The Collection Gap: Underenforcement of Corporate and White-Collar Fines and Penalties

The modern administrative state depends in large part on fines, penalties, restitution orders, and similar sanctions. Contemporary policy assumes that the state, once it orders offenders to pay those sanctions, will collect them. This Article suggests that we cannot depend on that assumption. Even where offenders are corporate or white-collar executives with the resources to pay, a fine imposed is in many cases not a fine collected.

To the contrary, the available data shows a massive gap between penalties imposed "on the books" and penalties collected in reality.