Richard Cassin of the FCPA Blog offered an interesting observation in a post today: Since December 2007, the DOJ has brought FCPA criminal enforcement actions against 53 individuals. Of these 53 individuals, a surprising six (over 10%) are husband-and-wife defendants. Cassin notes that 22 of the 53 defendants are from one massive sting operation, meaning the percentage of married FCPA defendants could have been even higher (nearly 20%) without that "outlier" of a case. Either way, he states, the percentage is a statistically meaningful number.

The three, probably not-so-happy couples are:

Gerald and Patricia Green;

Stuart Carson and Hong "Rose" Carson; and

Enrique Faustino Aguilar Noriega and Angela Gomez Aguilar.

This seems like the perfect time to re-introduce my self-proclaimed brilliant idea of "marital prisons." As I first proposed in 2005, couples like those listed above

would not be sent off to random separate prisons if convicted but rather to “marital prison.” This would be a special prison dedicated to simultaneous husband and wife offenders, and they would, of course, share a cell. I see many efficiencies here:

save on cell space

easier for relatives to visit both inmates

could serve as a significant deterrent to husbands or wives who don’t get along well but who are thinking of committing a crime together

eliminates need for conjugal visits

No-brainer, right?