Category Archives: Victimless Crimes

BALTIMORE - The buzz sneaks up on you from out of nowhere -- their not cicadas, but dirt bikes.

It's illegal to ride them in the city, but when cameras caught a fleet with a child riding, seemingly, on the handlebars officers say they've had enough.

Baltimore police say riding dirt bikes is nothing new in the city, they've long been a nuisance.

"These off road vehicles, a lot of times, they're stolen and they're not registered. The drivers are very reckless. They're aggressive. They drive in groups and people have been assaulted," Detective Nicole Brown, with the police department, said.

And in this case, a child was put in danger.

"That's concerning. We're worried about the child's safety and we want to know whether or not the parents know what was going on and if not alert them," Brown said.

While some bikes are allowed with proper licensing and registration, police say in the past week, their Dirt Bike Task Force has seized nine bikes -- more than 150 last year alone.

"More often than not, a lot of the dirt bikes that we're encountering in Baltimore city -- they are stolen. So it's in no way a victimless crime," Brown said.

Crimes that in some cases can kill innocent bystanders.

"We've had innocent victims who've been struck and we've had dirt bike riders lose their lives and cause injuries to other people," Brown said.

In addition to reckless driving, the bikes are noisy -- an even bigger issues for people who watch them zip down city streets.

While some may call it Baltimore, others have had enough.

"Just as many people that are accustomed to it, they're a lot of people that are just tired of it. They're tired of the noise, they're tired of being cut off in traffic and they definitely want something done," Brown said.

If you have any information on who the riders are or their bikes, call the dirt bike task force at 443-902-4474.

Follow this link:

Police seek identity of dirt bike rider - ABC2 News

Editor:

We all know that prisons are an essential function of the criminal justice system. After all, this is where we house people who have broken the law. The problem with Kerry Drakes column from last week is, firstly, privatization is not a bad thing and, secondly, our criminal justice system is in serious need of reform.

When we look at the fact that half of the people who are in prison are placed there for the crime of hurting themselves with drug use, we need to ask ourselves if this is any of our business. It is my belief that I own myself, not the government, and with that belief, if I choose to destroy my own life by getting hooked on crack, that is my choice and no one elses.

If there is no victim, there should be no crime. Now I know that typically when I talk about legalizing all victimless crimes, people will scream, But, the children!

When is the last time you saw a drug dealer in an elementary school? And how many of us teach our children that drugs are horrible and will ruin your life? It has always been puzzling to me how someone can hold a rifle and die for our country at the age of 18, but if they want to have a beer he or she can also be thrown in jail.

Also, when Drake writes about privatization being a horrible thing, I dont believe he understands the cost to taxpayers when it comes to housing inmates. On average, it costs the tax payers $40,000 to house an inmate for one year.

So if someone breaks into your home and steals your possessions, not only are you out what has been taken from you, but now for the 10-year period that criminal could wind up in prison you are also paying for their stay.

A stay where they can have television and all the niceties that they probably had at home. The only difference is that they cant leave the walls of the prison. And if they werent a violent offender before, prison gangs and prison lifestyle often force the individual to become violent.

Furthermore, when Drake talks about private prisons only being around to make a profit as being an evil thing, he neglects the fact that businesses are supposed to do that. What business opens up and has a business plan to lose millions of dollars? Why is it so horrible idea to Drake that someone makes money?

He constantly puts forth rather socialist agendas because he doesnt understand capitalism at its core. For all those who think socialism is this wonderful thing, please tell me what went wrong in Venezuela?

Why is the adult unemployment rate in France 25 percent? Why is Sweden trying to get away from it? The more progressive and socialist a country becomes, the more destitute the people of a country become it is that way everywhere socialism has been tried.

Patrick Ballinger

Evanston

More:

Letter: 'Drake's Take' doesn't make cut - Uinta County Herald

18 May 2017, 1:44 p.m.

Jail for former Elmore man who tracked 'pretty victims' via Facebook.

Related: Elmore man jailed for child pornography offences

A FORMER Elmore man who went through strangers' letters in order to find them on Facebook and choose "pretty victims" to stalkhas been sentenced to eight yearsin prison.

Australian Federal Policeinitially charged Steven Burke with child pornography crimes after seizing electronic devices fromhis home in December 2015.

The devices contained hundreds of thousands of child exploitation files, the County Court was told on Thursday.

Burke, 39, who had beenpreviously convicted in Bendigo of child pornography offences, downloaded the files from programs which he used to access the "dark net" and encrypt them so that they would be undetectable.

After he was released on bail, police investigating also foundphotos and videos he had taken of teenage girlsand women who were naked and in different stages of undress in their bedrooms on the devices.

They arrested him again in May 2016, finding him witha phone which had access to the internet and a USB stick which contained child exploitation materialand which violated hisbail conditions.

Steven Burke stalked a number of women and girls. Photo: Jacky Ghossein

Burke admitted to police he "perved" on peoplein their homes and took videos of them on his phone for his own sexual gratification.

