Category Archives: Victimless Crimes

GO-PRO Video Leads to Conviction of Insurance Fraud Suspect

Robert Atlas falsely reported to GEICO that he had crashed his 2012 Corvette Stingray while exiting the I-10 freeway, on the exit ramp at Wild horse pass in Chandler Arizona. Robert was paid $61,465.11 by GEICO for the loss of his Corvette. It was later discovered that on October 10, 2015, Robert Atlas had actually raced his Corvette Stingray in a drag race at a drag racing event at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park. He subsequently lost control of his corvette during the race and crashed into the concrete barrier totaling his Corvette Stingray. This crash was captured on a Go-Pro video and published on YouTube. The policy does not cover damage caused to the vehicle if it was involved in drag racing. Robert was later shown the video footage and he admitted to making the false claim to GEICO Insurance.

On 1-25-17, Robert Atlas pled guilty to Insurance Fraud as a Class 6 Undesignated offense and as required by the Plea Agreement he paid the entire amount of restitution back to GEICO Insurance prior to sentencing. He was sentenced to two years supervised probation and was assessed $1,560.00 in court costs.

The case was investigated by the Arizona Department of Insurance Fraud Unit and prosecuted by the Arizona Attorney Generals Office.

The San Diego County District Attorneys Office and California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones announced a major auto insurance fraud ring takedown, which was operating in San Diego County.

Nine defendants have been charged with 34 felony crimes including filing fraudulent auto insurance claims. Six defendants were arrested on January 31, and police are searching for one more. Two people received notices that they have been charged and must appear in to court.

When cheaters scam insurance companies, law abiding citizens end up footing the bill, District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said. Our insurance fraud team did an excellent job collaborating with the California Department of Insurance and Highway Patrol to dismantle this crime ring.

Operation Persistent was a two-year investigation that uncovered a web of fraudsters who victimized insurance companies over several years. The ring used various schemes to file 34 false insurance claims for auto property damage. The schemes included staged collisions, non-existent collisions, using already damaged vehicles, and phony vehicle thefts.

The crimes were discovered thanks to the diligent efforts of the San Diego Automobile Insurance Fraud Task Force. The joint task force is dedicated to investigating all forms of auto insurance fraud and is supervised by the California Department of Insurance. It is made up of law enforcement officers from the Department of Insurance, the San Diego District Attorneys Office, and California Highway Patrol. The National Insurance Crime Bureau also provides support to the task force.

Insurance fraud is not a victimless crime, said Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones. We all pay for these crimes when insurers pass along the losses through higher premiums.

The San Diego ring made false insurance claims totaling approximately $200,000. The defendants bilked 12 insurance companies out of about $125,000. Victim insurance companies include: Allstate, Access, GEICO, Infinity, State Farm, Rental Insurance Services, Fred Loya, Nationwide, Alliance, Farmers, Nations, and Travelers.

Insurance fraud can directly impact the lives of law-abiding people and staged collisions have taken the lives of innocent people in our state, said Jim Abele, border division chief for the California Highway Patrol. The California Highway Patrol is dedicated to reducing collisions, vehicle theft, and insurance fraud. The San Diego Automobile Insurance Fraud Task Force partnership provides a needed focus on auto-insurance crimes and enables better sharing of case information among fraud fighters.

Defendants include: Yesenia Perez, 26; Darice Orozco, 37; Oscar Vargas, 31; Jesus Diego, 31; Roberto Ramirez, 27; Abel Ramirez, 31; Maria Linares, 24; Juan Augustin, 30; and Francine Moreno, 25.

Maria Linares and Juan Augustin will be arraigned February 3, at 8:30 a.m. and Jesus Diego and Yesenia Perez will be arraigned February 7, at 1:30 p.m. All arraignments are scheduled in Department 12 of the downtown courthouse.

Abel Ramirez, Roberto Ramirez, Oscar Vargas and Darice Orozco were arraigned Wednesday and pleaded not guilty. Their next court date is February 10, at 8:30 a.m. in Department 53 of the downtown courthouse.

Excerpt from:

Arizona and California Auto Insurance Fraud Busts - Claims Journal - Claims Journal

What factors should be considered in determining the length and terms of a sentence? Should a crimes violent or non-violent classification carry the most weight? Frank S. Perri offers that focusing too much on a crimes violent or non-violent nature can lead to a punishment too severe or not severe enough for the crime committed.

I certainly knew it was nefarious, a little wormy, unethical, make no mistake about that but criminal? Fraud?- Jay Jones, convicted white-collar criminal, as quoted in The New York Times Magazine

Jay Jones lived the good life; unfortunately, he bought it fraudulently. As a result of his behavior, he left at least 4,000 people jobless when the debt collection business he helped co-found went bankrupt, according to a June 6, 2004, article in The New York Times Magazine.1 He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud investors and was sentenced to five years in prison. He also owes about $1 billion in restitution to the victims of his fraud, according to the article. Was his sentence too light?

Consider the case of real estate attorney Chalana McFarland, who committed a myriad of fraudulent acts, including identity theft, illegal use of Social Security numbers, money laundering, and a mortgage scam that devastated lending institutions and families who bought homes, according to a U.S. Department of Justice press release.2 She was sentenced to 30 years in prison, even though she could have been sentenced to a life term and ordered to pay $12 million in restitution for the scheme that she controlled with the assistance of her co-conspirators, the press release said. Was her sentence too high?Although its reasonable to have a debate on what constitutes a proportionate and fair punishment to a fraud-based crime, anti-fraud professionals must be aware that the manner in which the debate on appropriate punishment is being framed can be misleading. One of the common arguments made by opponents advocating lenient sentences for convicted white-collar criminals is that their crimes are non-violent property crimes, and many are first-time offenders who dont fit the typical image of a street criminal. In this article, well address:

The inherent dangers of imposing punishment based on the premise that fraud is a non-violent property crime

Misperceptions surrounding the first-time offender argument in determining an appropriate punishment

Why white-collar crime sentencing might have increased over the years

DANGERS IN PUNISHING CRIME LABELSAND NOT THE HARM SUFFERED

I had no desire to live, no prospect of earning a living, no way to pay the bills. Retiree and Madoff fraud victim, as quoted in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law.

This quote exemplifies the voice of thousands recounting the personal and financial losses suffered when a trusted business advisor, professional, employee, business owner or other individual defrauds them. Psychiatrists Drs. Marilyn Price and Donna Norris wrote in their article in The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law, white-collar criminals commit crimes that have victims whose lives are significantly affected and, at times, destroyed by these acts.3 However, there are academicians in law who downplay frauds underlying harm by removing the human element and labeling it a non-violent property crime. They have written extensively on the topic, advocating that white-collar criminals should receive more lenient sentences because of the crimes non-violent distinction, according to law professor Ellen Podgor of Stetson University.4

Yet, whats misleading about their argument is the assumption that only violent criminals inflict harm thats worthy of extensive punishment. In part, the harm that fraud victims incur is downplayed because the majority of the research on victimology has focused on conventional non-white-collar crimes.5

Thus the degree of perceived harm suffered by victims of white-collar crimes is compared to the harms suffered by victims of non-white-collar crimes because theyre the largely accepted conventional construction of crimes in the public conscience.6

White-collar crime is considered a special breed in the criminal justice system because theres a long history of perceived leniency for these criminals; many erroneously believe that white-collar crimes have no victims.7

Also, fraud offenses arent consistently included in crime victim surveys because criminologist might perceive that there are no visible victims, or the social harm is diluted among a number of people.8 Thus, fraud victims whose harm hasnt been captured by surveys would naturally appear to be victimless when compared to victims of non-white-collar crimes.

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Originally posted here:

White-Collar Crime Punishment - Fraud Magazine

Written by Syed, T.

Syed, T. (1997). Not Victimless: Understanding the harmful effects of police corruption. In Servamus, Vol. 91, No. 1.

In Servamus, Vol. 91, No. 1, 1997.

Talha Syed is a former Research Intern at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

The assumption that police corruption is wrong or a problem to be combatted is often taken for granted in many discussions or analyses of the topic. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the term "corruption" is not neutral, that its connotation of "moral perversion" or "depravity"1 implies that anything labelled corrupt must just inherently be "bad" and is not to be tolerated. Thus, there is sometimes little attention paid to what is wrong with corrupt acts. However, a reliance on a moral view of corruption which just assumes it to be bad can lead to an inadequate understanding of the problem. Especially when corruption seems to be quite widespread and an almost accepted part of some "sub-cultures", unless we articulate exactly what is wrong with it, some people may wonder why it needs to be combatted at all and if it is not better to just ignore it.2

This paper seeks to identify the major effects of corrupt acts on the criminal justice system, police relations with the public and the organisational culture of the police. It will emphasise the "civic morality"3 side of police corruption, i.e., the social harm that corrupt acts result in. The primary purpose of this discussion is to combat the view of police corruption as "victimless". It seeks to bring to the attention of the reader the very damaging effects of corrupt acts and to point out that such acts not only have indirect consequences, but often identifiable victims.

Before outlining some of the major effects of police corruption, it is important to have some idea of what is being referred to by the term "police corruption". Thus, this paper starts by defining police corruption. After that, the effects of corruption are divided into two sections: first, those that have more easily identifiable victims and second, those whose effects need to be viewed in a broader context. Where appropriate, examples of corrupt acts are provided to illustrate the points being made. This is not meant to imply that either the effects of police corruption are always easily distinguishable from each other or that each corrupt act has only one effect. Rather, this exercise is an attempt to broadly outline some of the major effects of corrupt acts and identify some of the practices most strongly related to specific effects.

The definition of police corruption used in this paper is the following:

Thus, to be considered corrupt, an act:

Must be a violation of South African criminal or civil law or qualify as misconduct under the SAPS or traffic officers regulations.4

Must use either the legal or organisational powers of the police. That is, in committing the act, a police officer needs to have made use of some form of knowledge, access, credibility or legal or other power available to her/him by virtue of her/him being a member of the police service.

Must be motivated by the desire to achieve some identifiable personal, group or organisational benefit or reward.

An officer not arresting someone for possession of dagga in return for some money would be an example of a corrupt act using legal police powers (i.e., the discretionary power of non- enforcement). An example of organisational powers being used would be an officer using her/his access to police records to steal and destroy a case docket in return for payment of some sort. In addition, if the officer destroyed the docket of a case where a friend or family member was the defendant, it would also be an example of corruption, as the benefit of helping someone close to you is clearly identifiable. Finally, a police commander ordering her/his officers not to investigate the alleged criminal activities of a politician who is influential and friendly towards the police is also acting corruptly, since there is a benefit to the organisation in terms of continued support from the politician.

