Who Goes to Jail? Matt Taibbi on American Injustice Gap from Wall Street to Main Street

Award-winning journalist Matt Taibbi is out with an explosive new book that asks why the vast majority of white-collar criminals have avoided prison since the financial crisis began, while an unequal justice system imprisons the poor and people of color on a mass scale. In "The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap," Taibbi explores how the Depression-level income gap between the wealthy and the poor is mirrored by a "justice" gap in who is targeted for prosecution and imprisonment. "It is much more grotesque to consider the non-enforcement of white-collar criminals when you do consider how incredibly aggressive law enforcement is with regard to everybody else," Taibbi says.

TRANSCRIPT

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AARON MATÉ: Today we dedicate much of the hour to a conversation with award-winning journalist Matt Taibbi, who you may know from his reporting on financial crimes. Well, now Taibbi is back with an explosive new book that asks why these crimes have gone unpunished as an unequal justice system targets the most vulnerable. The gap between what the poorest make and what the wealthiest bring home has reached levels not seen since the Great Depression, and the drug war has fueled the mass incarceration of the poor and people of color.

AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this month, attorney James Kidney, who was retiring from the Securities and Exchange Commission, gave a widely reported speech at his retirement party. He said that his bosses were too, quote, "tentative and fearful" to hold Wall Street accountable for the 2008 economic meltdown. Kidney, who joined the SEC in 1986, had tried and failed to bring charges against more executives in the agency’s 2010 case against Goldman Sachs. He said the SEC has become, quote, "an agency that polices the broken windows on the street level and rarely goes to the penthouse floors. ... Tough enforcement, risky enforcement, is subject to extensive negotiation and weakening," he said.

Well, for more, we turn to our guest, Matt Taibbi, award-winning journalist, formerly with Rolling Stone magazine, now with First Look Media. His new book is called The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap.

Source: http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/15/who_goes_to_jail_matt_taibbi