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Story Archives of 'Crime'
Bringing the Bronx to New Hampshire
By Virginia Prescott on Thursday, November 19, 2009.
Adrian Nicole LeBlanc broke ground when her award-winning book Random Family: Love, Drugs,Trouble and Coming of Age in the Bronx was published in 2003. She spent more than a decade closely observing three generations of a Puerto Rican family to create an intimate portrait of street life that was anything but pretty.
Random Family was a New York Times bestseller and was recently named one of The 50 Books for Our Times by Newsweek magazine. Tomorrow afternoon, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc and two of the subjects of Random Family will travel to ConVal High School in Peterborough, NH for a day-long workshop with New Hampshire students. It’s part of the MacDowell Colony’s Community Outreach Program in the schools, and we’re catching up with Adrian Nicole LeBlanc before the workshop. We also spoke with Jill Lawler, an English teacher at ConVal, about what her students are learning from random family.
From High School to High Security
By Reginald Dwayne... on Tuesday, November 17, 2009.
Reginald Dwayne Betts went from the high school honor roll to the penitentiary. He spent nine years in prison beginning at age 16 for a carjacking in Virginia. He’s the first person in his family to graduate from college, but memories of prison still haunt him.
You can listen to it at the Public Radio Exchange.
(Photo by Jenn Vargas)
Prisons as Investment Opportunities
By Virginia Prescott on Tuesday, November 17, 2009.
Here's an investment opportunity in a big growth industry: the prison business. Yes, there are rape scandals, murders, and riots, but many investors know a “buy” when they see it. Bryant Urstadt is a contributor to Harper's Magazine. He took a close look at a very positive securities analyst's report for Geo Group, one of the two largest private prison companies in the US. Urstadt analyzed the document for the magazine's December issue, and joins us with his read of what's hidden between the lines of the report's optimistic investment advice.
Austin Chronicle: The Privatized Government
(Photo courtesy Still Burning via Flickr/CreativeCommons)
Russian Whistleblower Turns to YouTube
By Virginia Prescott on Monday, November 16, 2009.
Police corruption is no secret in today's Russia, but it’s rarely discussed out loud. Aleksei Dymovsky, a police officer in the Black Sea port city of Novorossiisk threw his career to the wind and decided to go public - on YouTube.
In a series of three 2-7 minute long videos released over the past two weeks, Dymovsky faced the camera and addressed his complaints directly to Vladimir Putin. "I want to work," he says, in one video, "but I can no longer stand investigating made-up crimes, imprisoning people we are told to imprison. I can’t stand crimes made-on-order. I’m sick of it all."
Dymovsky was quickly fired, but his videos have drawn more than 1 million hits on YouTube and he is being hailed as a hero, and joins the growing number of Iranians, Chinese and other citizens using the Internet to defy government secrecy.
Miriam Elder covers Russia for GlobalPost. She’s been reporting on Dymovsky’s case and joins us from Moscow.
GlobalPost: Russia's whistleblower cop is a YouTube sensation
Musicians Bike East
By Jasmyn Belcher on Wednesday, November 4, 2009.
A folk-punk musician is trying out the ultimate in green concert touring: embarking on a two-month long bicycle tour down the east coast. Aaron Scott of the band Attica! Attica! currently lives in Portland, Oregon, but he recently came eastward to begin what he calls the Ditch The Van Tour.
Scanning for Criminals
By Virginia Prescott on Wednesday, October 28, 2009.
It just got a lot harder to go on the lam in North Carolina. The FBI has teamed-up with the Department of Motor Vehicles there to help them track down suspects. They’re using new facial-recognition software that compares drivers license photos in the DMV database to pictures of alleged criminals.
So even if a suspect changes his name and gets a new drivers license, the feds can find him and track him down based on his facial structure. If successful, the program could prove to be a huge boon for law enforcement, but it’s also a big concern for privacy advocates.
Steve Morris is Deputy Assistant Director in the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division. We’re also joined by Jared Kaprove, a Domestic Surveillance Fellow with the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
The Associated Press: FBI delves into DMV photos in search for fugitives
(Photo by buhny via Flickr/Creative Commons)
Rehab for Terrorists
By Virginia Prescott on Tuesday, October 27, 2009.President Obama said today that he won’t be rushed into sending more troops to Afghanistan. Last night he told a crowd in Miami that he is serious about shutting down the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The question of what to do about the Taliban insurgency and the remaining Gitmo detainees has yet to be answered. America might consider taking a page from Saudi Arabia’s treatment of extremist militants. The home country of Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers is not known for its leniency, which makes the Saudi government’s terrorist rehabilitation program even more extraordinary.
The rehab program includes religious re-education, art therapy, buying cars for former extremists, and even helping them find wives. Saudi officials claim they’ve "reformed" more than a thousand terrorists, and that the program has been 95 percent effective. But in January, the Saudi kingdom disclosed that eleven graduates of the program were rearrested for joining militant groups.
Max Fisher at The Atlantic has been tracking the Saudi program, and joins us with more.
The Atlantic: Applying Saudi Counterterrorism To The Afghanistan War
The Atlantic Wire: Seeking Fissures Between Taliban and Al Qaeda
The Christian Science Monitor: How effective are terrorist rehabilitation programs?
(Photo by Mushroom and Rooster via Flickr/Creative Commons)
Stopping Fake Swine Flu Cures
By Virginia Prescott on Monday, October 26, 2009.
A dramatic surge in swine flu cases in 46 states prompted President Obama to declare the pandemic a national emergency over the weekend. The first batch of H1N1 vaccine arrived in New Hampshire earlier this month, but dosages fell short of covering the priority populations of young children, pregnant women, and professionals who work with high-risk patients.
A national shortage of vaccines, combined with the media frenzy surrounding H1N1, has prompted some less than reputable companies to release counterfeit flu cures.
Think swine flu shampoos, fake doses of Tamiflu, even machines that claim to shoot flu-stopping protons through the body. The Food and Drug Administration is teaming up with the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on sketchy swine flu products. Alyson Saben is Deputy Director of the FDA’s Office of Enforcement and leader of the agency’s H1N1 Consumer Protection Team.
The Los Angeles Times: FDA cracks down on Internet sales of swine flu 'cures'
Educating The Johns
By Virginia Prescott on Thursday, October 22, 2009.In many states, police officers try to reduce prostitution by arresting sex workers, a stop-gap solution that doesn’t address the other half of the dollar: the demand.
“Johns,” as the clients of sex workers are often called, can also be thrown in jail or charged a hefty fine. Neither of these solutions address the motivations or inequity behind these crimes: that paying for sex is unethical, dangerous, and can contribute to much graver sexual exploitation of women and children in other parts of the world.
“John schools” are one-day educational programs that teach first-time offenders about the real women who are out on the streets in high heels and short skirts. Men also learn how sex crimes in their city connect to trafficking in other countries and about diseases transmitted during unprotected sex.
John schools are gaining popularity in response to a strained legal system, and as the push to educate, instead of incarcerate, increases. With us today to talk about one of the first john schools and a model for many others throughout the country is Kelly Tyne. He’s coordinator for the First Offender Prostitution Program in San Francisco.
(Photo by Malingering via Flickr/Creative Commons)
