PROSECUTION & WAGE THEFT

Wage theft is one of the most commonly committed crimes in the United States and one of the least likely to be prosecuted, costing the most vulnerable low-income wage earners millions of dollars every year. The National Employment Law Project estimated that over 4.6 million workers earning less than $13 per hour in the private sector experienced wage theft in 2019 alone. Immigrants are particularly vulnerable to wage theft. During the Covid-19 pandemic, wage theft took on added importance, as thousands of frontline workers were unlawfully denied their pay. Historically, combatting the pervasiveness of wage theft has fallen to private civil enforcement, which has proven to be an ineffective deterrent.

With this in mind, the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution at John Jay College of Criminal Justice has launched Protecting Workers: Wage Theft Enforcement for the Local Prosecutor. Over a 6 month period, the IIP convened a working group of prosecutors experienced in investigating wage theft, as well as leaders of community-based organizations that have worked closely with wage theft victims. This Guide provides prosecutors with practical steps needed to effectively prosecute wage theft. It also emphasizes the need to decrease incarceration rates by encouraging restitution and other alternatives, when possible, as punishment for those who commit wage theft. We hope that this Guide will inspire other prosecutors to pursue wage theft cases in a way that is not overly punitive and does not further contribute to mass incarceration.