It should be noted that there are some "improper" or questionable police practices and forms of misconduct that are not necessarily forms of corruption. One example would be an officer acting in a racist or prejudicial manner towards an alleged offender, perhaps by being discourteous or perhaps by other, more overt means (eg. using unnecessary force). Since it is difficult to identify any tangible gain for the officer involved, such an act would not be defined as corrupt in terms of the definition being used here. However, it needs to be recognised that such actions are still problematic - and may even be crimes - and that they may have the same effects as forms of police corruption. Also, such behaviour may still be viewed by some people as "corrupt". Thus, in the following analysis of effects, where especially appropriate or relevant, practices other than those formally defined as corrupt are also identified and discussed.

What the effects in this section have in common is that they often entail an identifiable person or group of people being harmed and are quite closely connected with the actual operation of the criminal justice system. In fact, they usually result in either the perversion, obstruction or diversion of the aims of justice. Also included in this group are practices which serve to divert police resources towards a particular group, and therefore potentially increase the vulnerability of other individuals, or groups, to crime. As such, the types of corruption looked at in this section often have the most obviously detrimental impact. However, it may not always be the case that a person committing some of the corrupt acts discussed here will concern her/himself with the very direct and dire consequences of her/his actions.

There are a few different ways in which corrupt acts committed by the police result in direct forms of victimisation. One obvious way is when the powers available to police officers are used in committing crimes that have direct victims. One example of this is outright stealing from individuals and businesses. This usually entails officers using their access to certain areas, such as unlocked shops, crime scenes or vehicle compounds, to help themselves to various goods. Officers have also been known to collude with professional criminals in operations such as car hijacking rings. Such cases, as Gauteng anti-corruption unit (ACU) Senior Superintendent Adrian Eager points out, are "particularly perturbing as some of [the] vehicles are obtained" by methods "which could involve murder."5 In such a case, police officers need to realize that they are not just using their powers to rob people, but, by giving police assistance to these operations, are also guilty of complicity in the assault and sometimes murder of the car owners. Another example where officers are only one step removed from the shooting or killing of people is when they sell firearms from police storage or when they rent out their own issue for a brief period.6

Another form of victimisation relates to the investigation of cases and the securing or providing of evidence. When police officers use "illegitimate methods" - such as lying about the circumstances surrounding an arrest or tampering with evidence - simply in order to secure convictions and falsely enhance their performance it must be viewed as corrupt. (In circumstances where such illegitimate methods are used in building cases against legitimate suspects, the use of such methods is still an offense; but since it is no longer motivated by personal gain, it is not, according to the definition being used, corrupt.) Such actions may result in the unlawful arrest or conviction of possibly innocent defendants. An example is the case of the junior examiner in the Western Cape who allegedly mismatched numerous fingerprints in order to provide "favours" for detectives, by helping them to falsely "build stronger cases."7 Another instance is what is referred to as "verballing" among police officers in Queensland, Australia - when the police corroborate earlier falsifications or fraudulently strengthen the case against the defendant by lying in court , knowing that their credibility as officers will give their testimony more weight than that of the accused.8

There are other cases of perjury that are forms of corruption and result in direct victimisation. As mentioned earlier, even though racist or brutal acts committed by police officers are usually not, strictly speaking, forms of corruption (as they result in no obvious gain), they are instances of victimisation. Thus, when an officer covers up for such behaviour by committing perjury, such as by claiming that the victim resisted arrest or was abusing the officer, it is not only a corrupt act (as the officer is gaining by avoiding personal harm), it is also a part of the victimisation process.

The practice of receiving kickbacks is one that is often viewed as victimless. However, besides the fact that certain businesses or people are not given a fair chance to compete for work, kickbacks can also have other, very direct victims. One type of kickback, discussed by James Morton in his look at police corruption in Britain, was when police officers in London would use their considerable "influence over the distribution of legal aid work" to direct cases to specific lawyers, in return for money or other payment or favours. One result of this practice was that lawyers had to be wary of offending, or being "hostile" to the police, and make sure that they "let the police officers down lightly if there were discrepancies in their evidence." In one instance, a "young solicitor who had given the police a hard time whilst defending and obtained an acquittal" was told by a senior partner that "he had received a call from a senior officer reminding him that the firm also relied on the police for their prosecution work."9 In effect, their ability to effectively do their job was compromised, with their clients, the defendants, being victimised. Also, kickbacks that officers receive from businesses such as towing operations or car garages can also lead to victimisation, with officers seeking, or even manufacturing, violations to enforce for the sole purpose of making corrupt funds One example, also from Morton's study, was of officers seeking out and citing vehicle owners for infractions such as driving with worn out tyres and, rather than handing out fines, giving them warnings and directing them to "a co-operative garage", one that gave the police regular payments.10

The extortion of money by police officers is also an overt form of victimisation. Here, police powers of enforcement or police authority may be used in committing a corrupt act. One example of this is the allegation that some police officers in the US Virgin Islands "routinely shake down prostitutes" and "illegal aliens", extorting money from them "by threatening to turn them in to the Immigration and Naturalization Service."11 A South African example of extortion was an incident where five officers used their police authority in allegedly falsely informing a man that "his vehicle had been used in a crime and would have to be confiscated", seizing his car and demanding R6000 for its return.12 Also, when officers refuse to do their jobs, or suggest that certain tasks will not be done, or done properly, unless the person needing police assistance "greases the wheel", they are certainly victimising the hapless citizen.

One final instance of direct victimisation is the case of police officers siding with, and often providing police powers to, "favoured" people or businesses, usually ones that provide some goods (eg. free meals, drinks), when they are in conflict with other citizens. There are reported cases of, for instance, police officers serving, in effect, as security or bouncers for businesses like pubs or restaurants and helping such establishments "take care" of troublesome customers.13 In such cases, it is clear that such customers are being victimised with the police taking a particular side rather than acting in terms of the principles of law enforcement.

"Fostering impunity" here refers to those situations when corrupt acts committed by police officers serve to provide those who have violated the law with immunity against having the law properly enforced against them. This occurs when perpetrators of specific criminal acts are able to receive lighter punishments, or avoid punishment altogether, for their crimes. In assisting such perpetrators, police officers obstruct the criminal justice process and contribute to further injustice done to the victim. Such practices should therefore be understood as amounting to a form of secondary victimisation.14 Reports of police commanders interfering in investigations, to the point of travelling to other jurisdictions to have cases against powerful criminals quashed, are instances of this type of secondary victimisation. Also, every time an officer sells or destroys a docket, s/he has become an accessory to the crime (which could be murder) allegedly committed in that case. The same goes for those who assisted in the escape of Josiaha Rabotapi, a man "wanted in connection with 16 murders and 13 armed robberies."15 Finally, a more subtle way of helping offenders escape the consequences of their acts is for officers to "make a bad case", one that they know the defence can exploit, or to intentionally perform in court in such a way as to help the defendant's case.16

In connection with the above forms of obstruction of justice, a further consequence of this fostering of impunity is the damage it does to other police officers' morale. When officers committed to catching perpetrators and solving cases see their work undone time and again by other officers, it cannot but have devastating consequences for morale. Even if officers are unaware that it is other police officers who are undermining their work, simply witnessing the neutralisation of their efforts can lead to considerable frustration and despair. As one victim of a car hijacking put it when the alleged perpetrators was set free soon after "quick detective work" had led to their apprehension: "the detectives were very excited about the bust. I feel sorry for officers who had worked so hard to catch these guys, but how can you lose high-priority criminals like that?"17

A further form of fostering impunity is when police protection of offenders becomes more regular or systematic. Often, such corruption is linked with organised crime rings such as drug syndicates. Here, the fostering of impunity has at least two major effects. First, it allows drug traffickers (or car hijackers or firearms smugglers) to consistently evade law enforcement and thus more effectively run their operations. Thus, police officers are directly complicit in the devastating harm that drug trafficking (or other organised criminal activity) causes a community and its members. Second, it is certainly not unknown for those who deal in drugs to be engaged in other criminal activity, often in the course of running their business, such as racketeering, armed robberies and murder. By allowing these criminals to remain at large and by giving them the message that they are immune from being brought to book, corrupt officers are actively facilitating the committing of these crimes. In Latin American countries such as Colombia, Bolivia and Peru, where such police collusion with drug cartels is believed to be rife, it can reach the stage where the criminals are viewed as "more powerful than government". Here, the consequence of fostering impunity is "that the drug barons are not simply above the law - they are a law unto themselves."18

Of course, granting immunity through corrupt acts is not limited to police interactions with those commonly perceived as serious criminals. A less obvious, seemingly more benign or even innocent case would be traffic officers who solicit or take bribes for not enforcing traffic violations such as speeding. Such corruption may be justified or rationalised away as not having a victim or any negative consequences, yet it is a perfect illustration of the negative consequences of corrupt acts which foster impunity. The fact is, every time it is done, it contributes to a culture of lawlessness on the road, or at least an attitude that the laws need not be taken seriously. However such laws exist for a reason - to ensure road safety. If they can be flouted with relative ease, it contributes to a decreased level of respect for the rules of the road and may lead to an increase in hazardous driving and traffic accidents. Such long term consequences of corruption are no less real or damaging for being more removed from the individual act and need to be understood by officers whose job it is to ensure that laws aimed towards the security of people are not violated with impunity.

Connected with the above point is the more general impact that acts of favouritism may have on police, and public, perceptions of the law. When people such as politicians, police officers in general and friends of police officers are seen to be given favourable treatment with regards to the enforcement of violations of the law, this feeds into a culture of impunity. In the words of one analyst, such treatment increases people's perceptions of "the fallacy of impartial law enforcement."19 The law is seen to be malleable, not fairly applied to all and thus applicable only to those without influence or connections. These perceptions may have the reverse effect of Robert Klitgaard's "fry the big fish"20 approach to combatting corruption. Klitgaard recommends that to effectively send the message to the general public that corruption will not be tolerated, one needs to expose and prosecute prominent people in a society who are guilty of corruption, thereby making it clear that no one is above the law. The granting of immunity to some may have the opposite impact of undermining the legitimacy of the law, in effect contributing to a view of the law which sees it as applying "just for the little guys"21 and an attitude which views getting caught, not the actual infractions, as being the problem, or something to avoid.

This category refers to instances of public resources, in the form of police time, property or person power, being stolen, misdirected or unfairly allocated, thereby draining the resources available for proper or legitimate law enforcement ends. Often, the end result of this is that the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the criminal justice system is hampered. One example of this is when business owners, such as those operating a restaurant or pub, provide police officers with "perks" such as free or discounted meals or drinks and in return get more visits and protection from the police. In effect, they buy more service from the police, causing an improper distribution of police resources which results in other businesses or community members being treated unfairly and not receiving adequate police services. Furthermore, when this type of misallocation becomes even more serious, such as the case of some police commanders in Mexico selling "security services", in the form of on duty officers working as private security guards, to "merchants and bankers", it is no longer just a case of some favourable treatment towards a few businesses. Rather, it is clear that the policing resources, which are paid for with public money, are being diverted for entirely private ends.22

The selling of police resources can reach the point where legitimate police services are used for improper or even illegal ends. Examples of this are incidents uncovered by the Mollen Commission on corruption in New York of on duty officers using their uniforms or police vehicles to provide protection and escorts for drug transactions.23 This entails police powers being corruptly used for the pursuit and facilitation of criminal activity and while it goes beyond the diversion of resources, such diversion is one of its negative consequences.

