Category: Crime

The financial crisis caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs, which led to home foreclosures. Public outcries demanded the bankers responsible for the crisis be held responsible. Since then, the Justice Department has only convicted one high-level banker. This may be because the Justice Department’s efforts to charge financial criminals have failed. Dewey & LeBoef Mistrial The Dewey & LeBoef trial spent four months in the courtroom, followed by 22 days of deliberation. The complexities of the Dewey & LeBoef case overwhelmed the jurors to the point that they could not reach a verdict. Raising concerns that financial crime has reached… Read More

In the 1970s, a wave began to develop throughout our United States to enact tougher laws, even for nonviolent crimes. Our prisons became overloaded with American citizens and expensive to run. This is why California’s Proposition 47 came about. Implementation of Prop 47 In past decades, individual states continued to strengthen their criminal justice laws. They made previous misdemeanor crimes felonies. Their enforcement meant longer years of incarceration for individuals who committed these crimes. For example, in some states stealing products from a store with a value of $500 was a misdemeanor and $1000 was a felony. The new laws dropped the… Read More

Federal prosecutions of white-collar crimes are down by 29 percent from just five years ago and have hit a 20-year low, according to a report based on Justice Department records. Since the Clinton administration, prosecutions have declined by more than 36 percent, with a brief increase following the financial crisis of 2008, International Business Times reports. In analyzing thousands of Justice Department documents, researchers at Syracuse University found that the federal government prosecuted 5,173 cases of white-collar crime during the first nine months of 2015. That number represents a decrease of about 4,000 cases from 10 years ago, according to The National Law Review.… Read More

During the first months of 2015, crime in Los Angeles has rapidly increased, with robberies up 19% and felony assaults up 26%. The change is alarming, but the reasons are not surprising. In the view of criminologists, the explanation is simple—sometimes trends take hold despite of what the police force is doing. Some criminologists observe, more specifically, that violent crime in cities like L.A. may have dropped so deeply in recent years that the numbers have nowhere to go but up. It is also possible that the rise can be partly attributed to the L.A. Police Department’s crime numbers being more accurately reported.… Read More

Ahh, technology, the reason we’re cool in summer, connected to long lost crushes on Facebook and….hey, where’s my stuff? Thieves in California are turning to technology to steal the items you’ve secured in your car – and sometimes even the car itself, according to recent reports and warnings from the LAPD. How Thieves Break into Cars The electronic key fob that allows you to unlock your vehicle from afar also makes it easy for tech savvy thieves to gain access to your car, according to the LAPD. An inexpensive device called a power amplifier may be to blame for many… Read More

With an increasingly crowded penitentiary system and many offenders serving life in prison for nonviolent crimes, more and more critics of America’s current legal system – including California criminal defense lawyers– have been questioning the usefulness of the three strikes law in today’s society. The Law Though its name is largely self-explanatory in nature, California’s Three Strikes Sentencing Law isn’t quite as straightforward as it sounds. It mandates that anyone convicted of a second felony be sentenced to twice the sentence that a first would incur. For a third, the sentence must be at least 25 years, and possibly as long as life. In… Read More

As initially reported by Forbes contributor, Walter Pavlo, the United States Sentencing Commission is working on making much-needed adjustments to laws concerning white collar crime. All of the changes have an impact on the Federal Sentencing Guidelines judges currently use as a guide. The white collar crime law change recommendations were finalized and delivered to Congress for their review process. If members of Congress approve the changes, the sentencing guidelines will apply to cases heard in court after the 1st of November 2015. Economic Impact Weight The original sentencing guidelines laws looked at the total value of the economic impact made by… Read More

Safety is the focus of Mayor’s Eric Garcetti address about combating rising violent crime in Los Angeles given at the Valley Performing Arts Center. With more accurate reporting, a clearer picture of violent crime in Los Angeles has developed. Garcetti spoke of the deaths of unarmed black men in “Ferguson, Staten Island, and now, North Charleston” and mentioned the body-camera program for Los Angeles police officers. Community building and anti-gang initiatives appear to be how the Mayor will attempt to reduce the 14.3 percent spike in violent crime rates. Trust and Safety Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association,… Read More

According to Reason.com, California state legislators are considering a new bill which would impose a two-year mandatory school suspension for any student convicted of a sexual assault by a campus disciplinary hearing. Das Williams (D) introduced the first-of-its-kind bill to address concerns that the state’s academic institutions are not taking on-campus sexually-based assault seriously enough. Currently, 11 universities and colleges in California are under federal Title IX investigations for the way they have handed previous sexual misconduct cases. The proposed bill would affect all of California’s private and public institutes of higher learning accepting government-funded financial assistance for their students. William’s bill… Read More

Thrown in jail for life over a pair of stolen socks — or a pilfered slice of pizza? That’s what happened to at least two men in California, thanks to the state’s tough 3 Strikes Law. According to the Stanford Law Review, California’s Three Strikes Law came about partly in response to the horrific murders of young Polly Klass and Kimberly Reynolds in the early nineties. While well intentioned, the law has had devastating circumstances for those whose third strike was a petty crime – in some cases imprisoning people over a minor theft of a $5.00 item. This one… Read More