To Charge or Not to Charge: Prosecutorial Characteristics and Responses to Auditor Reported Findings

Deterring white-collar crime involves a complex relationship between detection by auditors and legal enforcement. We hand collect data from the Arkansas Legislative Audit Committee on auditor findings reported to the prosecuting attorney’s office, and subsequent prosecutorial responses for the respective district between 2015 and 2019. Applying theory from sociology and psychology we consider the effects of prosecutorial gender and financial resources (a dimension of socioeconomic status) on prosecutorial charging decisions involving auditor reported fraud. We find an association between a prosecutor’s financial resources and formal prosecutorial charges but not for gender. We also find an increasing trend of auditor referrals but static levels of formal criminal charges filed by prosecutors. Our findings highlight the complexity of the auditor-prosecutor relationship, and a need to better understand differences between auditor and prosecutor conclusions regarding white-collar crime.