PaulsJusticeBlog

Why Is There No Criminology of Wage Theft?

2016-12-17T03:22:21Z

I used the 2016 American Society of Criminology Conference to present on a new line of research.

Why is there no criminology of wage theft? (wrongful withholding of $50 billion of wages earned)

Wage theft, also known as wage and hour violations, happen when employers do not pay employees for all the hours they worked, do not pay them time and a half for overtime, make wrongful deductions, use interns for work rather than educational experiences, and/or wrongfully deny breaks permitted under law or contract. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that this problem is $50 billion a year, compared with the $14 billion in property crime reported by the FBI. But there is no criminological literature on the topic, and even many white collar crime books do not mention it. This presentation provides a background on wage and hour laws, which include federal laws allowing for incarceration. It reviews the problem of wage theft, the lack of capable guardians, along with reasons why the discipline and our students should study it. The presentation concludes with thoughts on why there is no criminology of wage theft and how to start one.

No Criminology of Wage Theft? (wrongful withholding of $50 billion of wages earned) by Dr Paul Leighton on Scribd

download .pptx of presentation

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Crime and Mass Incarceration: Reform or a 'New Normal'

2016-05-04T02:47:51Z

The folks over at University of Michigan's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) asked to come back for another lecture.I had been doing some research for the 11th edition of The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison to update the opening of the book. It will be/came out Oct 2016 and I'm skeptical about how much will be accomplished. But see what you think.

1. Here is the incarceration rate, to show how much has been accomplished so far; it may or may not match the amount of bipartisan hype about the need for sentencing reform.

2. So what are the expectations for sentencing reform? What kinds of changes in legislation and political climate would be necessary so, over the next 45 years, we could get down to the current incarceration rate of South Africa, UK, or Canada?

3. If that is too ambitious to take seriously, maybe we are going to tweak the current system and get a slightly lower 'new normal'? Maybe 'cheap on crime' is masquerading as 'smart on crime'? (The 'old normal' was 1925 - 1975, with peak incarceration in 2009, and a slightly lower around which incarceration rates can fluctuate for the next 50 years.)

The OLLI folks were doing a series on violence, and they wanted me to spend some time addressing solutions. The talk tries to do some critique of mass incarceration in terms of understanding how incarceration becomes less effective at crime reduction as we incarcerate more and more (and more and more and more...) people. It also addresses sentencing reform, prison reform and crime prevention strategies that go beyond reliance on the CJ system.

ABSTRACT

The U.S. is experiencing what observers call mass incarceration, hyper-incarceration and ‘a plague of prisons’ because it has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Many criminologists believe prison currently causes more crime than it reduces. With Republicans and Democrats crowing over the need for reform, significant change may seem like a foregone conclusion. Is it? How far would reforms really go? What important ideas are not being discussed?

Crime and Mass Incarceration: Reform or a 'new normal'? by Dr Paul Leighton

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Private Prisons: An Incomplete Survey

2015-08-08T08:55:38Z

I had the opportunity to Chair and present at an excellent session at the 4th Annual East Asian Law and Society conference in Tokyo, Japan. The session itself was titled Privatization and Public-Private Partnerships with Prisons and Corrections: Benefits, Concerns and Models.

My paper was titled Models of Privatization and Public-Private Partnerships with Prisons: An Incomplete Survey.

Abstract: Israel has no private prisons, thanks to a decision by the High Court of Justice that privately run prisons were unconstitutional; that having a profit motive in running a prison nullifies the legitimacy of punishment and violates the rights of the people it holds. In contrast, the United States has bred a multi-billion dollar multi-national private prison industry that recently became Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT) to avoid corporate taxes. Japan’s Private Finance Initiative (PFI) prisons/rehabilitation centers are kept small in number and draw on a wide variety of profit and non-profit organizations. Australia is embracing a rehabilitation center to be built, run and financed by four major corporations. This paper provides an overview of these various thoughts of, and experiments with, privatization. The conclusion comments on the perils and promise of the apparent trend of using the private sector to bolster rehabilitation efforts.

Models of Privatization and Public-Private Partnerships with Prisons: An Incomplete Survey (2015) by Dr Paul Leighton

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#YikYak: It’s not all bad; but, yes there are some bad parts & some actions we can take

2015-07-20T03:29:14Z

I started using Yik Yak late in 2014, mostly to get a different look at my students on campus. Life for students has changed a lot since I started teaching here, let alone since I was an undergrad. I was drawn in by some posts about rape and domestic violence - topic that overlap with my teaching, writing, presenting and serving. I've been on it since and was asked to present about it. That turned into a revised and expanded version that's available here.