He went through strangers' mail and looked their names upon social media website Facebook, the court heard, and targeted"pretty victims".He took more than 100 photos of some victims.

The man admitted he visited one woman about 50 times over six months. He also planned tostalk one of the customers he met at work at her home, but then went on to take 544 photos of her two teenage daughters instead.

Judge Christopher Ryan said that a sample ofmore than 400,000 child exploitation files in Burke's home involved children performing sexual acts on each other and on adults, bestiality, and disturbing animated images of children.

The depravity of the images' creator "beggars belief" he said.

Burke also admitted to loitering outside a school in St Kilda Eastand taking 15 photos of a girl, which were found to be child pornography.

Steven Burke after his sentencing in Bendigo in 2009.

The school's security guards nearly caught him on school grounds a number of times, after they found him looking inside the windows and chased him away.

Burke told a psychologist he struggled to empathise with his victims because they appeared to him as images on a screen.

He wasabused by anAnglican minister, a family friend of his parents, when he was between 12 and 14 years' old, the court heard.

Judge Christopher Ryan said that accessing and making childpornography were not "victimless crimes".

"It must never be forgotten that every child who appears in child pornography is a victim,"the judge said.

Burke pleaded guilty in Aprilto a number of charges including stalking, making, accessing and possessing child pornography, loitering in a school, and using a surveillance device to observe private acts without the person's consent.

The judge sentenced him to eight years' prison with a non-parole period of six years.

He said Burke would be on the sex offenders' register for life.

Visit link:

Eight years' jail for child-porn stalker who tracked 'pretty victims' via ... - Bendigo Advertiser

PIERRE (AP) Roughly two years after an American Indian tribe began an ambitious push to open the nation's first marijuana resort in South Dakota, a consultant who helped pursue the stalled venture is heading to trial on drug charges.

Jury selection starts Thursday in the case of Eric Hagen, a consultant who worked with the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe on its operation about 45 miles north of Sioux Falls. Hagen was indicted on state marijuana charges months after the tribe destroyed its crop amid fears of a federal raid.

Here's a look at key information about the trial:

Whats going on?

Hagen and fellow consultant Jonathan Hunt, officials with Monarch America, a Colorado-based company in the marijuana industry, were charged last year after assisting the tribe.

The Santee Sioux began a marijuana growing operation after the Justice Department outlined a new policy clearing the way for Indian tribes to grow and sell marijuana under the same conditions as some states that have legalized pot.

State Attorney General Marty Jackley warned against the idea from the outset. The tribe ultimately destroyed its crop in November 2015 after federal officials signaled a potential raid.

Jackley announced charges against Hagen and Hunt about nine months later. Hagen, 34, of Sioux Falls, has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to possess, possession and attempted possession of more than 10 pounds of marijuana.

He faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on both the conspiracy and possession counts and 7 1/2 years on the attempted possession count. Hunt last year pleaded guilty to a drug conspiracy count after agreeing to cooperate with law enforcement.

Court documents say Hunt ordered marijuana seeds from a company in the Netherlands that were shipped surreptitiously to the tribe's office in 2015. Authorities say he and others cultivated the plants at the Flandreau grow facility before they were burned.

Legal issues

The state doesn't have jurisdiction over the tribe. But prosecutors argue that state courts have jurisdiction over non-Native Americans who commit "victimless" crimes in Indian Country, so Hagen can be prosecuted. Hagen's defense has argued that the federal government has jurisdiction.

The defense

Hagen's defense against the indictment is that the marijuana belonged to the tribe. Mike Butler, Hagen's attorney, said Jackley doesn't have jurisdiction to charge the tribe, so perhaps the prosecution is "an offshoot of his frustration that he couldn't impose his will on the tribe."

"The tribe voted to enact a law. The tribe paid for this stuff. The tribe ultimately voted to burn it. Not my client," Butler said. "It was the tribe's exclusive possession in this case."

Butler said law enforcement was fully informed and involved from the beginning of the venture. He pledged to appeal if Hagen is convicted.

"This is a one-of-a-kind prosecution," said Tim Purdon, a former U.S. attorney for North Dakota. "That doesn't mean it's a bad one. It's just, this is truly groundbreaking."

The project

When tribal leaders initially touted their plan to open the resort on tribal land in Flandreau, President Anthony Reider said they wanted it to be "an adult playground."

They projected as much as $2 million in monthly profits, with ambitious plans that included a smoking lounge with a nightclub, bar and food service, and eventually an outdoor music venue. They planned to use the money for community services and to provide income to tribal members.

Reider said after the marijuana was burned that federal officials had concerns about whether the tribe could sell marijuana to non-Indians, along with the origin of the seeds used for its crop.

Purdon, now a partner at the Minneapolis law firm Robins Kaplan, said that if Hagen is convicted, it would put a "huge chill on non-Native consultants working with tribes who are interested in exploring medical or adult use cannabis."