Another example of this kind of diversion of resources is the case of Australian politicians in the 1970's using the police for "surveillance of troublesome politicians and other opponents of the ruling regime."24 However, in this case, when such subversion of police powers takes place within the context of a broader misuse of the police, it is unclear if individual officers were necessarily acting corruptly, as they may have simply viewed these tasks as part of their job, with no extra personal incentive or reward. Nevertheless, it is clear that such a (mis)use of the police still results in a form of misallocation or diversion of resources from legitimate to illegitimate ends.

Some other forms of misuse of resources should also be mentioned at this point. Forms of misconduct such as sleeping on the job or absenteeism also serve as a drain on police resources and are therefore similar in impact to cases of "diversion". While such actions may not, strictly speaking, be defined as corrupt (since neither really uses any form of occupational power), they do reduce the ability of the police to operate effectively and, as a result, also deprive the public of services that have been paid for.

One final set of practices in this group are more general forms of "office" corruption that involve the abuse of powers not exclusive to the police. One example, cited by James Morton in his survey of police corruption in Britain, is of senior officers using workers, such as gardeners, who are being paid with police funds, to do private work.25 In Victoria, Australia, as a response to large sums of cash being stolen by police from the pool of lost money turned in by members of the public, one police department simply "covered the losses through its general budgetary process allowing the thief to escape with the cash."26 Here, both the theft and the decision to not cover up for the perpetrator resulted in a misuse of public resources. Finally, outright theft from public resources, such as the alleged collusion between a police inspector and a community policing forum member in the Northern Province to embezzle money from a "peace rally fund"27 is a further example of the corrupt depletion of public resources.

This section discussed those "less direct"effects that most corrupt acts have in common. Such effects are not so much about any identifiable victims being harmed but rather have more to do with negative consequences for the organisational culture of the police and the relations between the police and the public. The costs discussed here are perhaps less immediately perceptible, but no less significant. They damage areas such as the morale of honest officers, the level of integrity of the police and the degree to which citizens are willing to co-operate with the police. Thus their impact needs to be seen in a broader context.

One of the most universal and damaging effects of corrupt acts, especially of those viewed as "petty" or without victims, is that any one act contributes to an attitude or culture which is conducive to future acts of corruption. Every instance of corruption bends or violates a rule or law and, similar to the granting of impunity, may contribute to an officer's perceptions of the law as applying differently to different people and increase the ease with which violations can be rationalised. Lawrence Sherman points to this in his study of how officers become corrupt. He espouses what may be called an "evolutionary view" of corruption, where there is a progress in "moral depravity" with a corrupt officer beginning with minor acts and possibly ending up committing major violations.28

The first opportunities for corruption that an officer is exposed to and may take advantage of are usually what are viewed as minor violations - such as petty theft from a store that has been broken into or a small bribe for not enforcing a parking violation. An officer may justify such corrupt acts as having no "real" victim and therefore harmless. However, it is here that an officer's self-image can begin to change, from an honest person committed to upholding the law to one that may sometimes break a rule or two her/himself. With each infraction, further violations become more palatable and gradually, more serious crimes may be able to be rationalised. For example, an officer who regularly commits "harmless" thefts from crime scenes or drug busts is more likely to "take the next step", such as soliciting corrupt funds for protecting illegal gambling rackets, than an officer who refuses the initial opportunities. A little over a year ago, there was a story in Business Day of an officer who was found guilty of "violating a corpse by removing its heart" so that he could sell it.29 Once an officer has undertaken such an overtly pre-planned activity, one that required more than just taking advantage of opportunities that came his way, one wonders to what degree he is still able to retain any moral constraints on his actions or still view himself as having sufficient integrity to be a police officer.

A similar point has been made by many analysts with regards to the progression of vice-related corruption as well as its connections with other corrupt acts with more direct victims. Sherman asserts that the process between taking a bribe for allowing a bar to remain open for an hour longer to accepting money for allowing drug deals is a gradual one filled in by steps such as "looking the other way" for prostitution and gambling offences in return for a pay-off.30 With each step, a more serious (from the officer's point of view) violation is overlooked and rationalised by being victimless and thus "ok" to not enforce. What may happen is that eventually an officer's frame of reference has changed so much that an activity once thought unimaginable (i.e., "helping drug pushers")31 may become acceptable. Even within the parameters of colluding with drug syndicates, there are degrees of wrongdoing, degrees that can eventually become blurred. As David Sisk has pointed out, officers who initially draw the line at accepting bribes for not enforcing laws dealing with the possession or selling of drugs may soon be induced to "promote the criminal organizations" that pay such bribes and "such promotion will include a reluctance to enforce laws against crimes with victims when committed by these same organisations."32

Besides changing an officer's self-image or perception of what is acceptable, petty corrupt acts can lead to more serious ones in other ways as well. One way is when the giving and taking of bribes becomes so routine or common that it is almost expected. A range of activities, such as kickbacks from towing operators and legal firms, bribes for speeding up firearm license applications or paying commanding officers in order to receive vacation time (as happens in Mexico city),33 can contribute to such an atmosphere flourishing. Even "gifts" from members of the community, where no exchange takes place (i.e., the officer provides no immediate service for the gift), can lead to an officer becoming accustomed to receiving "perks" or payments in the course of her/his job. As the National Director of the Anti-Corruption Unit Stefan Grobler points out, officers find it very easy to adjust to having a higher income, to the point where they may become dependent on corrupt funds to maintain their lifestyle.34

In addition to the effects that committing corrupt acts has on an officer her/himself, it also has an impact on the general culture of a police organisation. Each time an officer commits a corrupt act in front of other officers, the group's tolerance level for such behaviour may increase. By taking small kickbacks or bribes or engaging in petty theft, corrupt officers send out a message to each other that such behaviour is acceptable and perhaps even encouraged. These messages or signals help officers "size up" others in the organisation, differentiating between those who will commit corrupt acts and those who will not. Furthermore, they affirm the attitude that "the formal rules", either of society or of the police organisation, "are largely a sham". Instead of such rules, what is to be followed is the informal "code" of the sub-group of peers that often forms the most important reference group for an officer.35 Petty corrupt acts also play an important role in socialising new recruits into this sub-culture. An illuminating example is provided by one former officer who, on his first shift, witnessed his "old timer" partner steal "25- or 30-cent candy bars" from the supermarket. Upon entering the patrol car, the partner insisted he share in the "loot" and told him that "everybody did it and that [he] should get used to it."36 In such a case, where the value of the goods being stolen is so small, it is clear that the importance of the act is as much symbolic as it is material. Also, once an officer has committed a corrupt act, no matter how petty, her/his willingness or ability to expose or discuss the corrupt activities of others may be severely diminished.

The ability of the behaviour of corrupt officers to "convert" those officers seeking to remain honest should not be underestimated, particularly where such behaviour is part of the culture of a particular police department. First, it scarcely needs to be pointed out that seeing their peers commit even minor acts of corruption can have a devastating impact on the morale of those officers who are committed to upholding the law. Second, by not going along with such corrupt activities, honest cops risk alienating themselves from their peers, a dire consequence indeed in such a close-knit occupation, especially when one considers that there may be situations when an officer's life may depend solely on the support provided by her/his peers. This isolation from one's peers and the low morale of an honest officer may be further compounded by the fact that an honest cop, by refusing to "play by the rules", can be hindered in her/his career advancement. More than one observer of police culture has noted the kinds of demotions, transfers and menial tasks that are the lot of an honest officer, largely as a result of the fact that they make the "wrong" arrests (i.e., enforcing violations against those who pay bribes or are influential) or do not go along with other officers' thefts and graft.37 In addition to the damage this does to an effective officer's productivity, such ostracisation may also lead to an honest officer, after considerable resistance, becoming corrupt.38

It should be noted that, in respect of the above processes of how corrupt acts become acceptable, forms of police misconduct other than corruption can also play a significant role. The Mollen Commission found that in addition to encouraging junior officers to steal or take bribes, senior cops socialised new recruits into a culture of breaking the rules by encouraging them to engage in acts of brutality, "as a rite of initiation to prove the officer is a tough or 'good' cop",39 i.e, one that plays by the rule of the peer group. Also, infractions committed by officers in an effort to do their jobs (which can be described as the use of "illegitimate means for legitimate ends"), such as lying in a police report in order to establish grounds for searching a suspect, may also lead to police officers viewing the law as not applying to them. One former detective in New York, Robert Leuci, claimed that it was such "well-intentioned" infractions which were his introduction to rule-breaking, but that they soon became "a casual thing" and not long after, he had "graduate[d] to bigger crimes" for personal gain.40

One other type of corruption which has a strong impact on spreading a culture of corruption, or at least allowing corrupt activities to flourish, is when officers collude in the covering up of corrupt acts. This can take a number of forms, from acts of misconduct, such as not properly following through on investigations or "burying" troublesome files (i.e., those cases that suggest some police involvement in corrupt acts), to illegal acts such as perjury. The motivation for such actions may vary. It may be personal gain in the form of an officer helping out a friend. Or it may be a kind of organisational gain, in the form of a general recognition and acceptance among the police that cops are to be given special treatment - treatment bordering on immunity from law enforcement. Or, as perhaps is often the case, such interference may be the result of a desire to try to avoid damaging publicity, either for a specific unit or for the police service as a whole. In any case, such actions are corrupt. Officers cannot decide whether or not a certain investigation ought to be pursued based solely on its possible negative consequences for their friends or for the police in general. By using police powers such as access to documents, influence over other officers or credibility in a court of law in order to effectively undermine an investigation they are guilty of, at the very least, serious misconduct and often of committing criminal acts. As asserted by the Mollen Commission, it is very unlikely that corrupt officers in New York would have been able to operate effectively without the collusion of usually honest cops such as commanding officers and those in the internal affairs department involved in the "burying" of files and the obstruction or prolonging of investigations involving corrupt activities by other police officers.41

One impact that basically all corrupt activities have is that they decrease public trust in, as well as respect for, the police. Any corrupt act - from citizens witnessing minor kickbacks (eg. from tow truck operators) or "gifts" given by business owners, to reports in the press of bribe taking or collusion with criminal syndicates - reduces the confidence people have in the fairness, integrity and honesty of police officers. Recently, a police inspector in Mpumalanga was found guilty of a variety of "petty" corrupt offences such as demanding "brandy and bags of peanuts from job applicants and residents applying for firearm licenses". The magistrate who sentenced him stated that, rather than inspiring confidence among citizens in the police, the former inspector "ha[d] convinced people that it is simple to buy the police" and that "his actions destroyed his community's trust in the police and the law".42 The damage that corruption does by reducing public confidence in the honesty of the police has a few different consequences.

