( WASHINGTON, D.C. ) --- Two Senators say the federal government must do a better job of collecting over $46 billion of federal court-ordered criminal restitution and fines levied against convicted criminals. Tuesday night the full U.S. Senate agreed.
An amendment by Senators Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, adopted by the U.S. Senate Tuesday night, would give the federal Justice Department important new tools to do that job.
“When fines and restitution orders go unpaid, justice is denied,” Dorgan said. “The Senate’s passage of our amendment means that we are giving the Justice Department the tools its needs to ensure that justice is not denied, but rather, that it is served.”
"This legislation is all about giving victims of crime the compensation they are due. Too often victims of crime are harmed and get little or no compensation from those who have harmed them.” Grassley said. “Often times they receive no compensation at all. This bill puts justice back into our criminal restitution system and provides the necessary tools to make sure that criminals don't get a free pass when it comes to paying the compensation they rightfully owe."
Uncollected federal restitution and fine payments totaled nearly $46 billion at the end of fiscal year 2006, the latest total available from the Justice Department, an increase of $5 billion over just the year before.
Recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) studies have found that some convicted criminals with assets worth hundreds of thousands – and even millions – of dollars have yet to pay what the court ordered them to pay and little is being done to collect it. The GAO study found that some convicted criminals were earning millions of dollars in income, had millions in net worth, and were taking expensive vacations, living in luxurious homes, and transferring business and property to other family members. Yet they had not paid court-ordered restitution and fines owed. The GAO reported the Justice Department’s prospects for collecting “were not good.”
The legislation gives law enforcement officers new authority to freeze assets in cases where restitution will likely be ordered to prevent them from being spent, sold or transferred. It also allows enforcement of fines and restitution orders by criminal justice officials through the Bureau of Prison’s Inmate Financial Responsibility Program.
The legislation was endorsed by a number of national crime prevention and victim groups, including the NationalCenter for Victims of Crime, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the National Organization for Victims Assistance, Parents of Murdered Children, Inc. and the National Crime Victim Law Institute, among many others.
The amendment was added to the fiscal 2008 Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations bill, during its consideration by the Senate Tuesday night. It next goes to a House-Senate conference committee.