The tribe

Reider this week called the prosecutions of Hagen and Hunt "very unfortunate," saying that the tribe originally reached out to Monarch America about the project.

He said the Santee Sioux have looked into the possibility of growing marijuana again, but said they're waiting for more clarity at the federal level with President Donald Trump's new administration.

The grow facility hasn't been used since the marijuana crop was burned, Reider said.

"It's unfortunate that we were unable to be successful with the project," he said. "We were hoping with the revenues to do a lot of positive things for the tribe and the local community."

Read more from the original source:

Flandreau tribe's cannabis consultant to face trial - Brookings Register

(1 of ) Wells Fargo has pointed to mandatory arbitration agreements to avoid public litigation of some consumer complaints about accounts created without authorization. A bill by state Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, would carve out an exemption in such cases. (SAM HODGSON / New York Times)

THE EDITORIAL BOARD

BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD | May 18, 2017, 12:11AM

| Updated 4 hours ago.

Wells Fargo & Co. executives probably hoped the worst was behind them when they paid $185 million to settle a case accusing the bank of opening up to 2.1million bogus accounts.

But new revelations keep coming.

Consumer groups now say as many as 3.5 million accounts were created without the knowledge or consent of Wells Fargo customers by bank employees tasked to meet unrealistic sales quotas.

And, as Staff Writer Paul Payne reported this week, employees of the San Francisco-based banking giant may have gone to astonishing lengths to fulfill those goals and qualify for bonuses.

A former employee at a Wells Fargo branch in Petaluma said his colleagues frequently rounded up day laborers at a nearby convenience store and drove them to the bank to sign them up for checking and savings accounts. My colleagues constantly went to and from this location to try to meet their sales goals, Denny Russo said in a sworn statement thats part of a shareholder lawsuit against the bank.

Russo said the practice was widespread throughout California and, when he complained to his managers, they cited tremendous pressure to increase sales.

Wells Fargo executives say the bank wants to win back the trust of its customers.

So far, however, they wont consider one thing that might help restore that trust: allowing customers to pursue their grievances in a public court rather than a private and secret arbitration proceeding.

An arbitration requirement is tucked into the fine print of account applications, a common practice among financial institutions, and Wells Fargo has had some success enforcing the requirement in court.

A bill sponsored by state Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, would open the courthouse to victims in cases in which a financial institution has acted without a customers consent or by unlawfully using personal information a practice commonly called identity theft.

Dodd, who has firsthand experience with private arbitration stemming from a dispute over a real estate sale some years ago, says theres an implicit bias to the person paying the bill.

Despite that, Dodd doesnt want to outlaw mandatory arbitration, which he described in an interview as quicker, more efficient and less expensive than going to court. He does want to send a message to financial institutions that they must handle their customers personal information with care, and if they dont, they can be in trouble.

Senate Bill 33 could come up for a Senate floor vote as early as today. But with opposition from the California Bankers Association and other business groups that strongly favor arbitration over litigation, especially class-action lawsuits, passage isnt assured in the Senate or the Assembly.

These werent victimless crimes. Many people were unwittingly hit with annual fees, over-draft protection charges, finance charges, late fees and other costs for accounts they didnt open or authorize.

Moreover, the bank may have delayed detection of the scheme for years by steering early complaints into arbitration.

With the Trump administration trying to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, states need to take up the slack. Dodds bill, which would create a narrow exception to mandatory arbitration, triggered only in cases of institutional fraud, is the kind of help consumers could use.

Continue reading here:

PD Editorial: Opening the courthouse door to defrauded consumers - Santa Rosa Press Democrat

Sometimes buying the best value stocks takes guts. After all, when the market punishes a stock so severely that it drives its price into value territory, it's often for a reason.

But, the market isn't perfect, and three of our writers think there are stocks out there that are worth way more than their current valuations. If you're bold enough to handle a little uncertainty in hopes of outperforming the market, you may just find tremendous returns from value stocksCelldex Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CLDX), CoreCivic (NYSE: CXW), andSeaspan(NYSE: SSW).

Image source: Getty Images.

Kristine Harjes (Celldex Therapeutics): After the hugely disappointing clinical trial failure of its brain cancer treatment candidate, investors fled from biotech Celldex Therapeutics. Share prices have cratered 90% since March 2015, as most investors lost hope for the company. What they forgot, though, was that Celldex still has some promising drug candidates in its pipeline. And -- value investors rejoice -- their collective potential more than justifies the current market cap of just under $400 million.

The baby that was thrown out with the bathwater was twofold: Celldex's opportunity centers on a pair of drugs now in stage 2 trials. One of them is called glembatumumab vedotin, or "glemba" if you want to spare yourself the tongue twist. It's currently being studied in breast cancer and metastatic melanoma, and results have been promising so far. If this monoclonal antibody treatment makes it to market (and, as a reminder, the odds are long for any drug to make it through phase 3 and FDA approval) it could reach peak sales of well over $1 billion annually. Investors will get a look at data later this year from the Metric trial, which is studying glemba as a treatment for triple negative breast cancer.