Perhaps the most severe harm that a decrease in public trust of the police has is that it causes a deterioration in relations between citizens and officers and, as a result, reduces the effectiveness of policing in a community. As Mpumalanga Police Commissioner Alfred Malete has stated, a large number of arrests are "made due to the community co-operating with [the police] or reporting crimes to [the police]".43 Without such public involvement, police efforts in fighting crime are severely hampered. A case in point is the San Jose police department, who, before Joseph McNamara became police chief, had very poor relations with the city, marked by distrust and animosity on both sides. As McNamara states, officers needed to "realize that unless people reported crimes, provided evidence, served as witnesses and - when on juries - believed police testimony, criminals would not be convicted." It was only after efforts were made to repair relations between the public and the police that "the police made more arrests than ever and crime decreased to the point that San Jose became one of the safest large cities" in the United States.44

Thus, given the importance of public assistance to the police in fighting crime, it is easy to see the detrimental effect of police corruption. Perceptions of corruption result in a lack of trust in the police service. A poll taken last year revealed that 67% of respondents believed that members of the SAPS accept bribes and over half said that they felt "that the police lack credibility" and view them as being "corrupt and having no integrity".45 If people lose faith in the integrity of police officers, the amount of cooperation the police receive from the public also decreases. This can reach the point "where many people don't even bother to report many criminal activities"46 to the police, having no confidence in either the abilities or commitment of officers to solve cases. Perhaps the following statement referring to the impact of corruption on police community relations in the US Virgin Islands puts it best: "Public distrust of officers often means that victims and potential witnesses don't come forward and criminals go free."47

Another impact of the lack of public trust in police officers that occurs as a result of perceptions of corruption is the decrease in credibility that police officers have as officers of the court. As the Mollen Commission states, the impact of this on the performance of the criminal justice system "can be devastating." Public trust "in even the most honest officer" may be eroded, leading "the public to disbelieve police testimony" with the result being that "the guilty [are] set free after trial."48 Last year this scenario played itself out in the city of Philadelphia, with over one hundred convictions "overturned in cases involving six police officers who pleaded guilty last fall to corruption charges." As a result, one district attorney asserts that many "current cases that should result in convictions [are] being dismissed because juries and defense lawyers [are] increasingly questioning the integrity of police officers."49 To cite one more example, in the US Virgin Islands, "charges of corruption on the force are so widespread that defense attorneys routinely try to discredit police officers testifying in court."50

In understanding the impact of corruption on officer-citizen relations, one also needs to consider the role it plays in influencing police perceptions of their relationship with the rest of society. Many students of police culture have noted an "us. vs them" mind set being common among police officers.51 The secrecy, stress and danger of police work leads to an insular and close-knit occupational culture that results in a strong distinction being made between members of the police and regular citizens. Such a distinction often entails some officers seeing "the public as a source of trouble", or even as "the 'enemy'",52 and thus isolating themselves and their peers from the rest of society. This division may be further entrenched by a perception on the part of some officers of public animosity towards the police. Thus, any time an officer feels hostility from members of the public, her/his allegiance and loyalty to the community of officers may be strengthened and her/his ties with the community outside of the police weakened.

Corruption can be both a result and a cause of this separation of the police from society. The isolation of the police can lead to a divergence of officers' values from those that the rest of society at least professes to uphold. It may also result in a lack of recognition of, or concern over, the harmful effects that corrupt acts have on society. Thus, it can make committing such acts easier to rationalise or justify. At the same time, every instance of corruption can further reinforce the distance between society and the police by increasing public hostility and distrust towards the the police. Also, every time an officer commits a corrupt act, s/he may be affirming yet again her/his status as an outsider who follows the informal rules of a corrupt peer group, .not the formal rules of society. Thus the relationship between an "us vs. them" mentality among the police and incidents of corruption can be a circular one. As long as officers play by the rules of their peer group and the public continues to negatively label them, any rapprochement between the two is unlikely. A final point, perhaps particularly relevant with regards to South Africa, is that the negative labelling by society may be even more damaging if the police feel it to be hypocritical. That is, if there exists a feeling that most members in society also view the formal rules as being a sham, and act accordingly, then the police may feel even greater embitterment for being singled out and judged by a double standard.

A better understanding of the many effects of police corruption gives us a clearer motivation for why it ought to be combatted. Does it also provide some indications as to how one may be able to address the problem? Before concluding, I would like to suggest a few ways in which it may. First, in term of the implications of this analysis for the efforts of bodies such as the ACU, a few suggestions may be put forward. In an interview, Director Grobler stated that the ACU's priorities are those corrupt acts which have the most detrimental impact on the criminal justice system.53 Judging by the actual operation of the ACU, these would seem to be generally those identified in the first section under "at whose expense", such as the sale of firearms, docket theft or collusion with car hijacking rings. It is suggested that other practices identified in this section, such as the falsification of evidence or testimony, receiving kickbacks from legal firms or the receipt of payments from private businesses should also be listed as priorities, if there is evidence of their occurence.

In addition, while it is certainly appropriate that the ACU focus on these forms of corruption which have the most serious and direct short term consequences, one also needs to consider a few questions: To what degree are the more serious corrupt acts the end result of a process of becoming corrupt? Is their existence facilitated by an acceptance or tolerance of more petty forms of corruption? Of course, one needs to recognise the devastating and direct impact that more serious forms of corruption have on individual victims and the functioning of the criminal justice system and thus make attempts at curbing such corruption. However, some unit or body, perhaps the ACU, also needs to take responsibility for addressing other forms of corruption which may have longer term effects. If as, Director Grobler has stated, the primary concern of anti-corruption work is to combact corrupt acts "which have an impact on the way officers do their jobs",54 then there certainly needs to be a recognition and prioritisation of the need to address the earlier acts which may lead to the more serious ones.

In addressing these earlier acts it will not only be necessary to make use of investigative measures. Longer term strategies - such as education and in-service training - are also needed. Arguably some of the resources which are spent on lengthy and expensive investigations might be better utilised in training, education, increasing accountability or closer supervision, especially during an officer's first couple of years on the service?

In particular the training of recruits should focus more on discussing the effects of, and likely opportunities for, engaging in corruption. Especially with regards to the spreading of a culture of corruption, through "petty" or apparently victimless corrupt acts or the receipt of seemingly innocuous gifts, recruits need to be alerted properly about the possible complexities and moral risks that they will face in their line of work. In the words of Director Grobler, new officers have to recognise the "red flashes" or be able to hear the "alarm bells" of corruption very early in their careers.55 One of the major purposes of this paper was to assist police officers in recognising the very serious consequences of corrupt actions. If police officers are able to recognise these consequences this recognition may serve as a preventive measure against corruption, particularly if officers internalise the view that corruption does indeed have victims and that even minor acts can have a very damaging impact on how they do their job.

Finally, as was noted by the Mollen Commission, honest police officers are among the most important resource in the fight against corruption. They may be witness to a variety of corrupt acts and experience first hand the very damaging consequences of corruption. Thus, they have both the opportunity and the motive to speak out against corruption. However, as we have seen, one of the effects of corruption is the way in which it ostracises and may silence honest officers, especially in situations where commanding officers are acting corruptly by "looking the other way" with regards to corrupt cops. Thus, a major task in fighting corruption needs to be to "provide constant support and recognition to officers who, by reporting corruption, choose to do what is right rather than what their [peer group's] culture expects of them." It must be made clear that "those who expose corruption will be rewarded, and those who help conceal it punished."56 Honest officers need to acknowledge the harm that even minor corrupt acts may cause and take steps to oppose each instance which they are witness to.

1 As defined in Collins English Dictionary, 3rd ed., HarperCollins, Glasgow, 1991 p. 39 1.

2 For one example of this, see the review of James Morton's survey of police corruption in Britain, Bent Coppers, by Rudolf Klein in the Times Literary Supplement, 28 January 1994, p. 26.

3 For a discussion of "private" versus "civic" morality, see Loek Halman "Is there a moral decline? A cross-national inquiry into morality in contemporary society", International Social Science Journal, 45, 1995, pp. 426-427.

4 For the purposes of this paper, not only members of the SAPS, but also traffic officers, who fall under local or provincial "safety and security" jurisdiction, are regarded as police officers.

5 Glynnis Underhill and Kurt Swart, "Probe into cop corruption runs into 'obstacles"', Star, 29 June 1996.

6 This example was provided by Stefan Grobler, director of the Anti-Corruption Unit, in a personal interview on 22 May 1997.

7 "Fingerprint scam uncovered", Star, 14 February 1997.

8 Mark Finnane, "Police Corruption and Police Reform The Fitzgerald Inquiry in Queensland Australia", Policing Society, Vol. 1, 1990, pp. 166-167.

9 James Morton, Bent Coppers, Little Brown and Co., 1993, pp. 224-225

10Ibid, pp. 225-226.

11 Mervin Claxton, "Corruption and Disorder: Police Department at Core of Crime Crisis", Public Service, 13 December 1994, online: http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/1995/winners/works/public-service/13corruption.html

12 "Policemen held on charges of extortion', Business Day, 23 October 1996.

13 Morton, op cit, p. 211

14 Sharon Hammond and Justin Arenstein, "Township thugs still have police on their side", Weekly Mail and Guardian, 6 September 1996.

15 Sasha Jensen, "Police helped 'most wanted'", Star, 20 February 1997.

16 Such forms of police "assistance" to defendants and their counsel is discussed in P.K. Manning and J.L. Redlinger's "Invitational Edges", Carl B. Klockars and Stephen D. Mastrofski, eds., Thinking about Police: Contemporary Readings 2nd ed. MacGraw-Hill Publishing, New York, 1991, p. 359.

17 Priscilla Singh, "Suspicion on police after suspects freed", Star, 20 February 1997. 14

18 "Crime and Transformation", Financial Weekly, 24 April 1997.

19 Lawrence Sherman, "Becoming Bent", F. Elliston and M. Feldberg, eds., Moral Issues in Police Work, Rowman & Allanheld, 1983, pp. 253-265.

20 See his article "Frying Big Fish: Campaigns against Corruption", Indicator South Africa Vol 9/No 3, 1992, p. 13.

21 D. Bell, cited in Ellwyn Stoddard's "Blue Coat Crime", Carl B. Klockars, ed., Thinking about Police: Contemporary Readings 1st ed., MacGraw-Hill Publishing, New York, 1983, p. 339.

22 Sam Dillon, "Mexico City Police Fight Corruption Within Ranks", New York Times News Service, 18 October 1995, online: http://www.latinolink.com/mexlOl8.html

23 Mollen Commission Report, Commission to Investigate Allegations of Police Corruption and the Anti-Corruption Procedures of the Police Department, City of New York, 1994, pp. 32- 33.

