Since When is Politics Boring?

December 2nd, 2011 Thomasso

I have always been interested in politics, and my need to know more about it peaked when I took my first Political Science course way back in 2004. I really believe that the first steps in understanding politics is having a really good base of knowledge. I never got any good learning experiences when I was in high school, they never taught it then adequately, and sitting in an armchair would have never gotten me close to what I needed in terms of knowledge (of fully appreciating) all the facets of politics since my University days. I think too, the need to want to learn it plays a huge part in appreciating it?

Here is how I break it down: You have your mainstream politics, and your local politics, but then you have your the in between politics that kind that only deals with the special interest of the clique that you are associated with, and no one else cares about. In my little clique, the Students and Institution of the university that I once belonged to, has had an explosion of activity in the last three days. Student politics has hit the local news media and syberspace like a mid summer grass fire.

The Kwantlen Student Association (KSA) has hit the news feeds with a flurry of activity. On November 30th, 2011, a rally to impeach the current board members from power took place, as over 400 students, whose numbers could form a quorum, voted to oust nearly three quarters of the KSA’s board members. This is politics at its best in my opinion becuase it engaged hundreds of otherwise busy students to take a stand, and hopefully putting a stop to the mountains of negative publicity that Kwantlen Polytechnic University has been getting over this.

Here is the geniuses of the whole movement of the Special General Meeting (SGM) to oust the then KSA on video, thanks the student paper The Runner:

The SGM had its hiccups too on Nov 30, 2011. The fire alarm was pulled twice, and someone sprayed pepper-spry in the hallway leading to the conference room where students had to reregister before the vote took place. Yes, the police and fire department were on the scene.

In the end, the vote took place and the KSA was replaced with about 12 new temporary board members, and changes to the by-laws governing the KSA, and a motion to issue a new election for the new KSA.

With allegations of corruption, criminal and civil wrong doing, out of control spending, and actions that does not benefit the students as a whole, who says student politics is boring?

When I was a student, I missed a golden opportunity right in front of me.

Posted in Diatribe, Events, General, Law, Law and Order, Socail Media, University classes, Video | Comments Off

Social Apathy, or a Psychological Problem

October 29th, 2011 Thomasso

I have been desensitized over the years with news stories of human suffering and tragedy. In my academic studies in criminology, I have read, encountered, and studied both the purely bad and truly evil acts that humans have done, and through this, I have built up a resistance from these deviants, and often criminal cases. However, once in a while, a case pops up that adds a new level to this playing field that supersedes my definition of sick and twisted. The news story of two year old Wang Yueyue who was run over twice on October 13th, 2011, and then eight passers-by walked by her as she lay in the back alley injured from the first vehicle impact (CBCnews, ABC news & BBC news Television, October 14th to October 21, 2011). All of this was captured on a security video camera.

The video footage was grainy, and CBC News censored the image of the child, capturing from the time that she was impacted by the first vehicle, all the people that walked passed her body a she struggled for help, then a second vehicle hitting her, to finally a woman who grabbed her and took her to safety. Even with the child’s body blurred out, the image still shocked me. I had to turn off the television and retreat from what my eyes had just seen.

I knew right away. I knew what had happened as to why so many people walked by as I remembered my lessons in psychology on topics such as “Group Think” and “Passers By” conditions. Could this be prevented, say training people to stop and care?

China is by no means the only place where this has happened. It has happened in Canada, the U.S., Europe, just about anywhere around the world. Some argue that laws and cases where the victim has litigated by the rescuer for causing further injury, is a reason for not getting involved (CBC news, “Was the law at fault in Chinese toddler tragedy?” Oct 22, 2011). Others say that they just do not want to get involved and bare the responsibility and the time that it would take and to deal with the repercussions afterwards (CBC News).

There are people who just do not want to get involved. Simply put, most people in large groups will not even look directly at a victim of need because this would mean taking time, diverting from one’s course, and blending in, following the flow of the crowd. So hiding in numbers makes it easier not to look.

In Canada, we have the right not to rescue in some circumstances. This means that if I see a person drowning in the ocean, and I cannot swim, the Criminal Code protects me from not rescuing the drowning victim because I would then be also putting myself in the same danger as the drowning victim. In Canada, according to the Supreme Court of Canada:

According to the trial judge of a modern case, later affirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada, “the law is clear that there is no general duty to come to the rescue of another person … the law leaves the remedy to a person’s conscience.” (“Duty to Rescue,” PSW Law Website: 2009)

However, there are some circumstance that would tie a duty to rescue under statutory law, such as a parent, a person of trust, a life guard, and so on (PSW Law: 2009 Website).

My point to this post is why so many people walked by while the little girl lay on the road at the point of death. Perhaps, as many have said on the media, we must change our values and take action. Some have gone further and saying that laws need to be rewritten to reflect a high moral standard, while others are saying that the law is not the answer, but teaching people to be proactive rather than being nonactive.

