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

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See also, Why Inequality Matters for Criminology and Criminal Justice

Posted by paul at 10:22 PM | Permalink/Bookmark | Class, Race & Gender

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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See also

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

Why Inequality Matters for Criminology and Criminal Justice (2014)

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)

Posted by paul at 09:47 PM | Permalink/Bookmark | Rich Get Richer, Poor Get Prison

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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See also 

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) 

Why Private Prisons Do Not Save Money (2008)

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

 

Posted by paul at 03:55 AM | Permalink/Bookmark | Don't Assume Your Freedoms Are Assured

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

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Posted by paul at 10:29 PM | Permalink/Bookmark | Class, Race & Gender

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

Posted by paul at 12:03 PM | Permalink/Bookmark | Rich Get Richer, Poor Get Prison

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." 

Posted by paul at 09:50 PM | Permalink/Bookmark |

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.

Posted by paul at 09:36 PM | Permalink/Bookmark | Murder Death Kill