The other drug in Celldex's pipeline that I'm keeping an eye on is varlilumab ("varli"), which is being studied in head and neck, ovarian, colorectal and renal cell carcinomas, and glioblastoma. The next catalyst for varli will come in June, when Celldex expects to report data from a trial being run with the hugely successful Opdivo (a Bristol-Myers Squibb drug). Combination therapies are the key to the next generation of cancer treatments, and varli has the opportunity to tack on to the success of drugs like Opdivo and become a blockbuster itself.

Celldex sports $167 million in cash and equivalents on its balance sheet, and has no long-term debt. The company is only losing around $25 million per quarter, and partnerships with companies like Roche and Bristol-Myers Squibb are bolstering its cash balance. Management expects to have enough cash to finance operations through 2018, so there's no immediate risk to shareholders that the company won't be able to keep the lights on.

When you consider that biotechs are generally valued at around three times the peak sales of their lead drug candidates, Celldex's market cap is more than justified by either glemba or varli. This is a risky stock, so it makes sense that there's some uncertainty priced in. But with a market cap of just a fraction of the peak sales potential of just one of its two key pipeline candidates puts this stock deeply in bargain-bin territory. Admittedly, it will be a while before the thesis for Celldex proves out. if it does. However, shares right now are so deeply discounted that bold value investors would be wise to take a closer look.

Rich Duprey(CoreCivic): A stock that has nearly tripled in value in six months isn't usually going to get picked as a "value" stock, but CoreCivic isn't your usual company.

As the country's largest private prison operator, CoreCivic enjoyed a tremendous boost from the election of Donald Trump as president. Where his predecessor's Justice Department had directed government agencies to develop plans to phase out the use of private prisons, Trump's policy of cracking down on illegal immigration -- and the need for facilities to hold those caught -- caused a stock surge for CoreCivic and industry peer GEO Group.

In addition, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has struck a get-tough-on-crime posture, going so far as to say prior leniency shown toward victimless crimes like marijuana use and possession would no longer be tolerated. With government operated prisons already filled to overflowing -- the Bureau of Prisons prisoner population is already 23% over capacity -- new ones will be needed. Revenue-constrained state and local governments would have a hard time finding funds to build new prisons in their budgets, let alone getting them sited without raising storms of controversy.

However, CoreCivic has seven core facilities that are currently idle with a design capacity of 8,300 beds, plus two more non-core facilities with another 440 beds available. And, the BOP recently chose not to renew its contract on yet one more facility that offers more than 1,400 beds. It's clear CoreCivic has plenty of capacity that the government may very well need, which gives the company plenty of opportunity for additional growth.

Yet is CoreCivic a value stock? The prison operator is structured as a real estate investment trust, and it sports a P/E ratio of 18 that is below the market's average multiple of 25 -- and well below the average REIT's P/E of 91. Similarly, its price relative to next year's anticipated earnings is also well below industry and market averages. Coupled with an annual dividend of $1.68 per share that's currently yielding around 5%, CoreCivic offers value investors a solid investment that could provide a powerful total return to one's portfolio.

Brian Feroldi(Seaspan): Investors in the shipping industry have taken it on the chin over the last few years. Years of overbuilding caused shipping rates to plunge, which in turn put the hurt on the shipping lines. Things got so bad that Hanjin -- a major container line out of South Korea -- was forced to declare bankruptcy.

That backdrop caused investors to flee from Seaspan's stock, something that took me by surprise since the company's massive fleet of vessels is leased out to major liner services under long-term, fixed-fee charters. I figured that the company's contracts would help to keep it safe from the storm.

It turns out I was wrong. Hanjin was one of Seaspan's customers, so the bankruptcy has had an impact on its financials. It was also forced to recharter some of its boats at current market rates, which are terrible. The combination has caused Seaspan's revenue to dip and for profits to take a big hit. That lead the company's board to cut its massive dividend.

Thankfully, the industry at large has pulled back on new ship building activity and has increased its scrap rate. Those measures have helped charter rates to recover. That's been great news for Seaspan, and if charter rates continue to rise from here, the company's stock could certainly be poised to recover.

Seaspan's stock isn't for the faint of heart, but its reduced dividend yield of 8% looks sustainable, and there is ample opportunity for substantial share price appreciation if the shipping market has truly bottomed. That makes Seaspan a great stock for bold value investors to get to know.

10 stocks we like better than Celldex Therapeutics

When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*

David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Celldex Therapeutics wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.

*Stock Advisor returns as of May 1, 2017

See the rest here:

3 Value Stocks for Bold Investors | Business Markets and Stocks ... - Madison.com

Massage parlors promising happy endings in New York are at the center of international human trafficking schemes involving underage girls and illegal immigrants.

These establishments are starting to crop up in greater numbers across the city again after previous crackdowns by authorities in 2014, and their crimes extend far past prostitution. With the assistance of sites likeBackpage.com, the owners of these sex shops can update advertisements daily and better avoid scrutiny from law enforcement, reports Staten Island Live.