24 Finnane, op cit, p. 164.

25 Morton, op cit, p. 220.

26 Raymond Hoser, "Police Corruption in Victoria", 1996, online: http://www.lexicon.net.au/~adder/vrb1.htm

27 Sello Seripe, "Inspector in scandal", New Nation, 8 August 1996. 1996.

28 Sherman, op cit, pp. 253, 263. It should be noted that Sherman's analysis does not assume that all officers follow this path - he does state the importance of individual differences in background, values and character. In any case, the following discussion only partly draws on his model.

29 Bonile Ngqiyaza, "Body parts judgement", Business Day, 14 March 1996.

30 Sherman, op cit, p. 263.

31Ibid, p. 259.

32 David Sisk, "Police Corruption and Criminal Monopoly: Victimless Crimes", Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. IX, June 1982, p. 403.

33 Dillon, op cit.

34 Personal interview with Stefan Grobler, 22 May 1997.

35 Sherman, op cit, pp. 256-257.

36 Stoddard, op cit, p. 344.

37 For three examples, see Morton, op cit, pp. 229-230, Shenim, op cit, p. 258, and Stoddard, op cit, pp. 344-345.

38 Sherman, op cit, p. 258 and Stoddard, op cit, pp. 344-345.

39 Mollen Commission, op cit, p. 47

40 Sarah Glazer, "Police Corruption", Congressional Quarterly Researcher, 24 November 1995 p. 1046.

41 Mollen Commission, op cit, pp. 90- 101.

42 "Police inspector is jailed for 18 years", Citizen, 18 March 1997.

43 "8 policemen arrested", Sowetan, 18 July 1996.

44 Cited in Glazer, op cit, p. 1049

45 Sharon Chetty, "Police 'not doing enough to fight crime'", Sowetan, 28 March 1996.

46 Angella Johnson, "Police chief is shipped out after R70m thefts", Weekly Mail and Guardian, 29 November 1996.

47 Claxton, op cit.

48 Mollen Conmmission, op cit, p. 43

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Not Victimless: Understanding the harmful effects of ...

In criminology, state crime is activity or failures to act that break the state's own criminal law or public international law. For these purposes, Ross (2000b) defines a "state" as the elected and appointed officials, the bureaucracy, and the institutions, bodies and organisations comprising the apparatus of the government. Initially, the state was the agency of deterrence, using the threat of punishment as a utilitarian tool to shape the behaviour of its citizens. Then, it became the mediator, interpreting society's wishes for conflict resolution. Theorists then identified the state as the "victim" in victimless crimes. Now, theorists are examining the role of the state as one of the possible perpetrators of crime (Ross, 2000b) whether directly or in the context of state-corporate crime.

Green & Ward (2004) adopt Max Weber's thesis of a sovereign state as claiming a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Thus, the criteria for determining whether a state is "deviant" will draw on international norms and standards of behaviour for achieving the states usual operating goals. One of those standards will be whether the state respects human rights in the exercise of its powers. But, one of the definitional difficulties is that the states themselves define what is criminal within their own territories, and as sovereign powers, they are not accountable to the international community unless they submit to international jurisdiction generally, or criminal jurisdiction in particular.

As international crimes, a state may engage in state terror and terrorism, torture, war crimes, and genocide. Both internationally and nationally, there may be corruption, state-corporate crime, and organized crime. Within its territorial borders, some crimes are either the result of situations where the state is not the direct criminal actor, e.g. arising from natural disasters or through the agency of bodies such as the police. More usually, the state is directly involved in excessive secrecy and cover-ups, disinformation, and unaccountability (including tax evasion by officials) which often reflect upper-class and nonpluralistic interests, and infringe human rights (Ross, 2000a). One of the key issues is the extent to which, if at all, state crime can be controlled. Often state crimes are revealed by an investigative news agency resulting in scandals but, even among first world democratic states, it is difficult to maintain genuinely independent control over the criminal enforcement mechanisms and few senior officers of the state are held personally accountable. When the citizens of second and third world countries which may be of a more authoritarian nature, seek to hold their leaders accountable, the problems become more acute. Public opinion, media attention, and public protests, whether violent or nonviolent, may all be criminalised as political crimes and suppressed, while critical international comments are of little real value.

Barak (1991) examines recent history through Reaganism and Thatcherism which led to a decline in the provision of social services and an increase in public security functions. In turn, this created the opportunity for injustices and state crimes involving the suppression of democratic functions within the state. As Johns and Johnson (1994) note, "The concern of the U.S. policy elites is not, therefore, with the establishment or protection of democracy; it is with the establishment of capitalism world-wide and with the unimpeded control of resources and markets" (p7) "Panama is an especially good example of how the rollback strategy involves subverting or overthrowing not only governments that are socialist or left-wing but the governments of countries that seek full independence from the economic, political, or military influence of the United States" (pp9/10) But, in terms of accountability, they argue that the coverage of the invasion demonstrated "just how subservient the corporate media had become to the political elite in the United States" (p63) Hence, even in democratic countries, it can be difficult to hold political leaders accountable, whether politically or legally, because access to reliable factual information can be limited.

Within the context of state-corporate crime, Green and Ward (2004) examine how the debt repayment schemes in developing countries place such a financial burden on states that they often collude with corporations offering prospects of capital growth. Such collusion frequently entails the softening of environmental and other regulations. The debt service obligation can also exacerbate political instability in countries where the legitimacy of state power is questioned. Such political volatility leads states to adopt clientelistic or patrimonialist patterns of governance, fostering organized crime, corruption, and authoritarianism. In some third world countries, this political atmosphere has encouraged repression and the use of torture. Exceptionally, genocide has occurred.

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State crime - Wikipedia

UNICRI considers environmental crime, including its links with other forms of crime, a serious and growing danger for development, global stability and international security.

Since 1991, UNICRI has combated crimes against the environment and related emerging threats through applied research, awareness, and capacity-building initiatives. Today, countering environmental crime is an emerging priority for UNICRI work.

Environmental crimes encompass a broad list of illicit activities, including illegal trade in wildlife; smuggling of ozone-depleting substances (ODS); illicit trade of hazardous waste; illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing; and illegal logging and trade in timber. On one side, environmental crimes are increasingly affecting the quality of air, water and soil, threatening the survival of species and causing uncontrollable disasters. On the other, environmental crimes also impose a security and safety threat to a large number of people and have a significant negative impact on development and rule of law. Despite these issues, environmental crimes often fail to prompt the appropriate governmental response. Often perceived as victimless and incidental crimes, environmental crimes frequently rank low on the law enforcement priority list, and are commonly punished with administrative sanctions, themselves often unclear and low.

The involvement of organized criminal groups acting across borders is one of many factors that have favoured the considerable expansion of environmental crimes in recent years. Led by vast financial gains and facilitated by a low risk of detection and scarce conviction rates, criminal networks and organized criminal groups are becoming increasingly interested in such illicit transnational activities. These phenomena fuel corruption and money-laundering, and undermine the rule of law, ultimately affecting the public twice: first, by putting at risk citizens health and safety; and second, by diverting resources that would otherwise be allocated to services other than crime.

The level of organization needed for these crimes indicates a link with other serious offences, including theft, fraud, corruption, drugs and human trafficking, counterfeiting, firearms smuggling, and money laundering, several of which have been substantiated by investigations. Environmental crimes therefore today represent an emerging form of transnational organized crime requiring more in-depth analysis and better-coordinated responses at national, regional and international levels.

UNICRI has been actively involved in the field of environmental crime and justice research and training since 1991, issuing various publications on the topic. The first research projects were aimed at environmental law, especially exploring the limits and potentials of applying criminal law in crimes related to environment. In June 1998, UNICRI organised in Rome a seminar on International Environmental Conventions and the Administration of Criminal Law. Since then, UNICRI has focused on the involvement of organized criminal groups in environmental crime.

UNICRI also has built a strong international network of experts from major international organisations active in the field, including international and national NGOs as well as well-known researchers from academia.

To increase awareness of the threat of environmental crime, UNICRI contributed to the organization of a conference in Rome in December 2011 entitled Illicit Trafficking in Waste: A Global Emergency, with the participation of the Ministry of the Environment of Italy, parliamentarians, international partners such as the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), and stakeholders involved in countering trafficking in and dumping of toxic waste. To enhance understanding of the dynamics of environmental crime, the Institute is currently implementing a research and data collection project in the domain of environmental crime, with a specific focus on the dumping of illegal waste and hazardous materials, including e-waste, and its relation with organized crime. The research methodology follows the one applied by the Institute with success in other fields related to organised crime (such as counterfeiting, for example), and can be utilised to investigate different areas of environmental crime in the future.

In partnership with several research institutes, civil society organizations, and municipalities, UNICRI has launched a process for consultation at the international level on the involvement of organized crime in environmental crime, with a view to identifying a set of recommendations for more effective policies and action at the national, regional and international levels. To that end, the Institute, in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme, has organized an international conference in Italy on 29 and 30 October 2012.

In preparation for the Conference, the Institute has carried out preliminary in-depth data collection and analysis of cases involving trafficking in and dumping of toxic and e-waste.

In parallel, UNICRI has elaborated a number of applied-research project proposals covering different aspects of environmental crime aimed at shedding light on aspects not yet fully explored by the international community, including the intersection between counterfeiting and waste management or transnational environmental crime and corruption. In addition, another set of proposed activities looks at environmental crime from a multi-sectorial perspective, targeted at exploring the dimension and scope of environmental crime in Europe as well as proposing a set of tools and instruments to assess and monitor environmental crime across the region.

UNICRI International Conference on Environmental Crime - Convening key IGOs, NGOs, major LEAs, academia and scholars (October 2012, Rome - Italy).

Research - Data collection and mapping of illicit trafficking cases of waste, analysis of international legislation and relevant application, and identification of risk factors linked to organized crime.

Outreach activities Conferences, capacity building for law enforcement, awareness workshops, and seminars for general public.

Publications: Environmental Crime Bibliography

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Environmental Crimes - UNICRI

The LDP does not generally support the criminalisation of victimless crimes and seeks to reduce the intrusion of government into these areas.

Victimless crime is a term used to refer to behaviour that is illegal but does not violate or threaten the rights of anyone else. It can include situations where an individual acts alone as well as consensual acts in which two or more persons agree to commit a criminal offence in which no other person is involved.

The issue in situations of victimless crime is the same. Society has created a formal framework of laws to prohibit types of conduct thought to be against the public interest. Laws proscribing homicide, assaults and rape are common to most cultures. Thus, when the supposed victim freely consents to be the victim in one of these crimes, the question is whether the state should make an exception from the law for this situation.

Take assisted suicide as an example. If one person intentionally takes the life of another, this is usually murder. If the motive for this is to collect the inheritance, society has no difficulty in ignoring the motive and convicting the killer. But if the motive is to relieve the suffering of the victim by providing a clean death that would otherwise be denied, can society so quickly reject the motive?

It is a case of balancing the harms. On the one hand, society could impose pain and suffering on the victim by forcing him or her to endure a long decline into death. Or society could permit a system for terminating life under controlled circumstances so that the victims wishes could be respected without exposing others to the criminal system for assisting in realising those wishes.

