1979 Attorney General Bell authorized the establishment of the

ECE program and mandated the establishment of national and

district priorities for the investigation and prosecution of

white-collar crime.

After announcing his four priority areas of law enforcement for the Department, Attorney General Bell encouraged the OUSAs to establish specialized units to address these priorities. In response, approximately 25 units were developed locally to eliminate backlogs and prosecute new cases when they were presented to the OUSA. As the smaller offices eliminated their backlogs and found few priority cases being developed, they disbanded their units. Thus, within a year only 11 units, in large OUSAs with heavy caseloads in priority areas, continued to exist.

To ensure an effective, coordinated approach to white-collar crime enforcement, it was necessary to design a program with overall guidance and direction. To make the program responsive to the individual needs of an OUSA's district, however, elements of flexibility and adaptability were required. Hence, the ECE program, with dual levels of responsibility and operation, was developed.

In formulating the organizational framework for the ECE program, DOJ reviewed the experience and practice of two of its ongoing program initiatives: the Organized Crime and Racketeering (OCR) Strike Forces, developed in 1967 to focus departmental efforts on organized crime; and the Controlled Substances Units (CSU),* designed in 1975 to direct departmental resources for controlling

The program name has subsequently been changed to the Major Drug Traffickers Prosecution Program.

narcotics trafficking.* The Strike Forces are composed of CRM attorneys and operate separately from the OUSA, while the CSUS are comprised of AUSAS designated to prosecute major drug cases exclusively and function as a part of the OUSA. However, in the ECE program the U.S. Attorney forms the ECE unit consisting of experienced AUSAS and CRM provides an ECE Specialist, an attorney who works with the unit to assist in setting district priorities, to develop methods of preventing white-collar crimes, and to improve the capability of the unit to identify, investigate and prosecute white-collar crime offenders. This collaboration of the OUSA and CRM is intended to bring together the complementary characteristics of two departmental components having concurrent responsibilities: the expertise and experience of a large decentralized network of prosecutorial resources (within the 95 districts of the U.S. Attorneys), and the centralized program oversight and coordination of the OECE. This collaboration, if successful, is expected to effectively address a national law enforcement problem and utilize available resources in a more efficient and accountable manner.

Full implementation of the ECE program will include 30 ECE regions covering the 50 States, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Each region will consist of one unit district and one or more non-unit districts. The national composition of the program is to have 30 ECE unit districts and 63 non-unit districts, covering all the Federal judicial districts except Guam and North Marianna. The initial plan for establishing units is outlined in the Deputy

A comparison of these two programs and the ECE program is beyond the scope of this study, and, will not be addressed in this report.

Attorney General's memorandum dated March 26, 1979 (Appendix III), and is contingent upon approval of CRM's budget request for the fiscal years covered by the implementation plan.

• FY 1979 - Establish seven offices covering 21 Federal districts

and link the 16 pre-existing specialized prosecution units in other OUSAS with the program;

FY 1980 - Place ECE Specialists in an additional 12 units;

FY 1981 Locate ECE Specialists in an additional five units;

FY 1982 - Add a second Specialist, as resources become available, to cover all districts within a Specialist's region while working through their unit district.

Although the total number of units has been expanded to 30, there has been very little modification in the first two phases of the implementation plan. The following chart shows the establishment of ECE units during FY 1979 and FY 1980, and the location of the 18 existing units and 12 proposed units are illustrated on the map on page 101 (Appendix IV).

CHART I

February
October

CHAPTER I

RATIONALE OF THE ECONOMIC CRIME ENFORCEMENT PROGRAM

OBSTACLES TO EFFECTIVE WHITE-COLLAR CRIME ENFORCEMENT

The ECE program was developed as a strategy to combat white-collar criminal activities, which have a deleterious effect upon the nation's economy and upon the general public good. The concept of the program, its organizational structure, staffing, operational framework, goals and objectives are designed to address major obstacles to effective economic crime enforcement. The nature and extent of these obstacles illuminate the difficulties experienced in combatting white-collar crime, and the necessity for cohesive enforcement efforts; at the same time, they distinguish white-collar crime from other areas of criminal activity, e.g., narcotics or organized crime. These obstacles are:

O The nature of white-collar crime;

The general public's and victims' attitudes toward white-collar crime;

The characteristics of the Federal investigative system, the multi

plicity of agencies and their relationships to one another;

The characteristics of the Federal prosecutive system, and its

relationship to the investigative agencies;

The State and local prosecutive and investigative agencies' relationship

to the Federal enforcement system, including problems of concurrent
jurisdiction; and

The sanctions available and/or imposed against the white-collar criminal.

To provide an effective strategy for attacking white-collar crime, it should be

recognized that these obstacles, their attendant problems, and the enforcement