Blog Dec 13, 2011
Is Wall Street a gang? Part IV
The record of criminality within the boardrooms and offices of American corporations continues with no abatement. Their behavior fits the profile of a “street gang.” While not every corporation is literally housed on “Wall Street” they nevertheless are listed on the New York Stock Exchange. And the SEC — the cops of Wall Street — continues to be quite busy, as are federal courts. Here are two recent examples: ~ “Twenty Nine Dead and Alpha Gets a Non Prosecution Agreement” — so…
Blog Dec 9, 2011
Securing employment for ex-offenders, locally
An estimated 25 % of all Californian’s have a criminal record, many landing in San Francisco, where rate of unemployment among ex-offenders is disproportionately high. Even though San Francisco, and other cities, including Berkeley and Oakland, have “Banned-the-box, ” meaning employers can no longer inquire at the application phase about past criminal convictions, barriers still exist for this particular population. For instance, many employers still conduct background checks , often using…
Blog Dec 6, 2011
Celebrating Dr. Miller’s Legacy
Over the course of 1971 to 1972 aremarkable event occurred that permanently altered conventional assumptionsabout justice administration. Jerome G Miller, then commissioner of youthcorrections in Massachusetts,systemically carried out the most sweeping reforms in correctional history. Heclosed the state’s five juvenile reform schools and transferred over 1,500youths to an assortment of community-based programs. These actions, which wereat first greeted with skepticism and derision by much…
Blog Dec 1, 2011
Is Wall Street a gang? Part III
As the “Occupy Wall Street” movement continues all across the country it seems to me to be increasingly important to bring to the forefront the horrific crimes perpetrated by corporations and their representatives. The extent of their criminality was partly documented in the first two parts of this series. I say “partly” for a good reason: there are more examples and the examples go back more than a hundred years. The extent of corporate crime was noted in a now classic study by Edwin…
Earlier this month I had the opportunity to attend a two-day conference entitled, “Exposing Structural Racism from Within: The Power of Restorative Justice,” sponsored by the Henderson Center for Social Justice at UC Berkeley. Conferences, especially those in an academic environment, usually tend to focus only on the problems, however this time I left with an overwhelmed, yet hopeful, mind. While there was plenty of theoretical discourse on how, and if, restorative justice as a model has the…