I also need to add a legal disclaimer here too: This post is not to be used as information for legal advice, and I encourage you all to do further research on this topic if you need to find a specific legal issue about this. Also, these laws vary from country to country. According to the media, several people were charged in China who injured the little girl while driving their vehicles, so the law enforcement authorities did enforce the law in accordance to that country’s penal code (CBC news, Oct 24, 2011).

This post was originally written on October 24, 2011

Source

ABC News, 2011: “Chinese Toddler Ignored After Hit-and-Run Dies” Oct 21, 2011: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/chinese-toddler-left-bloody-hit-run-dies-14784046

BBC World News, 2011: “Anger and debate over hit-and-run toddler Wang Yue,” Oct 21 2011: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15401055

CBC News, 2011: “Chinese toddler run over twice dies,” Oct 21, 2011: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/10/21/toddler-china.html

CBC News, 2011: “Was the law at fault in Chinese toddler tragedy?” Oct 22, 2011: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/10/22/f-china-yue.html

PSW Law, 2009: http://pswlaw.ca/2009/06/duty-to-rescue/

Posted in Criminal Law, Criminology, Diatribe, General, Law, Law and Order, Socail Media, Social Justice | Comments Off

The Rightness of Wrongness: The Canadian Right

October 25th, 2011 Thomasso

Earlier today I sat in on a gathering of people who talked about the changing evolution of corrections (prisons) that Canadian society was moving towards. A lot of what was said falls into the category of classical social fear; crime is getting out of control and safety for property and person were at the top of the list from almost every speaker who lead the discussion. The dynamics of the meeting was subtle, but from person to person who gave their input, I could see that each changed to fit the “group think” attitudes that prevailed until everyone just agreed.

Am I surprised?

No.

Categorically, the meeting ended with each speaker making a statement that issued an appeal to the government, law enforcement, and to their fellow citizen to pull together and help clamp down on the crime menace. None of the speakers would, however, answer the one key question that hung over the entire meeting, “have you ever been a victim of a crime within the last twelve months”?

The speaker that I thought was the “most out to lunch” was actually the star of the show, so to speak. He was loud, captured the audience, and made tens of statements in less than three minutes before he sat down. His introduction was extreme, and waisted little time getting to the point. He said, “The only real experts on crime are C.O.P.s (sic), and those academics have no clue what is out their in the real world… to create a bunch of theories does not fix anything, we need action now…, and we need to do something about the issues instead of thinking like a bleeding heart Liberal (sic).”

Obviously I cannot argue with someone who has closed their mind to the openness and vastness of human society and the intricateness of human psychology. However, I can make him think further, and go beyond the single brush stroke statements, and make him see that the issues cannot be painted with just one colour. But time is the great definer of getting that message across, and time was not on my side–time ran out for me.

There were several issues that really concerned me that came out of this meeting today. Most are very serious in that they are false and misleading from the truth based on scientific facts. To discount peer reviewed studies, is like going back to the Witch Hunts of the Dark-ages, ignoring the enlightenment of human ontology. To invoke fear, well, that is in itself is a criminal act depending upon the level of unsighted accusations being made, and this gathering came close to breaking that threshold.

In terms of rhetoric, the foundation of my friend’s logos, cited the media as proof enough that crime has gone beyond what anyone organisation can manage to deal with. And with that, came the pathos of his argument, that we should fear, becuase the changing face of our country is diminishing, and we (his group) will be swept a way if we (he) sit back and do nothing. And finally, his ethos of his closing statement was based on his next door neighbour being a police officer, and confiding in him (the speaker) of the moral dilemma of why even the police are powerless in the war on crime.

What I have witnessed today is typical of a group who are trying to deal with a problem that goes beyond the scope that most care to deal with today at a complex level. The study of crime and deviance is a huge field, with many branches that stem into a vast array of specialised fields, as each field has developed into its own faculty or discipline, and few have studied under all of them. I studied Criminology, and I continue on today with that study, looking at both the social and psychological perspectives of humankind; so I try to go to these gathering in hopes that I can broaden the mind of the general public and move forward to a better society. “Baby steps” as an old friend used to say to me, “baby steps.” Not everyone is an academic.

Posted in Criminal Law, Criminology, Diatribe, General, Law, Law and Order, Socail Media, Social Justice | 2 Comments »

When Trust is Garbage

August 6th, 2011 Thomasso

About a week ago I started seeing the Tweets streaming from members of the Kwantlen Student’s Association (KSA) with regards to the 2006-7 scandal involving allegations of election fixing, misappropriation of moneys, theft and fraud from that council. I was attending Kwantlen at that time, 2006-7, and I do remember having personal issues with the, then Student’s Council. But since then, with all the news about what was going on with that council, at that time, eventually student life mellowed down, and my time there as an undergrad went smoothly.