This draws exclusively on "the heard" at EMU, so parts of it are not applicable to other places. The description of what Yik Yak is, how it works, analysis of anonymity, and suggestions for activism can apply beyond the hyper-local.

Motivated to add this to the blog when I saw someone recently post to EMU's Yik Yak:

Shoutout to my herd for hearing about all my problems I could never tell anyone in real life. You da true MVP

#YikYak: It’s not all bad; but, yes there are some bad parts & some actions we can take

presentation as .pdf

presentation as .pptx

Why Private Prisons Do Not Save Money

2014-10-19T17:03:51Z

This presentation, which looks at the overhead costs of private prisons, was done in 2008 and subsequently became a chapter in Punishment for Sale (co-authored with Donna Selman). At that time, Dana Radatz was my graduate assistant who was very helpful in collecting the data and organizing it in a meaningful way.

Why Private Prisons Do Not Save Money: Overhead Costs and Executive Pay

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RELATED

Prison Privatization in US and Japan (2014 presentation and information on Shimane Asahi Rehabilitation Center - a Japanese high-tech, public-private partnership)

The problems with private prisons (2011 and 2013 presentations)

Punishment for Sale book - publisher: Rowman and Littlefield ~ Amazon ~ more info from this blog

Women's Studies or Gender Studies

2014-09-16T02:50:36Z

I received this email from a student about a class assignment:

"We have to ask 3 faculty members to briefly describe the relationship between women's studies and gender studies... Whether or not they're the same, similar, and/or different. Just something short and sweet would be awesome!"

My response:

Interesting question.

To me, women's studies focuses on looking at women's experiences and taking their reality (say, the level of harassment and violence) seriously. It then needs to explain why this experience gets erased and the implications of taking this reality seriously. Because men oppress, I can see that there is some place for critical studies of men and masculinity within women's studies, but gender studies seems more obviously to include the study of masculinity. Also, at least some of the change that men should do is for themselves and to reduce the violence against other men - and I'm not sure that women's studies is the appropriate disciplinary frame. Changes in how I enact masculinity may have an effect on women, but they may also be done to lead a more fulfilling and creative life. To my mind, masculinity is relevant to both those issues, but it isn't women's studies.

"Short version: Yes, women have been silenced and excluded, but still, it isn't always about them -- so we need gender studies, even if women's studies is the biggest piece of that."

Mass salmonella poisoning by the Peanut Corporation of America [UPDATE 2]

2014-09-16T02:36:59Z

When nine people died and 4,000 products were recalled because of salmonella in peanuts, my years of writing and teaching about white collar crime told me there was significant wrongdoing here. Unfortunately, media did not really put together a long form narrative, so I have put this together over time with some help and encouragement.

UPDATE 1: The jury has convicted the ringleaders at PCA and found them guilty on many counts, which is good and what they deserved. News stories tend to have a quote about how this will send a message to other food producers. I think the message is more subtle because the indictment was mostly about fraud against Kellogg's and other corporations; the nine people who died were not mentioned in the indictment or at trial. I think the take away is that if you are a small food producer, don't screw with Fortune 500 companies. Perhaps I am cynical, but would the criminal charges have happened and would they have been found guilty of crimes if they had sold directly to the public and killed nine, hospitalized 166 and officially sickened 714?

UPDATE 2: The journal article has been published: Mass Salmonella Poisoning by the Peanut Corporation of America: State-Corporate Crime Involving Food Safety. Critical Criminology, 2015. DOI 10.1007/s10612-015-9284-5.

ABSTRACT: Animal feces in food causes outbreaks of salmonella poisoning, whose assault on the body results in several days of diarrhea, vomiting and even death. This paper looks at the massive distribution of salmonella-contaminated peanuts in 2008–2009 that caused nine deaths, 11,000–20,000 illnesses and the recall of 4000 products in the US. The Peanut Corporation of America operated filthy, sometimes unregistered, plants and shipped products to major food manufacturers and schools after receiving test results positive for salmonella. This corporate crime was facilitated by substantial weaknesses in regulation, and is thus a state-facilitated corporate crime. This case study is developed by looking at the peanut plant conditions, decisions of executives, regulatory failure, and overall response. The conclusion asks about the puzzle of the state responding to a crime it facilitated, and how to understand the role a corporation victimizing another corporation plays into the response.

Mass Salmonella Poisoning by the Peanut Corporation of America: State-Corporate Crime Involving Food Safety...