But victimless crimes are not always so weighty. Some examples of low level victimless activities that may be criminalised include:

Victimless crimes usually regarded more seriously include:

This includes the elderly and seriously ill as well as less obvious scenarios. For example, helping someone such as a celebrity facing exposure for socially unacceptable behaviour who seeks a gun or other means to end life; a driver trapped in a burning tanker full of gasoline who begs a passing armed police officer toshoot him rather than let him burn to death; a person who suffers traumatic injury in a road accident and wishes to avoid the humiliation and pain of a lingering slow death.

These situations are distinguishable from soliciting the cessation of life-sustaining treatment so that an injured or illperson may die a natural death, or leaving instructions not to resuscitate in the event of death.

Consideration of victimless crime involving more than one participant needs to take account of whether all the participants are capable of giving genuine consent. This may not be the case if one or more of the participants are:

Libertarianism focuses on the autonomy of the individual, asserting each persons right to live their lives with the least possible interference from the law. Libertarians do not necessarily approve, sanction or endorse the victimless action that is criminalised. Indeed, they may strongly disapprove.

Where they differ from non-libertarians is their belief that the government should be exceedingly reluctant to intervene. People are entitled to live their lives and make their own choices whether or not those choices are wise or the same as others would make, provided they do so voluntarily and without infringing the rights of others.

Without necessarily supporting, advocating or approving of them, the LDP does not generally support the criminalisation of victimless crimes. Wherever possible it will seek to reduce the intrusion of government into these areas.

It nonetheless recognises that not all victimless crimes are capable of being entirely de-regulated. It acknowledges there may be unintended coercive consequences from re-legalisation and that some regulation may be warranted in specific instances.

The LDP also favours strong sanctions against crimes that infringe the rights of others, whether deliberately or through negligence.

Further information

Mandatory bicycle helmets not only are such laws offensive to liberty, but they do not achieve their aim.

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Victimless Crimes Liberal Democrats

NEWS

August 20, 2010 | By STEPHANIE FARR, farrs@phillynews.com 215-854-4225

A few unhappy endings occurred around Philadelphia International Airport Wednesday, and it had nothing to do with missed connections. Police arrested nine people in a prostitution sting using Craigslist and City Paper advertisements to target hookers who frequent airport hotels. Capt. Dan MacDonald III, commanding officer of the 12th District, which covers Southwest Philadelphia and the airport, said that there's been an uptick in crime at airport hotels over the last six to eight months that can be linked to prostitution.

NEWS

October 18, 2008 | By Emilie Lounsberry INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Jocelyn S. Kirsch - half of Philadelphia's infamous pair of identity-theft scammers known as "Bonnie and Clyde" - was sentenced yesterday to five years in prison by a judge who said her crimes were born of "greed and a desire to fuel a lavish lifestyle. " Kirsch, 23, had benefited from "the best that America can offer - good schools, an opportunity to grow up in a safe environment," said U.S. District Judge Eduardo C. Robreno. And yet she "visited harm on at least 50 victims," many of them friends and colleagues.

NEWS

June 13, 2008 | By Suzette Parmley INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

In what police said was a sign of what is to come, officers raided a purported house of prostitution in Chinatown yesterday and arrested four women. "We've gotten several complaints at this location before," Chief Inspector William Colarulo said last night. "The mayor and the commissioner have vowed to crack down on quality-of-life issues in the city. "We will have zero tolerance for this type of activity," he said, "and in light of Welcome America approaching, you will see frequent raids of these houses of prostitution that are thinly disguised as massage parlors.

NEWS

October 19, 2004 | By Murray Dubin INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

"So much pain is in this room," said a solemn pastor yesterday, as sobs and shrieks pierced the funeral services for Marcella Coleman, 54, and her grandson, Tahj Porchea, 12. Those two victims, and four others, died Oct. 9 in a house fire at 3256 N. Sixth St. Police are investigating the deaths as homicides. About 800 friends and family members, seeking solace after an enormous loss, filled the Holy Ghost Headquarters Revival Center at Broad and Poplar Streets. White and yellow carnations covered two cream-colored closed caskets with gold trim.

NEWS

April 28, 2004

IWOULD like to thank Carla Anderson, the Urban Warrior, for hopefully cutting down on the number of prostitution arrests in Philadelphia. Prostitution is not a victimless crime. The victims are the people living in the neighborhoods where the crimes are taking place, who are neither buying nor soliciting this crime. If you cut down the demand, you will cut down the supply. By publishing pictures of the "johns," she is not ruining lives. The people committing the crimes are ruining their loved ones' lives, as well as their own. Keep at it, Carla - it is good to know that people care about the neighborhoods of Philly!

NEWS

February 17, 2004

HAVING sex in public only gets you the relatively minor charge of public lewdness in Philadelphia. As Homer Simpson would say: WooHoo! But before you start making your weekend plans, you might want to stay away from the Port Richmond area. Residents there are understandably fed-up with vans that are a-rockin'. As Daily News columnist Carla Anderson reported last week, working girls and their johns have suddenly discovered the curb appeal of the quiet residential streets in the middle-class neighborhood.

NEWS

September 22, 1999 | By Claude Lewis

When Tonight Show host Jay Leno is not having a particularly good response to his monologue, with a wink he sometimes makes a casual reference to the "world's oldest profession. " Comedians learn early in the game they can depend on getting a laugh at the mere mention of prostitution. But prostitution is anything but a laughing matter. Nor is it a victimless crime, as many argue. Nearly everybody involved in the trade suffers in one way or another. Mostly, it's the women who walk the streets who experience the greatest degradation, who expose themselves to all sorts of risks ranging from abuse, sexually transmitted diseases (including AIDS)

NEWS

October 25, 1997

What would have been just another autumn Saturday in Philadelphia has the makings of a historic moment, thanks to the Million Woman March. Two compelling principles - self-determination and commitment to community - have drawn thousands of African-American women here for a day of reflection, celebration and renewal. It's fitting that they've come to Philadelphia, where the ideals of democracy and individual freedom were the foundation for a new nation more than two centuries ago. Welcome to the marchers - expected to number at least several hundred thousand - and to the throngs of other guests expected this weekend.

NEWS

August 13, 1997

Why no arrests over phony car-stop reports? "Why no arrest for roadside lies?" (editorial Aug. 9): Why? Because believing African-Americans committed a crime is so readily accepted. The authorities are allowing these white people to get away with what they think is a victimless crime. You can tell this by what they said about "extenuating circumstances. " What circumstances they never say. I do not think the crime is victimless. It only makes me wonder about the statistics in your other editorial that day, "The new prison boom.

NEWS

February 3, 1995 | By Richard Berkowitz, INQUIRER CORRESPONDENT

Those who patronize prostitutes in the borough may be getting some free and unwanted publicity. The Borough Council has moved a step closer to adopting a so-called John and Jane ordinance. Similar to an ordinance adopted in Philadelphia last year, it would provide for publishing the names and addresses of those convicted of patronizing or attempting to patronize prostitutes in the borough. The names would appear in a local newspaper. Council members at Wednesday night's meeting unanimously approved publicly advertising the ordinance, a first step toward adoption.

Continued here:

Articles about Victimless Crime - philly-archives

I have to classify this as one of the more enjoyable movies I have watched. But thats just me.

And I love a good interesting 80's thriller.

My opinion stems from my experience of the film being immersed in a plot that is simmering and yet not too hot, just relaxed enough to make the pace of the movie good to watch on one of those days where you can't be bothered what the hell your watching! And also another interest of mine is that of the main subject; art (esp 'modern' art). These factors made it quite enjoyable overall for me and I would recommend it for viewing if you feel you may be similarly inclined.

The movie starts off in the thick of one of Louise's action/suspense- packed gallery-raids (for a modern painting that her husband Terry, played by Craig Berko - who is also in on, and perhaps the most part of, the malevolent force behind the raids - calls 'talentless').

From this outset, you kind of begin to touch on the shadow of a doubt that here is a very judgemental and angry man.

Louise, played brilliantly by Debra Sandlund, although engaged in despicable acts of robbery, comes across as lithe and intelligent and caring.

As the movie progresses we begin to understand that the pressure that Louise's husband puts on her to steal more, and do more, is undue and the audience receives that verification often into the film.

Peter Hawley made everything about this movie awesome for me; the music, the plot, the acting and the biting use of swearing ("We don't have to do a f**king thing Terry!")

As a character, I saw Louise progress from a naivete into a woman who is mature enough to seem actually repentant for her mistakes, then take responsibility for having become involved with a disturbed man who shows the ultimate disrespect and contempt for other people's art.

Louise undertakes a gradual transformation, and eventual emancipation from Terry's sway which I found a very important aspect of what made this movie so watchable.

In the end, she basically just walks out on him; and he deserves it. And as an audience, I indulged that gratification! Although, I couldn't help feeling sorry for him; he is so obviously feeling afraid.

Everything about this movie just soars for me. The effort of the individual players, invested into their acting just transcribes dramatically into the feature.

In the beginning I was afraid that it seemed to be turning into something tacky but how wrong I was! Regardless of me being a late 80's child, it is the production value mixed with the story that makes this movie a rare gem from a lesser known period.

I have only watched it a few times but every time it just gives me so much enjoyment.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

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Victimless Crimes (1990) - IMDb

Welcome to Immigrations Human Cost, a website that focuses on the fact that illegal immigration is not a victimless crime.

You can view archives from our original site by following the link in the navigation panel to the right.

Houston mother of five, Tina Davila (picured), was stabbed to death in 2008 when Timoteo Rios tried to hijack her SUV, but she refused to give up the keys because her 4-month-old baby was in the vehicle. The killer was identified by the surveillance tapes from the store near the crime and he quickly fled to Mexico.

He had been arrested earlier for marijuana possession but had not been deported. See my blog from the time, Whyd They Let Him Go? Previously Arrested Illegal Alien Kills Woman In Carjacking Attempt.

Now, more than two years later, the Mexican government has extradited Rios to be tried in Houston. Unfortunately, the extradition come with the usual Mexican requirement that the death penalty not be pursued by the prosecution.

The murder deprived five children of their loving mom, and that kind of pain never goes away. The kids are relieved that some justice may be at hand, but terrible memories are returning. The clip following is from KIAH-TV in Houston, Murder Suspect Faces Extradition.

Illegal immigrant extradited in Houston moms death, Houston Chronicle Blog, December 13, 2010

Tina Davilas youngest child, Kaylynn, was just 4 months old, a chubby-cheeked baby strapped snugly into a car seat, when her mother was stabbed to death fighting off a carjacker in the spring of 2008.

On Saturday, Davilas family will get together to celebrate Kaylynns third birthday. For Davilas older children, the birthday is a reminder of how much time has passed since their mother was buried at a cemetery on the citys east side.