For those who argue these establishments commit victimless crimes, authorities note these parlors are typically staffed entirely by women, many of whom are forced to live at the store and are often underage. Illegal immigrants are specifically preyed on and threatened with deportation if they do not follow instructions.

The NYPD has arrested 11 people on prostitution charges in Staten Island through April 2017. Criminal complaints show five of the people arrested do not have U.S. citizenship and five provided their work address as their primary residence. All but one woman identified themselves as Asian and/orPacific Islander.

Human trafficking is up 50 percent in the city alone thats a huge red flag that this issue is permeating and it needs to be addressed aggressively,Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican running for mayor, told Staten Island Live regarding the massage parlors. Unfortunately, we know that this is a human trafficking issue, its not just prostitution.

Authorities arrested eight members of the Rendon-Reyes gang in Brooklyn in April on charges of human smuggling and sex trafficking of minors, which they allegedly participated in for a decade. All eight members face a lifetime in prison if convicted. Detailed statistics on human trafficking are difficult to assemble, but officials estimate thousands of women are trafficked into New York each year.

Officials in New York City say poor enforcement of immigration laws is aiding the human trafficking business. Women are often kidnapped from other countries and subsequently brought to the U.S. Their lives and the lives of their families are threatened in order to terrorize the victims into obedience.

I consider forcing a woman or a child to perform sexual acts and be victims is something that should be taken seriously and I think thats the type of message were sending if we dont enforce [people being in New York illegally],Malliotakis told Staten Island Live.

Authorities successfully closed six of these massage parlors in 2015, but more continue to open.Malliotakis and other local lawmakers say there has been a steady increase in calls reporting shady massage parlors popping up in their communities.

Follow Steve on Twitter

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [emailprotected].

Read the original post:

Massage Parlors Are Major Sources Of Human Sex Trafficking | The ... - The Daily Caller

I recently explored Irelands border from end-to-end. I wanted to get to know the borders true character, to meet it on the ground. I also wanted to learn more about its past and what it might become in the future.

The Brexit vote brought much anxiety to the borderland, worries about how the United Kingdoms only land frontier with the European Union would operate. A hard border, with mandatory stops for customs, would not just be bad for business but could threaten the peace process.

In 1993, when both the Republic of Ireland and the UK joined the single market, customs checks were no longer necessary

The anxiety was exacerbated by Downing Streets refusal to commit to anything, apart from leaving the single market and the customs union. The European Council are no less intransigent but they are much more open about what they want from the divorce. Just over a week ago their operating guidelines were published and Irelands border was given emphasis: In view of the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland, flexible and imaginative solutions will be required, including with the aim of avoiding a hard border. Days later, the EUs chief negotiator Michel Barnier said he would pay particular attention to Ireland.

On the ground, the first thing you notice about Irelands border is that you cant see it. In 1993, when both the Republic of Ireland and the UK joined the single market, customs checks were no longer necessary. That layer of bureaucracy manifested on the border by queues of traffic and customs facilities disappeared. Then in 1998 the Good Friday Agreement set in motion the process of dismantling military installations along the frontier.

Garrett Carr, author of The Rule of the Land: Walking Ireland's Border.

Nowadays you must look for more subtle indications to locate the border, such as changes in the road surface or carriageway markings turning from yellow to white. Away from the roads there is even less to go by. The border corridor is almost entirely rural, fields and forests, although the invisible line is always hosted by something; a fence, an old stone wall, a hedgerow or, most commonly of all, a river. The most frequent sound along the border is trickling water, along with the coo of wood pigeons and puttering of tractor engines.

A common smell is the tang of diesel. One bright cold morning I was walking a narrow border lane in Armagh when I experienced this smell again. It was coming from a cube-shaped plastic tank sitting on a layby. It was about four feet tall and semi-transparent so I could see it was half-full of sludge that had settled into two layers. Liquid the colour of varnish was floating on top of something black and tar-like. Both layers looked poisonous. I walked around the tank a few times, wondering if it was what I thought it was. Whoever left the tank had wedged a couple of planks underneath to stop it tipping over. You could call this gesture considerate and it made me wonder if the tank was left for an official waste disposal scheme. This was too optimistic, as I found out when, a few minutes after me, a local council employee arrived in a car. No, no, its just been dumped here, she said. We get a lot of them. She took a photograph of it. I later learned some of this waste material is shipped to Holland to be disposed of properly. Having recorded the location of the illegal dump she drove off. Her electric car was a pleasing contrast to the toxic atmosphere around the tank.

DID YOU KNOW

In total, more than 92,000 people have sold The Big Issue since 1991 to help themselves work their way out of poverty more than could fit into Wembley Stadium.

