violent, white collar crime (the last F in WFF). The magnitude of white collar crime is only dimly known. Resources for its investigation are sorely lacking, in part because Congress has reduced funding for investigating tax evasion—this, at a time of substantial budget deficits. The effect of these factors has been to distort the social justice/criminal justice connection—in particular, to focus attention on race and class. The chapter aims at correcting this imbalance. Among other things, it explains how lawmakers can learn from the relative lenity of sentencing for white collar, as distinguished from, violent crime defendants.