Recent History: A Shift to Reforming Corporations from Within

In Chapter Two, we reviewed the history of corporate prosecutions and the relaxation of the traditional requirements of proving criminal intent that made this possible. We noted that, “whether wisely or not” (in Justice Jackson’s phrase), Congress has passed many laws that included criminal penalties without requiring criminal intent. We now turn to more-recent history and focus on DOJ policies of the past 30 years in some detail. This recent history is important to understand how we came to the recent rise in the use of DPAs and NPAs. We first describe the pre–Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations regime,