Finally this weekend, her family members saw the main suspect in her murder, 26-year-old Timoteo Rios, extradited to Houston. And as grateful as they are that Rios will have to answer for Davilas death, the extradition has reopened old wounds.

I guess it just brings back too much pain and memories. I think my kids were having a hard time, said Eric Matt, 43, Davilas ex-husband and father of her three eldest children. Each one of them, it makes them angry. It makes them wonder why. With the holidays and everything, it just makes it really hard.

Davilas eldest daughter, 20-year-old Patricia Matt, said the extradition one year and four months after Rios arrest in Mexico brings some relief, but also has dredged up difficult memories. She said she recently saw the video of her mothers April 2008 murder, captured on a surveillance camera outside a Harris County cell phone store, on the news again.

The video shows Davila struggling with a suspect for her car keys before shes stabbed. Witnesses said she screamed, My baby, my baby! before stumbling into the store and collapsing. The carjackers left without taking the SUV, and Kaylynn was unharmed.

We have to go through all of these feelings again, said Patricia Matt, a nursing student who attends San Jacinto Community College. Were pretty much reliving what we first felt.

After Rios was charged with capital murder and fled to Mexico, his case became a high-profile example of problems with Immigration and Customs Enforcement screening at Harris Countys jails.

Rios, an illegal immigrant with a criminal record, had admitted to local law enforcement twice before the slaying that he was in the country illegally, but had not been deported, according to arrest and immigration records.

I just dont think its fair that you can come here without papers and get all of these tickets but not be deported, Eric Matt said. I dont understand why they didnt do anything way back then.

Since spring 2008, the Harris County Sheriffs Office and ICE have taken steps to increase screening at the local jail, which was the first site in the nation to participate in Secure Communities, a federal program that automatically checks inmates fingerprints against an immigration database. The county also participates in ICEs controversial 287(g) program, which deputizes local law enforcement to help ICE agents identify and detain suspected illegal immigrants in detention. Continue reading this article

In August 2007, three college students who were hanging out in a schoolyard were brutally attacked and shot to death by six MS-13 gangsters. Another young woman managed to survive, despite her terrible injuries, which have left her with facial paralysis to this day. The two women were raped and hacked with machetes.

See my report on the first trial First Newark Schoolyard Trial Gets Conviction.

One man, Melvin Jovel, confessed to being the only shooter, and he was sentenced to life in prison.

Admitted triggerman in Newark schoolyard slayings receives three consecutive life terms plus 20 years, Newark Star-Ledger, November 4, 2010

Of the six young men who authorities say set upon a group of college friends behind a Newark schoolyard, fatally shooting three execution-style and leaving the fourth badly hurt, only one pulled the trigger.

The admitted gunman, Melvin Jovel, 21, was sentenced this morning to three consecutive life terms in prison plus 20 years.

Jovel had pleaded guilty in September to three counts of murder, one count of attempted murder and weapons charges in the Aug. 4, 2007 attack behind Mount Vernon School.

Jovel said he alone shot in the head Terrance Aeriel, Iofemi Hightower and Dashon Harve. Moments later, he walked over to Natasha Aeriel, Terrances sister, and shot her in the head. Only Natasha Aeriel survived.

He tried to take my life. I dont even know what to say, Natasha Aeriel said in court, before Superior Court Judge Michael L. Ravin imposed his sentence. Aeriel, now 22, made several prayer readings and said she even thanked Jovel for allowing me to get closer to Christ.

She added, he tried to take my life. I dont even know what to say.

Jovel, who listened through a Spanish translator, said little except to tell the judge that one of the other co-defendants, Rodolfo Godinez, sentenced in July to identical counts, had nothing to do with the killings.

While noting that by pleading guilty Jovel spared the victims families another trial, Judge Ravin said he did not believe that was the defendants motivation. Ravin said of the defendant, He was the slaughterer. He was the executioner.

The brutality of the killings Hightower and Natasha Aeriel were sexually assaulted and attacked with a machete shocked the city and became a rallying cry for community groups and Mayor Cory Booker to end the gun violence that has plagued Newark for years.

The six defendants are said to be affiliated with MS 13, a violent Central American street gang.

Jovel is the second defendant to be convicted in the killing. Ravin had sentenced Godinez on the same counts, which under New Jersey law, adds up to 245 years in prison. A jury found Godinez guilty on all charges at his trial in May.

The remaining defendants, Jose Carranza, 31, Shahid Baskerville, 18, Gerardo Gomez, 18, and 20-year-old Alexander Alfaro who is Godinezs half-brother will be tried separately.

The current AP story about the sentencing notes that Jovel is an illegal alien, a fact that was strongly hinted in his first court appearance where he swore innocence:

Newark slay suspect pleads not guilty, Newark Star-Ledger, August 21, 2007

Jovel, who is from Honduras, told the judge he does not have a Social Security number or a green card, but his immigration status remains unclear, prosecutors said. A U.S. passport was found among his belongings when he was arrested Sunday night, but officials are still trying to determine whether the passport is valid, Assistant Essex County Prosecutor Thomas A. McTigue said. Federal authorities have placed a detainer on Jovel because his status is uncertain, McTigue said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials participated in Jovels arrest, and a spokesman for the agency said it becomes involved when they suspect a person is in the county illegally.

Below, criminals Melvin Jovel, Jose Carranza and Rodolfo Godinez.

There are many tragic stories about the victims of illegal alien criminals, but it doesnt get much worse than the deaths of Leigh Anna Jimmerson, 16, and her boyfriend, Tad Mattle, 19. The couple died in a fiery crash in April 2009 when their car burst into flames after being struck by illegal alien Felix Ortega, who was drunk at three times the legal limit for Alabama.

The prosecutor put together a deal where Ortega pleaded guilty to two murders in return for a 15 year sentence and eligibility for parole in 12.5 years. It was acceptable to both families who presumably didnt want to go through a trial where the horrific details of their kids deaths would be brought out. Even so, the plea agreement seems weak punishment indeed for the preventable deaths of two young people with their whole lives ahead of them.

Tad Mattles mother to Felix Ortega: I hope every day you will think about them, Huntsville Times Blog, August 30, 2010

HUNTSVILLE, AL The mother of one of two Huntsville teens killed when illegal immigrant Felix Ortega slammed into their car in 2009 told him in court today that she hopes he thinks about their deaths every day.

Felix Ortega pleaded guilty this morning to two counts of murder for the traffic deaths of Tad Mattle and Leigh Anna Jimmerson and received a 15-year sentence as part of a plea agreement. Ortega entered the plea before Circuit Judge Dennis ODell for the April 17, 2009, crash that killed Grissom High School sophomore Leigh Anna Jimmerson, 16, and her boyfriend, Tad Mattle, 19, a 2008 Grissom graduate.

The accident occurred at the intersection of Whitesburg Drive and Airport Road, after Ortega had fled in his truck from a Huntsville police officer whod been called after Ortega hit another car in his apartment building parking lot.

Mattles Toyota burst into flames after the accident, but police have said the collision caused their deaths before the fire started. Prosecutors said Ortegas blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit at the time of the crash.

After he was sentenced, Ortega, who had an interpreter in court helping translate the proceedings from English to Spanish, asked to address the teens families. The parents of both teens were in the courtroom and Ortega spoke to them in English.

I just want to say I never meant for this to happen, he said. I am really sorry for the pain I caused your family and my family. I just pray to God that you find it in your heart, so you can forgive me. I wish I could change it. Thats all.

Tad Mattles mother, Terri Mattle, then addressed Ortega, questioning whether he was breathing a sigh of relief when the teens parents would never see their children breathe again. She told him that both teens were beautiful and had their whole lives in front of them when he took them away. She questioned whether when he took that first drink that day he realized what would happen.

I hope everyday you will think about them, she said. Its not fair. We hurt everyday. It doesnt bring them back and it never will. [. . .]

[District Attorney Rob] Broussard said hes not concerned about public criticism of the plea agreement, given that the difference in Alabama law between reckless murder and reckless manslaughter can be a somewhat fuzzy standard for juries.

I dont worry about that as long as I know Im doing my duty and the most competent job I can in this county, Broussard said. With a guy like Felix Ortega, under these facts, its my duty to keep him off the streets for as long as I am able.

Broussard was asked how the sentence might affect the families and their suffering.

It is my experience that the families will always suffer the loss, no matter what the sentence, even if the defendant gets the death penalty, which was not an option in this case, he said. They will always have a hole in their hearts for that lost loved one. The plea agreement allowed us to avoid having to relive the horrible facts in this case.

Below is a remembrance video of Tad and Leigh Anna, celebrating their brief lives. Why didnt their country protect them from foreign criminals?

A stiff sentence was handed down to Jaime Alvarado, a serial drunk-driving twice-deported illegal alien, who killed Nashville businessman Robert Benn shortly after he arrived in Austin for a new job.

Benn was driving from the airport when his car was struck by the inebriated Alvarado as the Guatemalan was fleeing police because he feared being deported.

In a cruel coincidence for the family, Benns granddaughter was born a few hours before he was killed, so he never got to meet her. Robert Benn was 64 and had three children.

Repeat drunken driver gets 50 years for fatal wreck , Austin Statesman, September 15, 2010

A drunken driver who caused a fatal accident while fleeing police in East Austin last year was sentenced to 50 years in prison Wednesday by a Travis County jury.

Jaime Bonilla Alvarado, 24, had pleaded guilty earlier in the week to murder in the death of Robert Benn, 64, an information technology consultant from Nashville, Tenn., who was in Austin on business.

Alvarado is a construction worker from Honduras who prior to the Aug. 31, 2009, crash had been convicted of drunken driving three times and deported twice. Some of Alvarados family members cried when the verdict was read in state District Judge Jim Coronados court.

After the verdict, Benns daughter Andrea McKee took the witness stand and told Alvarado that she often thinks of her fathers last moments, alone in a strange city. She told Alvarado that her daughter was born earlier the day of Benns death.

Benns wife, Sherrie Benn, said: I wanted justice for Bob. I think we got justice.

Alvarado faced from five years to life in prison. During closing arguments, his lawyer, Brad Urrutia, asked for 25 years.

He is remorseful, and he is repentant.

Prosecutor Erika Sipiora asked for 50 years. She noted that according to Alvarados testimony, he was warned four times the night of the crash not to drive drunk: by two store clerks, a friend and his wife.

For the second time in the trial, she showed video of the smoky crash, taken by a police officers dashboard camera.

Where on this video does it show that Jaime Alvarado was taking into consideration anyone but himself? she asked.

Earlier in the day, Alvarado took the stand and told the jury about his life. He said he grew up poor and received only an elementary school education in the small Honduran town of Santa Rita Yoro.

He said he first came to the United States in 2005, when he was 19, but was caught on his way to Houston and deported. He said he returned soon after and settled with his twin sister and two brothers in Austin.

