Study: Justice Department Not Prosecuting Officials for Rights Violations

• Researchers have discovered that the federal government has dropped  98.7 percent of recent cases concerning civil rights violations allegedly committed by cops, jailers and government officials.

A Syracuse University analysis found that in nearly 99 percent of all cases, the Justice Department has failed to prosecute civil rights violations committed by those entrusted to enforce the law, including police officers, government officials, and prison guards. Using Justice Department data acquired through Freedom of Information Act requests, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a research and data distribution organization affiliated with Syracuse University, found that federal prosecutors dropped 98.7 percent of cases against officials who had allegedly violated someone's civil rights -- 227 out of 230 cases during the first three months of fiscal year 2004. In all decisions about civil rights violations, US attorneys are required to detail the reasoning behind their decision to prosecute or drop the case. For the 230 cases studied during the first quarter of 2004, the data showed that 69 percent were rejected for "lack of evidence of criminal intent, minimal federal interest, no federal offense evident, or weak or insufficient admissible evidence." But TRAC was most concerned with the 22 percent of cases that federal prosecutors declined due to an "agency request" or "per instructions from the Department of Justice." In an earlier report released in November, TRAC also found a sharp decline in civil rights enforcement of laws relating to voting rights violations, as well as employment and housing discrimination, racial violence, hate crimes, and slavery/involuntary servitude crimes. .[more]