The piece below is an excerpt from the longer journal article. It focuses on the problems at the plant and their frauds with the Certificates of Analysis. For better or worse, it is an earlier draft, with more - and perhaps too much detail. Between this background piece, the Congressional hearings, and coverage from Food Safety News, readers should be able to find as much info as they want.

Crimes of the Peanut Corporation of America: Mass salmonella poisoning, 2008-9

People often see white collar and corporate crime as being nonviolent, but the victims can experience substantial physical suffering. These blog entries may have too much medical info for some, but the give great insight into what death from salmonella poisoning looks like. Yes, Stewart Parnell and PCA, You Killed People with Salmonella Peanut Butter and Yes, Stewart Parnell, You Killed Bobby Ray Too With Salmonella Peanuts ("additional bouts of green, foul-smelling diarrhea" sounds like it should be a violent crime).

Remember that authorities had the DNA fingerprint of the salmonella from his body, and it matched the salmonella from PCA products. But the criminal indictment, when it finally came, was for fraud against major food companies. The nine dead were not mentioned, and because they were not in the indictment the defense could not bring them up at the trial.

Why Inequality Matters for Criminology and Criminal Justice

2014-08-02T15:58:37Z

I am pleased to have had the opportunity to present at the ISA's World Congress of Sociology in Yokohama, Japan in July. This presentation builds on and updates some earlier ones (listed in the RELATED section below).

ABSTRACT:

The presenter, a co-author of The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison, will focus on economic inequality, which receives less attention than race or gender. This paper will start by providing an overview of economic inequality in several developed nations before discussing several ways to conceptualize the inequality between natural and corporate persons. Next, the presentation will summarize the links between inequality and crimes of the poor as well as crimes of the rich, following Braithwaite’s formulation that inequality worsens crimes of need and crimes of greed. The impact of inequality on each stage of the criminal justice system will then be reviewed. Law making is influenced by lobbying. Policing means war on crimes done by the poor and zero tolerance, but deregulation for corporations. Judicial processing and outcomes are heavily influenced by quality of legal assistance and resources. By sentencing, the wealthy and corporations who have harmed workers, consumers and communities have been largely weeded out; it is the poor who get sentenced to prison, reinforcing the belief that they are the most dangerous. The conclusion highlights the importance of ideology in minimizing concern about inequality and its effect on justice.

PRESENTATION

Why Inequality Matters for Criminology and Criminal Justice

Download .pdf of presentation (2MB)

Download .pptx presentation (5MB)

Manifestations of Poverty (longer lecture for EMU Honors College - 2013)

Criminology Needs More Class: Inequality, Corporate Persons and an Impoverished Discipline (#occupy)

The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Inequality, Corporate Power and Crime(Sidore lecture at Plymouth State)

We Need A Post-Warehouse Prison: Learning from Shimane Asahi Rehabilitation Center

2014-06-07T03:00:28Z

"Interesting" is the comment I hear most frequently when presenting this new line of research. That's exactly what I said when I came across it and what motivated me to explore further this high-tech, public private partnership prison/rehabilitation center that strives to be a good partner to the community. Their literature mentions the idea of creating "prisons the public could understand and support."

I've continued to study Shimane Asahi Rehabilitation Center because it is also important. In working to create what they call a model prison for the next 50 years, the Japanese studied privatization and rehabilitation; they went through the literature to find "what works" and traveled extensively to learn about programs.

The US has a bloated system of warehouse prisons that are the model for no one in the world. But we are not having a discussion about a new model, a model for the next 50 years - a post-warehouse prison. We need to. The idea is not to copy what Japan did, but to recognize the need for and wisdom of such an effort, and to learn from their experience. Unfortunately, the main conversation is about privatization, which means trying to deliver the current warehouse prison system more cheaply and further entrenching not just a prison-industrial complex, but a warehouse prison-industrial complex.

This post lays out what I have done so far: a journal article, a TEDxEMU talk, and two presentations that include/build on my prison privatization work. There's also a request for help translating some additional information about Shimane Asahi.

