Greater Oversight and Uniformity Needed in U.S. Attorneys' Prosecutive Policies

Gao ID: GGD-83-11 October 27, 1982

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the Department of Justice's management of prosecutive discretion exercised by U.S. attorneys, the chief Federal prosecutors at the local level.

GAO found that Justice has not routinely provided close oversight of their activities, which has resulted in the establishment of differing prosecutive policies and practices throughout the U.S. attorneys' offices. Therefore, declination policies have been incompatible with Federal law enforcement priorities and have not been coordinated with State and local authorities. Federally declined cases have not been referred to such authorities for prosecutive decisions, and similarly situated Federal offenders have been treated inconsistently because of varying decisions on whether to prosecute, to use pretrial diversion, or to use plea agreements.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Arnold P. Jones Team: General Accounting Office: General Government Division Phone: (202) 512-7797


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