Fuel is a product largely unaffected by the single market. In fact, diesel is currently one of the few things worth smuggling. Each jurisdiction has its own system of tariffs so price differentials appear, gaps that have been exploited by smugglers for years. The border never disappeared for oilmen, the writer Glenn Patterson was told recently by a fuel haulier. There are profits to be made by selling southern diesel in the north and, as there are no customs checks at the border, getting the stuff across is easy.

President of the European Council Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

You might say the borderline has been relocated into the fuel itself: northern diesel is dyed red and southern dyed green. The dye must be removed from the diesel before it can be sold because customs officials visit farms and businesses to check they are not using illegally imported fuel. Laundering fuel is a messy business, producing toxic waste that has to be dumped, hence the tank I stumbled across.

Finding a single tank the way I did is unusual. They are more often found in threes, each holding a tonne of gunk. A couple of years ago an entire truck trailer of waste was abandoned on a roadside. In the haste to escape, the driver had not lowered the trailers jacks so it fell forward as the cab pulled away, tonnes of waste pooling at one end.

The only ones a hard border will suit are the smugglers

I reject any notion of smuggling gangs as Robin Hood-type figures. These are not victimless crimes; one victim is the environment. Thousands of tonnes of chemical waste have been dumped along Irelands border over the years. Sometimes it is even set alight; the black sludge can smoulder for days. Recently the authorities made a deft move in the battle against fuel smuggling. They have started using an invisible isotope to mark diesel in a way that cannot be seen by the naked eye. Reports indicate this has been extremely effective and diesel smuggling has been reduced as a result. The smuggling gangs have hired chemists to find a way to remove the marker but without success. Some suggest the end of diesel smuggling is in sight.

It is likely gangs are seeking other things to smuggle and it is unfortunate Brexit is arriving just in time to help them. The only ones a hard border will suit are the smugglers, an Enniskillen businessman told me. Itll suit those boyos just fine.

Gangs have been keeping in practice and have distribution systems in place; they are ready to begin exploiting price differences as soon as they appear. It is likely all sorts of smuggling operations will emerge when the UK leaves the single market and, presumably, price differentials will widen on all sorts of products: cement, milk, cigarettes, beef, bricks you name it. Apart from the boyos, I think most people along the border consider this an unhappy story.

The border could soon see more and more smuggling. People here will once again have to get used to smugglers trucks rumbling by after dark and will continue to find their castoffs along laybys in the cold light of morning.

Garrett Carrs book The Rule of the Land: Walking Irelands Border (Faber & Faber, 13.99) is out now

See the original post:

Walking Ireland's border the new Brexit priority | Garrett Carr - Big Issue

Reckless homicide charges, fueled by a dramatic rise in opioid abuse, increased sharply in Outagamie County in 2016, authorities said.(Photo: FotoMaximum, Getty Images/iStockphoto)

APPLETON - Reckless homicide charges spiked in Outagamie County in 2016, and District Attorney Carrie Schneider sees a direct correlation with widespread opioid abuse in Wisconsin.

"I think it is just obviously a statewide epidemic, the heroin and the drug use," Schneider said."It can be someone's second time or their 102nd time, there's just no rhyme or reason when what they take on a given day is enough that causes their death. And it's just been kind of an explosion here."

Outagamie County prosecutors charged one case per year from 2013 to 2015. But in 2016, the number jumped to seven. Two of those cases, one of which was dismissed, pertained to the same person's death.

There have been two cases filed so far in 2017.

The vast majority of the victims from 2013 through this year lived in the Fox Cities, including Appleton, Darboy, Freedom andNew London. All but one were in their 20s or 30s. Their deaths were blamed most often onheroin but the criminal complaints also pointed to other drugs, including fentanyl and methadone.

RELATED:New London man charged in drug overdose death

RELATED:Woman dies of apparent heroin overdose in Menasha

RELATED:Man sentenced on reduced drug charge

Some cases were charged quickly after a death, while others took as long as 2 years.In the cases that took longer to charge, Schneider said, prosecutors were waiting on toxicology reports, test results or other records. The cases came together at roughly the same time.

Outagamie County isn't alone in using what's known as the Len Bias law to charge those who supply drugs that kill an individual with reckless homicide. But prosecutors acknowledge that those cases don't represent the scope of the problem including the number of people who have died from overdoses or who have overdosed and survived.

The challenge in these cases, prosecutors said, is not necessarily proving that someone delivered drugs to another person, but that the drugs caused an overdose death. Sometimes that's just not possible.

Len Bias laws named after the basketball star who died of a cocaine overdose in 1986 were enacted across the country, including Wisconsin.

The laws were not used frequently in the beginning, Marquette University Law School professor Michael OHear told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin.

"But there has been a real surge in the last decade or so in use of homicide charges for overdose deaths and I think that's pretty clearly related to the opioid epidemic and heroin and fentanyl and other drugs that are easily overused and which do all too often lead to overdose deaths," he said. "And there certainly has been a surge nationally in overdose deaths, and so you're seeing prosecutors trying to respond to that."

