Wednesday, April 29, 2009
The current decade has not been a good one when it comes to the government cracking down on a wide range of illegal activities. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, prosecutions by the Justice Department are down since January 2001, when the total number of cases brought against violators of federal regulations was approximately 230. In January 2009, the total was only 129.
From 2001 to 2009 the number of cases did spike at times, but overall there was a downward trend by Justice Department regulatory prosecutions during President George W. Bush’s administration. The number of cases from 2004 to now dropped 16.2%, and from January 2008 to January 2009, the decline was 18.6%.
Examples of regulatory prosecutions include counterfeiting and forgery (45% of cases), customs violations, energy pricing and related fraud, health and safety violations, copyright violations, trafficking in contraband cigarettes, energy violations involving nuclear waste, and money laundering.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Government Regulatory Prosecutions for January 2009 (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse)
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