American Public Media's
"Marketplace" had a recent segment focused on why it has taken so long
to bring criminal prosecutions related to the financial crisis.
Reporters observed that at the beginning of the crisis, the Obama
administration wanted to calm the financial industry rather than impose
accountability. They speculated, along with Tea Party and Occupy Wall
Street participants, many of whom have been calling for prosecutions,
that Obama’s creation of a new group to prosecute mortgage fraud led by
New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman was likely to be
politically motivated. And they indicated that financial crimes are
complex and prosecutors need time to develop their cases.
But
here's what they didn't say: A major reason the prosecutions don’t
exist is that President George W. Bush took the cops off the beat.
Think
about street crime. Imagine, for example, a protection racket in which
gangs extort payment from fearful shopkeepers. Prosecutors rarely
initiate criminal prosecutions; indeed, they may not even know that the
crime is occurring. The police pound the beats that keep them aware of
the increase in crime, respond to complaints, investigate, determine
that a crime may have occurred that warrants attention, create a file
and send it to the prosecutor’s office. In routine cases, the
prosecution proceeds on the basis of the police report alone. In more
complex cases, the prosecutor may supplement the police investigation.
But prosecutors rarely initiate cases. Even when a task force is
appointed to target crime in a particular sector, it typically involves
prosecutors working with the police. The prosecutors simply don’t have
the skills or the manpower to detect crime, conduct investigations and
make the record necessary to prosecute. READ MORE
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