There was also apathy on my part becuase as I looked at the student’s council as nothing more than just a group of students having fun. I never took into account that that was my money they were squandering with. In fact, I now wonder why I even had to pay into it. I now believe that students should have a choice as to whether they wish to become a member rather than being held hostage with the tuition. I see a need that the government needs to change the law regarding societies, and that students must have the op-out option. Sorry present day KSA members, but this is how I feel about it right now.

Yes, I am that mad about it. When this trust is broken, it can never be rebuilt, because in Canada, white collar crime seems to be nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Justice is lacking here.

I believe that the student’s council must be reconstructed from the ground up, reflecting these past years of abuse, so that transparency and integrity are forged into law. Having elected officials secretly spending money with no worries, covering their tracks  – is – sickening, disturbing and weak.

Very rarely did I have the option of participating in any events with the KSA during my time as an undergraduate. I was a student who worked during the day and did my classes at night. I commuted to the campus, attended my classes, then commuted home. When I think back now, I fed these guys very well with my forced contributions, and that angers me when I read the Forensic Accounting Report of 2007. It is one thing when our Federal, Provincial and Civic leaders miss use our tax money, but quite another when it is a society whose acting in my best interest. Listening to it all over again on the news just opens old wounds again.

What triggered me to write this post?

When I read this news story from the Surrey leader, titled: “Kwantlen student lawsuit on ice,” August 5th, 2011, it made me want to write this post. However, it was not until I read the Forensic Audit from 2007 today that I started writing this post with heated energy. You can read the document here, PWC Forensic Audit 2007, as someone secretly posted it on line. The PDF file is 8.1MB, at 108 pages, and covers a lot of details and heart wrenching accounts of what was going on during that time at the KSA.

This is the first time in a very long time that I had to stop and really focus on what it was I was writing becuase of how much, and how close, this hits home. In hindsight, I should have paid closer attention to the KSA, perhaps even getting involved with it more, but my situation at the time limited me from doing that.

It all seems to be coming out in the wash anyway. Thanks to some students, both members and non-members of the KSA, for caring and taking on the fight to rid the bad, dirty and disgusting from a place of public privilege and trust. If it were not for them, I would be too ashamed to tell people that I was student associated with the KSA.

As for the future students who will pay their fees to the KSA: beware, be forewarned, and be suspicious by keeping an eye on your representatives. These people, your elected council, are there for you. Vote, participate, and get informed becuase without this attitude, the chances of this repeating again in the KSA is a possibility.

Posted in Art, Criminology, Diatribe, General, Graduation, Law, Photographs, Socail Media, Social Justice, Twitter, University classes | Comments Off

Shamming

June 24th, 2011 Thomasso

When I was a first year university student doing my major in Criminology, I was introduced to the concept of shamming through a method of alternative sentencing called Restorative Justice. Back then, the term Restorative Justice was thrown around a lot by various stake holders of both academics and the criminal justice system, as each side had a slightly different take on what it meant to them. All sides incorporated a certain amount of shamming in this concept.

Shamming for the Purpose of Healing

I was introduced to a form of restorative justice that focused on Sentencing Circles and restoring the community and its values of maintaining a relationship between all parties. We would work in groups, primarily with those those offenders who have already been found guilty, and processed through the criminal justice system. We would then gather in a circle and follow various exercises that would help the convicted go through a healing and punishment processes by involving the victims, law enforcement and members of the community, who all participate in this circle. Everyone would work to directly have input and then become involved with the healing/sentencing process too.

The goal of the sentencing circle was to have both the victim and perpetrator express their feelings about that event, and hopefully share, and start to build a bond that was damaged from after the criminal event. This goal was to heal, then restore the lives, and the community, back to it former self. The success of the this method was dependant upon the participants who not only had given up a huge amount of their time, but would also have to endure an emotional taxing experience through the process as well. With the man hours and willingness needed to have success, organising such sentencing circles is a full time job in itself, but everyone who agrees to participate does so with a “mindset” before hand of what they expect the healing and restoring ought to be. It could be healing, forgivingness, shaming, or curiosity – the list can vary from group to group, but each member would have their won reasons for wanting to participate.

Shamming is part of this process. I have seen it take some very ugly turns in the some of the circles that I have worked with. When I first started working in circles, I was very apprehensive about this phase of the sentencing processes becuase I felt, and I still do, that the shamming process should not be apart of it that it would reverse the achievement that was being sought. Latter, after doing several sentencing circles, I found that shamming was almost an integral part of the process but it would have to be tightly regulated with well laid out rules that needed to be agreed upon before hand.