All three of his DWI arrests were in East Austin in 2006 and 2007. He did not show up for court each time, and when he was finally arrested, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 80 days in jail. He was later convicted in federal court of illegal re-entry by a deported alien and was deported again.

Alvarado said he returned to the U.S. within a month of his deportation and worked as a construction worker. He testified that he worked on a house near Loop 360 on the day of the crash a Monday. He said that after work, he bought a 24-ounce Dos Equis beer, a 12-pack of Corona beer and a six-pack of Dos Equis. He drank most of the beer, he said, in a park and in his Lincoln Navigator near a disco on East Riverside Drive.

He was heading home when he drove north on Pleasant Valley Road past a police car and the officer noticed him speeding and playing loud music, according to testimony.

Alvarado did not stop, even though officer Christopher Geck turned on his lights and sirens attempting to make a traffic stop. Alvarado said he was afraid of being deported and ultimately decided he would try to drive home before being arrested so his SUV would not be impounded. [. . .]

Alvarado, who had a 0.20 blood alcohol level, 21/2 times the legal limit, suffered only minor injuries.

On August 1, a previously arrested drunk-driving illegal alien killed a nun, Denise Mosier (pictured left), and seriously injured two others. The alien, Carlos Martinelly Montano (pictured right), had twice been handed over to ICE for deportation, but had instead been released into the community pending a deportation hearing (occasions which have notably poor attendance among those invited).

A few days later, the Chairman of the Prince William County board of supervisors, Corey Stewart requested information from ICE that would reveal how many illegal aliens are being released by the agency into the county and their crimes.

The rather surprising news is that ICE has agreed:

ICE Agrees to Release Illegal Immigrant Data to Virginia Official, Fox News, August 7, 2010

ICE contacted me this morning, with great news for Prince William County citizens. They have agreed to release to Prince William County the identities and final disposition of every convicted criminal illegal alien apprehended in Prince William County, Virginia and turned over to ICE through the countys 287(g) partnership, Stewart said in a statement.

Stewart said his countys police referred Carlos Martinelly Montano for deportation twice in the past after he served sentences for drunk driving convictions. But immigration officials released Montano, who allegedly killed Sister Denise Mosier and injured two other nuns in the Aug. 1 accident, on his own recognizance pending a deportation hearing.

Regardless of which side of the aisle youre on, or on this issue, we can all agree that if you are an illegal alien and youve committed a crime, that you should be deported afterward, Stewart told Fox News on Friday. But this guy had been twice handed over to immigration officials and twice released back into the community even though there was an immigration detainer on him. And of course hes gone right back out and committed the same crime and killed a nun.

This is good news if true. Dependable illegal alien crime statistics are normally hard to find and squishy. The government has routinely covered up, lied about and obfuscated the degree to which predatory foreign criminals have had their way in easy-going America. Authorities like to say they are pursuing the real bad guys, but recent history is replete with multiple cases of dangerous aliens arrested and released without being deported, with tragic results. (One crime that comes to mind is the preventable deaths of Tennesseeans Sean and Donna Wilson at the hands of a drunk-driving illegal who had been arrested 14 times without being deported.)

Some information about illegal alien crime is available, but mostly in limited quantities for local jurisdictions. For example in 2008 the Houston Chronicle did a fine investigative series on alien crime from researching the Harris County records of arrests and releases. The use of 287(g) which checks the status of arrested persons makes the number of aliens arrested available.

A recently released stat from ICEs home office is that 120,000 criminal aliens have been deported in the last three years,/a>. That number is only 40,000 per year, and doesnt count the crimes or classify them regarding violence and deaths. Whats needed is a true picture of the mayhem resulting from open borders and inadequate immigration law enforcement. Of course, all working aliens are job thieves (and may use a stolen Social Security number, a felony), which is not an insignificant crime during this employment depression.

Statistics are lifeless artifacts, which is why I have focused on the individual stories of crime victims for ImmigrationsHumanCost.org, but numeric information is required to develop adequate enforcement policy.

Anyway, the video below has more about Supervisor Stewarts success in getting ICE to reveal local statistics, particularly the number of dangerous foreigners released instead of deported. Obviously the death of Sister Denise Mosier indicates the Obama gang is no more serious about criminal alien enforcement than previous administrations.

From the sanctuary city of Houston: Shatavia Anderson, a 14-year-old girl, was shot in the back and killed by a Salvadoran illegal alien and his Honduran associate, apparently just to rob her.

Suspect in fatal shooting of teen was deported twice, Houston Chronicle, August 12, 2010

The suspect in the fatal shooting of a 14-year-old Houston girl was an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who previously was deported twice by immigration officials, authorities said.

Melvin Alvarado, 22, was convicted of two separate intoxicated driving offenses in Harris County in 2006 and 2007, criminal records show. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail in connection with the last arrest in November 2007.

Gregory Palmore, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman, said immigration officials removed Alvarado from the country in April 2008 and again in May 2009.

Palmore said it was unclear from his records whether Alvarado was picked up directly from Harris County Jail after the last intoxicated driving conviction.

The second suspect in the fatal shooting of Shatavia Anderson on Saturday, Jonathan Lopez-Torres, 18, was a lawful permanent resident from Honduras, Palmore said. Harris County records show Lopez-Torres was arrested and accused of auto theft in February 2009. That charge was later dismissed.

The two suspects allegedly saw Anderson as merely a target of opportunity for an armed robbery, Houston police homicide detectives said Wednesday.

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Immigration's Human Cost - human consequences of open ...

When we talk about the war on drugs, which is increasingly turning into areal war, we often overlook the fact that the criminals involved in the drug trade arent actually violating anyones rights. When a drug dealer is hauled before a judge, there is no victim standing behind the prosecutor claiming damages. Everyone participating in the drug trade does so voluntarily.However, there area lot more crimesfor which this is also true. Millions upon millions of Americans have been thrown into cages without a victim ever claiming damages. It is important to look at the burden this mass level of incarceration places upon our society.

In light of that, let us review some statistics which demonstrate just how destructive the mass incarceration of victimless criminals has become to our society.The 2011 federal prison population consisted of:

Drug offenses are self-explanatory as being victimless, but so too are public-order offenses, which also fall under the victimless crimes category. Public order offenses include such things as immigration, weapons charges, publicdrunkenness,selling lemonade without a license,dancing in public,feeding the homeless without a permitetc..

The United States has the highest prison population rate in the world. Presently756 per 100,000of the national population is behind bars. This is in contrast to an average world per-capita prison population rate of145 per 100,000(158 per 100,000 if set against a world prison population of 10.65 million), based on 2008 U.N. population data. In other words, the U.S. incarcerates its citizens at a rate that is 5 times the world average.

In 2008, according to the Department of Justice, there were 7,308,200 persons in the US corrections system, of whom 4,270,917 were on probation, 828,169 were on parole, 785,556 were in jails, and 1,518,559 were in state and federal prisons. This means that the U.S. alone is responsible for holding roughly 15% of all the prisoners in the world.

In other words, 1 in 42 Americans is under correctional supervision. This constitutes over 2% of the entire U.S. population. That percentage jumps up drastically if we limit the comparison to working aged adult males, of which there are around 100 million. Over 5% of the adult male population is under some form of correctional supervision, alternatively stated, 1 in 20 adult males are under correctional supervision in the U.S.

According to 2006 statistics, 1 in 36 adult Hispanic men are behind bars, as are 1 in 15 adult black men. If we limit the data to black males between the ages 20 to 34,1 in 9 are behind bars. Keep in mind that 86% of those men in federal prisons are there for victimless crimes. They have not stolen any property, damaged any property or harmed anyone directly by their actions. Of course, if you are reading this and live in the US, you are paying for all those people to subsist on a daily basis. Roughly34% of all prisoners in the U.S. are incarcerated for victimless crimes.

In California in 2009 it cost an average of $47,102 a year to incarcerate an inmate in state prison. In 2005 it cost an average of $23,876 per state prisoner nationally. In 2007, $228 billion was spent on police, corrections and the judiciary. That constitutes around 1.6% of total U.S. GDP.

Of course, being the good economists that we are, we must not just look at the cost to incarcerate and police, but also at the opportunity cost to society that putting all those able-bodied men behind bars creates. When a man is put behind bars he is obviously incapable of contributing anything to society. He becomes a complete burden to society while producing nothing in return for the expenses he creates. He becomes a black void of resource destruction. Its important to remember that moneys value is directly related to the consumer goods that a society produces. If a society produces nothing of value, the money it uses will also be worth nothing of value. If a huge portion of able bodied workers is locked behind bars, society is effectively penalized twice once for the resources that are diverted into the prison industry and it is penalized again for the opportunity cost of the lost labor of those prisoners.

I find some dark humor in the fact that those who engage in victimless crime dont create any real victims until they are put behind bars, at which point they cause the State to steal $47,000 a year from the tax paying public. In our justice system today, victims are victimized twice; once by the perpetrator of the crime against them, and the other by the State which then forces the victim to pay for the punishment of their assailant. Clearly our societys notion of justice is logically ridiculous. Its apparently not OK for someone to steal from you, but its perfectly acceptable for the State to steal from you if the State is going to use that money to punish the person who stole from you. what kind of asinine system of justice is that?

What is justice? Isnt justice making a victim whole once again? Isnt justice punishing a criminal for the damages he imposed upon his victims?I propose that the only real justice that can be enacted in a free society is monetary punishment in the form of taking the perpetrators property and handing it to their victim, or ostracism by defamation of character.

I know some people will cry that under such a system violent criminals will be left free to roam the streets, but isnt that what our system is doing now? Consider that if a man commits a violent crime today, he is put behind bars for some arbitrary length of time with hundreds of other violent criminals, after which he is released back on to the streets. Do you think that criminal is going to be more dangerous to society after spending years locked in a cage with other violent criminals or less dangerous? Numerous studiesshow that prison eitherincreases, or has no impact on, recidivism. Thus, it all comes down to punishment. Isnt being branded a criminal, along with monetary punishment to make a victim whole once again, enough? How difficult do you think your life would be if you were convicted of murder, everyone knew about it and half your assets and income were being handed to your victims family? The rest of your life would be a living hell.

Putting people behind bars does nothing but squander resources. It deprives society of able-bodied workers and costs society massive amounts of resources which are stolen from the general public through the coercive theft of taxation. Consider how much richer American society would be today if it had an additional 5% of the male population working to produce goods and services in the private sector labor force.

Economist David Friedman has put together a fantastic presentation on how society could be organized in such a way as to eliminate all victimless crime while simultaneously eliminating the necessity of the State to steal from the victims of crimes to pay for their assailants punishment. After youre done watching Friedmanspresentation, check out thisfantastic comicput together by the Real Cost of Prisons project.

If you are interested in learning more about private law and private defense, listen to thisseries of essaysby economist Robert Murphy andthis lectureby economist Hans Hoppe.

The statistics cited in this article can be verified atDrug War Facts.org

Originally posted here:

Victimless Crime Constitutes 86% of The Federal Prison ...