"A Model Prison for the next 50 years": The high-tech, public-private Shimane Asahi Rehabilitation Center" Justice Policy Journal v11#1 2014 (available free online - pdf)

ABSTRACT: The declining incarceration rate in America provides an opportunity to rethink the quality of prisons and ask: If you were told that your neighbors were newly released prisoners, what kind of institution would you want them to have served time in? One positive model of prison is a high-tech, public-private partnership prison that embraces rehabilitation, reentry and restorative justice – and that also strives to have the local community as a partner. The article reports on a visit to Shimane Asahi rehabilitation center in Japan. It provides background on the prison and Japan’s experiment with privatizing “social infrastructure.” The article then describes the involvement of the private sector and the infusion of technology, including tracking, scanners, and automated food delivery. Next, it provides an overview of numerous educational, therapeutic, and vocational programs. Finally, it discusses how the prison has a center for community engagement and makes many efforts to utilize the resources of the local region.

TEDxEMU: Thoughts from a day in a Japanese Prison

I actually did this talk before finishing the article, so it is not as sharp as how I would do it now. But I enjoyed the challenge of the time limit and trying to provide an inspiring direction. (12 minutes)

Presentations

The University of Michigan's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute did a series of talks in 2014 on public-private partnerships, and I was invited to present on private prisons. The first half of this talk outlines the importance of getting the profit motive situated correctly with punishments, reviews the military-industrial complex, the prison-industrial complex and (the problems with) private prisons. The second part reviews what Japan did after studying our system: Their law created partnerships for rehabilitation centers, not prisons. The warden and his deputies are government employees who oversee a number of private sector contractors. It also includes some of the key info from the journal article noted above, with some pictures and graphics. I was pleased how this came out.

Private Prisons in the US and Japan: Unleashing the profit Motive in Punishment and Rehabilitation

Download .pdf of presentation (4MB)

Download .pptx presentation (7MB)

I was also invited to be the keynote speaker for a Prison Awareness week sponsored by the University of Toledo's Law and Social Thought, and also by Toledoans for Prison Awareness. (Thanks to Alexandra Scarborough for the invite and arrangements.) This presentation has many of the same slides as the Osher lecture, but it is reshuffled and has more of an emphasis on prison reform.

Thinking About A Post Warehouse Prison

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WGTE recorded the event for knowledgestream.org and the video is here.

RESEARCH HELP - TRANSLATION ASSISTANCE

Shimane Asahi celebrated its 5th anniversary by having a symposium that presented evaluation results and updates on programs. They put those presentations together into a publication that I have a copy of, but I could use some help translating it from Japanese. (Here is the Table of Contents.) There are also two Japanese books on Shimane Asahi and would like to know more about what is in them.

If you would be interested in translating or helping to underwrite some of the translation efforts, please contact me through the information on my website.

Shimane Asahi website (English)

The problems with private prisons (2011 and 2013 presentations)

Why Private Prisons Do Not Save Money (2008)

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Manifestations of Poverty (lecture): The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison

2014-06-05T19:51:49Z

The Honors College at EMU held a series of lectures this past year under the theme of 'Manifestations of Poverty.' I had the privilege of presenting the first lecture, highlighting the justice - and criminal justice - issues surrounding poverty and inequality. Part one of this lecture looks at various measures of inequality in income and wealth, including how corporate 'persons' factor in. Part two looks at how inequality impacts criminology and criminal justice. The lecture makes extensive use of Occupy Wall St posters (via occuprint.org).

The presentation is embedded below, followed by links for the .pdf, .pptx and the video via iTunes university. This builds on a few earlier lectures that are linked to under the 'related' heading.

Manifestations of Poverty: The Rich get Richer and the Poor Get Prison

Download .pdf of presentation (2MB)

Download .pptx of presentation (8MB - 35 slides)

The talk is available on iTunes: Part 1 (my introduction starts at 6 minutes in) and Part 2 (links will open up in iTunes).

Why Inequality Matters for Criminology & Criminal Justice (World Congress of Sociology presentation, 2014)

Manifestations of Poverty (longer presentation for EMU Honors College, 2013)

Criminology Needs More Class: Inequality, Corporate Persons and an Impoverished Discipline (#occupy)

The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Inequality, Corporate Power and Crime (Sidore lecture at Plymouth State)

Understanding Domestic Violence

2014-06-04T03:44:05Z

Last semester, a colleague invited me to do a presentation on Domestic Violence for her into to women and gender studies class. It was a good opportunity to draw on my teaching, service on the board of SafeHouse, and interest in art by survivors of domestic violence to create a presentation.

Enjoy and feel free to use it if you think it will be useful. It covers some of the basics and I hope to add to it over the long run.

