This is a significant omission, since it is undisputed that white-collar and corporate criminals inflict far more damage on society than all street criminals combined. Albrecht points out that criminal fraud occurred in 60 percent of all savings and loans seized by the federal government and that 30 percent of all business failures are caused by white-collar crime. The handful of the world's corporate criminologists who have studied this issue are in agreement that corporate crime and violence kills far more people than all street crime combined. For example, while the murder rate in the United States is about 24,000 a year, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health estimated recently that occupational diseases kill 50,000 Americans a year. These deaths are only occasionally prosecuted as reckless homicides by local prosecutors.
Thousands die every year from asbestos-induced disease.
The Dalkon Shield IUD injured thousands of women who used it. In the United States, Attorney General Janet Reno has set violent crime as her number one priority. She has rarely, if ever, condemned violent corporate and white-collar crime. The defense bar agrees with Reno. Of course, most corporate and white-collar violent crime goes unprosecuted.