Summary

Criminal monetary penalties, mainly fines and restitution, are important tools in the criminal justice system. Most fine payments go to the Crime Victims Fund, which makes grants to support victim assistance programs. According to the Justice Department, outstanding criminal debt soared from $300 million to $3.6 billion between fiscal years 1985 and 1993. Much of this increase is linked to penalties imposed in financial institution fraud cases. Because of severe data limitations and other factors, it is extremely difficult to assess how effectively federal agencies can collect criminal debts or how much of the outstanding debt is realistically collectible. GAO believes that several areas merit further review and continued oversight. Until the National Fine Center--created to centralized criminal data collection and provide up-to-date information on the payment of criminal debt--is fully operational on a national basis, efforts to review the government's criminal debt collection performance will continue to be hampered. Although it is important to identify suspects' assets early on during an investigation, before the assets can be moved or spent, GAO found little information on how effectively the Justice and Treasury Departments locate assets in criminal debt cases. Justice has acknowledged shortcomings in identifying assets for forfeiture. Thus, more attention might be paid to Justice's efforts to identify and locate assets that could be seized, forfeited, or otherwise used to meet later criminal debt obligations.