"The Justice Department will “double down” on its efforts to prosecute individuals culpable for corporate crimes, the agency’s acting No. 2 official said today.

Speaking at a conference of state Attorneys General in Washington, Sally Quillian Yates, nominated by President Barack Obama to be Deputy Attorney General, underscored the Justice Department’s renewed effort to crack down on individuals in addition to the companies they work for.

The Obama administration and outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder have been criticized for not being aggressive enough in prosecuting individual bank executives for their role in crashing the housing market and the wider economy as part of the financial crisis.

“We owe it to the public that we serve to double down on our efforts to determine how best to hold culpable people responsible,” Yates said.

Last week, Holder said he asked Justice Department lawyers to conduct a 90-day second-look of pending mortgage bond cases to see if criminal charges should be brought against individuals.

“We have begun an examination of how we are approaching our investigation of complex white collar cases involving institutions, and what we need to do in the future to overcome the hurdles inherent in charging individuals,” Yates said.

For enforcement going forward, the Justice Department and state AGs “are taking a hard look at the auto lending industry,” Yates said. This includes scrutiny of securities backed by auto loans, she said.