Big Dirty Money

"psychopathic and sociopathic conditions statistically associated with poverty," he said. To support his fresh perspective, Sutherland attacked the data. He explained that experts drew the wrong conclusions about crime because the data were incomplete. While it was true that "less than two percent of the persons committed to prisons in a year belong to the upper class," this did not mean that the elite were saintly. The way that crime was "popularly conceived and officially measured" was wrong. The standard measurement tools were lacking. Where did the bad numbers come from? He explained that criminologists narrowly studied "criminals handled by the police, the criminal and juvenile courts, and the prisons." They myopically focused on "such crimes as murder, assault, burglary, robbery, larceny, sex offenses [and] drunkenness." Excluded from what should be the accurate count, he said, were "vast areas of criminal behavior of persons not in the lower classes."
 
Sutherland's core thesis in his address that evening came down to this. The experts were not looking at all crime. By ignoring the criminal behavior of professionals, businessmen, and even tycoons, they had a wildly inaccurate picture of who was in the criminal "class." Based on his own detailed research into fraud and conflicts of interest in business and politics, he surmised that crime was not concentrated among the poor. Pulling no punches, Sutherland named names. First, he spoke of the nineteenth-century "robber barons," deeming them "white collar criminals, as almost everyone now agrees." He quoted American industrialist Colonel Cornelius Vanderbilt as admitting his own criminal tendencies when he once quipped, "You don't suppose you can run a railroad in accordance with the statutes, do you?" Sutherland went on to shame various contemporary "merchant princes and captains of finance and industry." Crime was rampant in all occupations, he informed his audience. In particular,

crime and its unpunished practitioners . . . In this steely-eyed examination of these brazen criminals, Taub holds that this lack of effective punishment merely encourages the wealthy to prey on the rest of society . . . A significant manifesto for judicial reform that aims at cracking the cabal of big-money grifters at the top." Kirkus Reviews (*starred review*)

The United States is drowning in dirty money; we ve constructed a two-tiered system of justice, of corruption and campaign finance; of bailouts and bankruptcies. Jennifer Taub ably and cogently strips bare the racism and regulatory failures that have made America s wealthiest predators too big to fail and too spectacular to jail. Anyone worried about how these failures shape politics, elections, journalism, and justice should take notice. Dahlia Lithwick, senior legal editor, Slate
 
In the corporate and political worlds, Taub finds a rampant crime wave, touching more than our financial markets and the halls of Congress. It intrudes into our daily lives, threatening our health, food, environment, and well-being. Sweeping and comprehensive, her work culminates in a groundbreaking series of imaginative solutions to refocus our efforts on combatting elite crime to help American society recover. Jesse Eisinger, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Chickenshit Club
 
A stimulating and provocative book that challenges the current administration on its handling of white collar crimes. It sets the stage for change. Ellen Podgor, Gary R. Trombley Family White-Collar Crime Research Professor at Stetson University College of Law
 
Donald Trump s time as president has revealed a ruling class that appears untouchable as in authoritarian regimes. But well before that, Trump was used to escaping accountability like other corporate insiders. Jennifer Taub details how this cycle of rewarding bad behavior has consolidated power in the hands of few and hurt our country. Amy Siskind, president, The New Agenda
 
It s no accident that African-American citizens can be brutalized or even killed for minor alleged infractions, while corporate wrongdoers escape prosecution or punishment. When we see street corner drug dealers denied bail but crooked pharmaceutical conglomerates payout dividends, we are seeing the justice system work as intended. Taub explains how the rot goes right to the heart of our legal and regulatory systems themselves. Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation
 
Taub shines light on fraud, tax evasion and corruption, where wrongdoings can be hard to detect and the bar for creating accountability is too high. She issues a passionate call to action and outlines sensible reforms, at least some of which should resonate broadly and across our political divides. Anat Admati, George G.C. Parker Professor of Finance and Economics at Stanford University Graduate School of Business and co-author of The Bankers New Clothes: What s Wrong with Banking and What to Do About It