The deterrent effect of these charges might be limited, O'Hear said. To be deterred by potentially long sentences, people need to be thinking about the future and believing that there is a significantrisk that they'll get arrested and convicted. It's not the kind of rational cost-benefit analysis typically associated with the drug trade, he said.

"I think that they're really probably more symbolic than anything else," he said of the laws. "They're a way for the criminal justice system to express concern and anger about what's happening with drug overdoses in our community and there may be some benefit to family members of deceased victims if they have a sense that the criminal justice system is taking these cases very seriously and trying to hold responsible parties accountable in a very severe way."

Jon J. Padgham, supervising attorney at the Outagamie County Public Defender's Office, said heroin has had an astounding effect on the criminal justice and social services systems. He likened using herointo playing Russian roulette.

"Most of us simply cannot understand the overwhelming desire/need for the high and how (it) skews all other rational thoughts," he said in an email to USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin."It's great to see the development of multi-dimensional initiatives. The criminal justice system, alone, cannot adequately address heroin."

While prosecutorshope the charges have a deterrent effect, particularly on dealers, they also say people need to be held responsible for the crimes they commit.

In Len Bias cases, as in fatal drunken driving crashes, the consequences dictate the charge, Winnebago County District Attorney Christian Gossett said. Like other prosecutors, he doesn't buy the argument that overdoses are a victimless crime because the person who takes the drugs is engaging in the activity.

"If you're dealing heroin, you're dealing something you know is dangerous, you have to be prepared to deal with the consequences of that, especially now the heroin that we're seeing is being laced with fentanyl, which is even more dangerous," said Winnebago County Assistant District Attorney Tracy Paider, who is part of the Drug/Property Unit within the office."So in my mind, yes, you didn't force the person to inject the drug but if you are going to deal in drugs that are that dangerous, you have be prepared to deal with those consequences."

But the circumstances of an overdose death also come into play in these cases, they said. If two friends are using together and one dies of an overdose, it's a different case than someone who's not an addict and is selling drugs to make a profit.

There are cases in which investigators have gone one or two people up the drug-delivery chain, but getting the "big fish" is a real challenge, Paider said. After a certain pointin that chain, people don't know each other by their real names or real phone numbers. If the higher-level dealer is in Milwaukee or Chicago, they aren't necessarily using real addresses or they're using burner phones.

Outagamie County has had cases where people are partying and someone ends up dying, Schneider said. They've chosen in some of those cases to not file Len Bias charges but instead charge the personwho brought the drugs with delivery, she said. The calculation changes if that individual had past delivery or sales on their record.

"It's kind of our discretion to say, instead of charging them with the Len Bias, we might charge them with the delivery, where we know we can still receive an appropriate sanction," Schneider said. "...So I think we still choose to charge them in a way we think is the best use of our resources and really gets at the root of the problem. They're not the root of the problem. The root of the problem is the higher-level people who are bringing the drugs in or selling the drugs."

Alison Dirr: 920-996-7266 or adirr@gannett.com; on Twitter @AlisonDirr

Read or Share this story: http://post.cr/2rcFAFQ

Follow this link:

Opioid-fueled homicide charges rise sharply in Outagamie County - Appleton Post Crescent

This week there was a common trend among questions, so I decided to address the elephant in the room that seems to bother most unfamiliar libertarians, which is: how exactly would things in our life function without the overbearing, gluttonous regulatory state we currently live in?

Well Shaun, there are two issues at hand with environmental regulations, micro and macro. First is the micro aspect of pollution, in the sense that you are damaging someones individual property. In that way, the court system would settle disputes where businesses would be held liable for property they damaged (rivers, farm lands, etc.). To curb the obvious problem caused by the tragedy of the commons, the government could privatize much of the 640 million acres it currently owns, so when a business did pollute, clearly defined property rights would allow owners to file a suit for those damages.

The second part of this topic is the regulation of environmental impact on a macro level. To solve this, we must realize that libertarians do not argue that the market solves all problems. It does, however, provide more of what consumers want. In order for the market to provide the incentive of environmental friendliness, that must first be what the consumer wants as well. For example, in the beginning of the industrial revolution, many claim the market was mostly unregulated, and pollution went uncontrolled as a flaw of the market. At that time, however, it was not a priority to consumers, their concern revolved around escaping abject poverty. No one was in a position to notice, or even care about pollution. Today is a different story though, the standard of living has risen to a point where Americans no longer worry about avoiding starvation, which allows them to focus on things like the environmental impact of businesses. This, in turn, creates competition between producers to verify they are environmentally safe. So, while the market may have allowed pollution to go largely unnoticed for a time, without the free market, the standard of living would not have risen to a point that even allowed consumers to put outward pressure on producers to become environmentally safe at all.

Im going to assume youre asking how a criminal justice system could operate privately, which is a bit more fun to answer, although challenging to fit into a short segment like this. First off, this is one of the hardest concepts for libertarians to accept, but private courts in an open market would be much more efficient. Right off the bat we would see that citizens charged with victimless crimes by agents acting on behalf of the state would cease to exist, which is worth it alone.