Understanding Domestic Violence: Why You Should Care, What You Should Know and How to Help

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Download original .pptx files (24.6MB)

Understanding Domestic Violence: Why should medical students care, what should they know and do

2014-03-14T16:03:36Z

I spoke over at the University of Michigan's Medical School to a student organization about domestic violence. I like how the presentation came out, with T-shirts and art by survivors liberally inserted with content and links. Because of the pictures, the original files are a bit large, but feel free to download, use, update.

Understanding Domestic Violence: Why should medical students care, what should they know and do

Download .pdf of presentation (2MB)

Download presentation as .pptx (22MB)

Read on Scribd

The Problems with Private Prisons

2013-04-19T18:37:29Z

I have followed up my co-authored Punishment for Sale book by giving several presentations, which I have posted below. The first is a general overview of concerns and critiques about private prisons that I presented at the International Criminology Congress in Kobe, Japan in 2011. The second is one I did for a statewide forum on prison privatization, mass incarceration and prison reform here in Michigan in 2013. While the latter is more specific in focusing on Michigan, its analysis is applicable to other states.

The problems with private Prisons (2011 - International Criminology Congress)

Problems With Private Prisons (2011)

In case the embedded viewer does not work, it is available here via Scribd and as a .pdf from PaulsJusticePage.

Download the original Power Point .pptx slides.

The problems with private Prisons (2013 - Michigan Statewide Forum on Prison Privatization, Mass Incarceration and Prison Reform)

Problems With Private Prisons (2013)

In case the embedded viewer does not work, it is available here via Scribd and as a .pdf from PaulsJusticePage.

Download the original Power Point .pptx slides.

Information on Punishment for Sale from Amazon.com

Information from publisher: Rowman and Littlefield

An earlier blog entry about Punishment for Sale.

Why Private Prisons Do Not Save Money (2008 presentation)

Criminology Needs More Class: Inequality, Corporate Persons and an Impoversihed Discipline

2012-11-25T01:08:30Z

My presentation at the 2012 American Society of Criminology conference was entitled Criminology Needs More Class: Inequality, Corporate Persons and an Impoverished Discipline (#occupy). It is a condensed and updated version of the Sidore lecture I gave, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Inequality, Corporate Power and Crime.

ABSTRACT:Criminology generally does not collect data on class, which is more likely to be "controlled” for than explained. The discipline is interested in psychopaths engaged in street crime but not white collar crime or the harms done by corporate “persons” who act without conscience. Strain theory is taught without reference to economic facts about wealth distributions or economic mobility. This paper provides an overview of class, reviews some of criminology’s blind spots and reaffirms class as important for a “rich” understanding of criminology.

Criminology Needs More Class: Inequality, Corporate Persons & an Impoverished Discipline

Download .pdf of presentation (3.5mb)

Download .pptx of presentation (6.8mb)

Why Inequality Matters for Criminology & Criminal Justice (World Congress of Sociology presentation, 2014)

Manifestations of Poverty (longer presentation for EMU Honors College, 2013)

The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Inequality, Corporate Power and Crime(Sidore lecture at Plymouth State, 2012)

Inequality, Corporate Power and Crime Presentation

2012-03-17T16:04:50Z

I had the pleasure of being invited to give the Saul Sidore lecture at Plymouth State University last week. It was titled The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Inequality, Corporate Power and Crime.

The first part of the lecture is an overview of class, including income, wealth, economic mobility and corporate power. It is descriptive rather than making a moral or justice argument (although it does report on some surveys on our feelings about inequality).

The second part discusses implications of inequality for criminology based on Braithwaite's idea that inequality worsens both crimes of poverty motivated by need and crime of wealth motivated by greed. It includes a number of Occupy Wall Street posters, graphics and pictures.

If you would like to view the presentation below, use the left button to switch to the full screen mode so all the text is legible.

Inequality, Corporate Power and Crime

The 39 slide Powerpoint (.pptx - 10mb) is available here.

The .pdf (3mb) is here.

Of related interest: Gregg Barak - my co-author on Class, Race, Gender & Crime - has written a short article on the Financially Respectable Crimes of Wall Street; he also has a the introduction posted from his forthcoming book Theft of a Nation: Wall Street Looting and Federal Regulatory Colluding.

UPDATE: While at the Sidore lecture, I met student journalist Wanda Waterman, who interviewed me on some other issues. Part 1 and Part 2.

Why Inequality Matters for Criminology & Criminal Justice (World Congress of Sociology presentation, 2014)

Manifestations of Poverty (longer presentation for EMU Honors College, 2013)

Criminology Needs More Class: Inequality, Corporate Persons and an Impoverished Discipline (#occupy) [American Society of Criminology presentation, 2012]