Prioritizing Justice: Combating Corporate Crime from Task Force to Top Priority

Mary K. Ramirez, Washburn University School of Law

Abstract

Inadequate law enforcement against corporate criminals appears to have created perverse incentives leading to an economic crisis – this time in the context of the subprime mortgage crisis. Prioritizing Justice proposes institutional reform at the Department of Justice in pursuing corporate crime. Presently, corporate crime is pursued nationally primarily through the DOJ Corporate Fraud Task Force and other task forces, the DOJ Criminal Division Fraud Section, and the individual U.S. Attorney’s Offices. Rather than a collection of ad hoc task forces that seek to coordinate policy among a vast array of offices and agencies, the relentless waves of corporate criminality support the need to create a Corporate Crimes Division as a permanent base in the Department of Justice. The Corporate Crimes Division would more efficiently investigate and prosecute crimes of national and multi-national corporations spanning multiple districts, and pursue a coordinated national policy that affirms the commitment of the DOJ to fight large-scale corporate crime which costs taxpayers billions, frustrates financial markets, increases the cost of capital to honest businesses, and undermines citizens’ confidence in the rule of law. Given the cost of corporate crime, creating the Division promotes superior institutional design that should yield substantial benefit.