Compounding a Crime

The offense of agreeing, in exchange for money or another benefit, not to prosecute or report a known crime, or to withhold evidence of it, committed by the victim of the crime or another person aware of it, historically rooted in English common law's concern that allowing a private financial settlement to substitute for public prosecution undermines the state's exclusive authority to enforce the criminal law. It is distinguished from a legitimate civil settlement or restitution agreement in that compounding specifically involves an agreement to suppress or forgo a criminal prosecution itself, and while a number of common law jurisdictions have narrowed or repealed the offense in its historical broad form, some, including several individual American states, retain a statutory version, typically applied to a person who accepts payment in exchange for agreeing not to report or testify about a felony.