
White-Collar Crime: Why Executives Don’t Go to Prison - rbanffy
http://fortune.com/2017/06/27/executives-prison-financial-crisis-criminal-justice/?utm_campaign=fortunemagazine&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&xid=soc_socialflow_twitter_FORTUNE
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gozur88
1\. White collar cases often turn on technical details neither the judge nor
the jury really understand. Even if the law's on your side it's a crapshoot.

2\. Defendants have enough money the prosecutors can't just scare them into
taking a plea bargain. 98% of federal cases are pled out (which is a good
indication of tyranny). Prosecutors don't have the resources to take every
case to trial, _especially_ complex cases. It's easy to get people to
understand drug distribution and bank robbery without calling dozens of expert
witnesses. Financial flimflam? Not so much.

3\. The public cares a lot more about keeping violent criminals behind bars
than fraudsters.

Also, this bugs me:

>It’s been nearly a decade since the financial crisis, and yet no big-company
executives are behind bars. One reason, says Eisinger, is that court rulings
have taken away tactics that prosecutors had used to pressure defendants, such
as restricting attorney-client privilege and preventing their companies from
bankrolling sky-high legal bills.

Prosecutors should not have "tactics to pressure defendants". If you can't get
a conviction without taking the defendant's money so he can't afford a lawyer,
maybe you don't have a case.

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ableton
Agreed. Some of the worst white collar criminals are actually DAs who
knowingly prosecute people who shouldn't be prosecuted. They have the power to
punish anyone even the innocent with potential prison time even if innocent,
and also insane legal fees. If the government loses, they should pay for
putting an innocent through so much hardship

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mothers
once you realize that prison _mainly_ just serves to disenfranchise the poor
and minorities, the fact executives don't go to prison is obvious.

people will disagree, but you need only look at the facts to see.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement)

~~~
everdayimhustln
Exactly. Highest per capita incarceration rate in the world, save Seychelles.
Slavery 2.0 meets prison-industrial complex and voter disenfranchisement. The
US justice system is the opposite of reform-based systems like those in many
Scandinavian countries. It's mean, expensive and reinforces a type of social
apartheid.

~~~
Cryptid
The Census counts prisoners according to the "usual residence rule," assigning
them to their prison for purpose of location and, of course, redistricting. A
prison is a good way to get a lot of bodies to populate a district and ensure
they won't vote.

