The police regularly use confidential informants to gather information about criminal activity. The use of confidential informants is legal and an important tool in law enforcement’s tool box. But the practice of recruiting jail house informants is often illegal. So what’s the difference? Most people in jail are represented…
HUMAN TRAFFICKING OR MODERN SLAVERY? Slavery may have been made illegal in this country 150 years ago, but it is still a wide-spread problem in this country. Yes, there are many people in the United States who are held captive and forced to work for no wages or worse, forced…
“THE STINGRAY” STING Daniel Rigmaiden might have seemed a bit crazy to his attorneys. He was arrested in 2008 after he was caught in his elaborate and meticulous scheme filing fraudulent tax claims while living “off-grid” in the woods. He couldn’t understand how the authorities found him; he operated on…
In recent years, technical tools that can record a cop’s every act have shined a bright light on police abuses. This is especially true now with the ubiquitous dashcams attached to almost every police cruiser in the nation. Apparently some cops don’t like this. As the police have become…
The Netflix surprise hit over the recent holiday season was the documentary Making a Murderer. The story this documentary told was so engrossing that many people reported finishing all ten one-hour episodes within a day or two. Now that’s binge watching! What compelled so many to devour this docu-series…
The California Attorney General is responsible for collecting and analyzing yearly crime data for the State of California. Guess what? Crime is down in California – way down! According to the Attorney General’s statistics for the most recent year studied (2014) crime has decreased in number and rate in…
TV star Charlie Sheen recently revealed that he is HIV positive. Mr. Sheen’s lifestyle is no secret, for years the tabloids have chronicled his seemingly non-stop partying, his coterie of “goddesses” and his many sexual escapades. According to Mr. Sheen’s revelation, he has known he was HIV positive for at…
California’s Proposition 47, which was considered a controversial measure, appears to be producing the results it was intended for. However, there are still those skeptics who question whether or not the desired results are being met. But, according to reports by the Stanford Justice Advocacy Project, any criticism of Prop…
DOES CRIME INCREASE WHEN THE WEATHER IS HOT? With the seemingly endless summer in Southern California and a very hot autumn this year, should we be more concerned about crime? Everyone knows that crime increases in hot weather, right? Well, not so fast. Several studies have disputed that oft cited…
A bill recently signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown requires California’s public alert system to help in the effort to track down hit-and-run drivers. The new law uses emergency “yellow alerts” to broadcast the key details of fleeing hit-and-run vehicles. On digital freeway signs, the car’s color, make, model…