Because courts would need to entice consumers, instead of reimbursements being paid to the state through fines, they would be paid directly to the victim, allowing courts to charge a percentage for their services. In the case of a bad ruling, appellate courts would exist for either party to fight what they think is an improper ruling by the original court. As Murray Rothbard put it, in the case of the appellate courts ruling going against the first decision, an independent third-party court could be consulted, with the two original courts agreeing that this ruling be final. Remember, courts who did not agree would be put out by those who do, much like how a bank that refuses to accept other banks transactions would lose customers from unnecessary inconveniences.

Prison sentences would dwindle considerably, given that that outcome is not advantageous for anyone but the state. If an aggressor was found guilty, the two parties would either agree on a method of reimbursement in the amount damaged (garnishments, lump sum, payment plan), or if no consensus is met, the guilty party may be sent to a prison, where they would have to work until their debt is settled. Likewise, if the party is unable to be reimbursed or refuses a monetary sum, such as rape or murder, a representing party may choose to send the guilty party to prison for a length of time decided by the judge. In the interest of brevity, I will stop there, but this is a great topic covered in depth in For A New Liberty by Murray Rothbard, and perhaps I will cover the private prison portion more next week.

Libertarianism centers around the idea of non-violence and personal responsibility. In this case, car insurance would not be a requirement, but a recommendation. People take out insurance to cover risks in life that may come at a cost they cannot incur. Things like your house, car, and your health, are all things that may encounter a costly unexpected tragedy. The responsible choice is to recognize that risk, and prepare for it appropriately. However, if you choose not to, you would be free to do so, but you would be left responsible to bear the costs if something went wrong. For example, if you were at fault behind the wheel without insurance, you could end up losing your house to cover the cost of the damage. While on the surface it may seem inefficient, ask yourself how it is any more efficient or justified for the government to mandate the same rule apply to everyone equally, as if that currently solves everyones problems.

While a very broad point, this answer may be the most important point to remember with libertarianism. There is no way and I cant emphasize this enough absolutely no way to get money out of politics. Groups like the Occupy Wall Street movement like to blame money in politics as the source of our problem, but that is a fools errand, which is exactly why lying politicians like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders keep their constituents chasing after it. The only solution is to remove power from politics. Without the power politicians have, the money used to influence that power goes away. Trying to get money out of politics, without first getting rid of the power, is like trying to legislate that water flow uphill. We must not fall for the scheme; we must always advocate for shrinking government authority at every point we can if we hope to achieve your points.

Your health is not a market value per se, but it does require commodities from the market to be maintained. People have the right to healthcare insofar as they may choose how to eat, exercise, and live to sustain their health. Positive rights, however, dont exist. You may find that you require commodities offered in the market to uphold the level of health you would like, but that does not entitle you to seize that commodity. Likewise, petitioning the government to mandate that service be given to you will not solve your problem.

Ben Shapiro recently gave a great example to illustrate this problem. If the government wanted to solve hunger, it may choose to legislate that everyone receives a loaf of bread. However, the problem is that the legislation does not do a single thing to increase the amount of bread, even though the reason people couldnt afford bread initially was due to a lack of supply. So, while everyone may think their problem is solved at first, unless the supply of bread increases, a shortage will inevitably ensue. What theyd need is an increase in the amount of bread to put downward pressure on prices, thereby giving more people access to it, not the government legislating the current supply be redistributed. Similarly, our solution to healthcare lies not in legislating that everyone receives healthcare, but in expanding its supply to bring prices down. This can be done by allowing competition and scaling back the requirements to enter the healthcare market, resulting in an increase in hospitals and doctors. The increased supply lowers prices, thereby granting access to more people and eventually cutting the requirement for health insurance to its original purpose: protection against catastrophic loss.

Well, Merit, I would be inclined to ask those people why they dont give up everything provided by the market then, since they hate it so much. In all seriousness though, this is a deflection for a lack of an argument. To put their response a different way; should we believe a man who accepts a meal in prison only does so if he consents to be there? Of course not.

In reality, those services are monopolies, and given the opportunity I would end them to allow choice. Much like in healthcare, the solution is not to move towards a monopoly, but away from it. I never understood how someone expects their argument to be taken seriously as a viable solution when they willingly admit it requires people to be forced to participate in it. Especially when their counter-argument is to tell their opponent they suffer from a lack of empathy. If someone chooses not to participate voluntarily, the solution is not to force them.

Alright, thats it for this week. Thank you to everyone who wrote in, and make sure you submit your questions each week on our Lowdown on Liberty post, and the top questions will be answered the following week!

This post was written by Thomas J. Eckert.

The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.

Thomas J. Eckert is college grad with an interest in politics. He studies economics and history and writes in his spare time on political and economic current events.

Like Loading...

See the original post here:

The Lowdown on Liberty: Just How Are We Supposed To Survive Without Regulation, Mr. Libertarian? - Being Libertarian