A Culture of Shamming

Shamming is a well practised offensive tactic that we do to elicit an emotional response from our victims, and we all do this very well. Our mentors and guardians use shamming to teach us and correct us when we were young. We then carried and learned more advance techniques of shamming when we are among our peers, and then we reach the stage where we learn to do it to those we never knew before, and carry it out into the public realm.

Public shamming is, in our culture, an almost natural reaction to various forms of crimes and behaviour that we would find unacceptable. The best example, and the reason why I am writing this post out, are the Vancouver Riots from last week after the hockey game, form the Stanley Cup Play-offs. All this week people have been posting their images and naming those in them as part of the public shamming process. The hope is that by naming, or shamming, each of those who participated in the riots, would be embarrassed and ultimately, would be deterred from doing any further act of civil disobedience again.

From Shamming to Vigilantism

The problem is, is it right to do this? Is this public vigilantism? Could this be an offence in of itself, those who are shamming through naming those on social networking sites?

When the Vancouver Police Department asked the public to send in their images and video of the riots, they also asked if anyone could identify those, and send them in, via their Face Book page, their names. I do not believe that the police intended the public to post those names publicly, to start their own shamming sites in the form of there own law enforcement initiatives?

Although I have used shamming for healing, shamming in the context of public humiliation can have considerable negative repercussion, and I my opinion, have the same effect as Labelling Theory suggests, when the harm done is greater than the intended good that was sought as punishment. The publicly defame someone is a life long effect that exceeds the damage done during the criminal event before hand.

The Courts and the Justice System

So, what about criminal justice system, and the wheels of justice in a court of law by a Judge who is unbiased, and who will weigh the scales is justice to fit the crime?

We know from experience that the majority of those who participated, and charged, are not going to be held by police, or convicted in a court of law. We also know that for those who are prosecuted and sentenced, the time and reparations will seem light and mild to the public’s liking. The greatest effect for those sentenced will be the labelling that each person convicted will have in the form of a criminal record which will be with them for the rest of their lives.

It is common knowledge that in out justice system we give the benefit of doubt in a court of law when trying the accused under criminal law. We also know that the standards of criminal law also is vastly different from that of civil law where the scales of justice weigh the amount of rightness and wrongness based on entirely different standards. So only then when that accused has been found guilty that we can say he or she has being convicted and now must be sentenced in accordance to the laws of the land. This is a far cry from the court of public opinion, where shamming maybe tipped towards vigilantism.

Conclusion

Although I do not condole what the people of Vancouver did on June 15, 2011 right after the home town hockey team lost the final match and started rioting causing million of dollars in damages, but I caution people who take it upon themselves to voice their opinions through social media networks of publicly identifying those that they know who participated in the riots rather than going directly to the police. Should those in the riots have to go through the court of public opinion, and be subjected to public humiliation before they enter the justice system?

I think we have started down a slippery slope now that social media devices are common place and people can express themselves, with almost total anonymity, of their feelings and opinions with almost total conjecture and responsibility for their actions. Perhaps there could be a second groundswell of law suits very soon of those who were shamed, as they start to fight back in those same courts, armed with Tweets, Blog-posts and Face Book passages of their defamers.

Posted in Criminal Law, Criminology, Diatribe, General, Law, Law and Order, Social Justice | Comments Off

Was it a Riot? My City is in Shame.

June 16th, 2011 Thomasso

When I got home from work, I prepared myself for the game, as millions of other Canadians did becuase this was the final big game to prove which team was number one. Hockey is, after all, Canada’s game; our favourite past time as most of us as kids played some form of it at one time or another. In anticipation, I made my dinner early and made sure that I was not going to not be disturbed while watching the game. I did, however, know that the momentum of the Vancouver Canucks was on a downwards roll, so everything was on this final game to decide who was going to take home the cup.

I also knew that Vancouver has a history of rioting after such events, for example,  back in the 1994 Stanley Cup play-offs, when the Canucks lost to the New York Rangers, people turned into hooligans then and went on a rioting rampage through the streets causing millions of dollars in damages. But every city has had its share of riots in one form or another. What makes this so embarrassing is that Vancouver was just on the world stage hosting the Olympics, and that seemed to go fairly smoothly with just little hiccups from a few idiots. So what happened to our peaceful attitude?

Some say, from my Twitter stream, that it was from not enough police on the streets, to the police and the city totally under estimating the potential for such violence to occur. Either way, it did, and we now have a huge P.R. problem becuase of it. But could the police have gone further to at least contain last night’s situation?

I argue that, no, the Vancouver Police could not have gone to point that they could have totally stopped the violence and rioting that we seen last night. Controlling that many people would have required something on the order of what we seen in the G20 protests in Toronto several months back, and that would have being very unacceptable both in terms of Vancouver’s image, and the cost to the taxpayers.

What was intriguing was the use of social media that was given to the police, by the public, so that the police could start identifying and using these images, and videos, as evidence in order to prosecute the accused for their acts of hooliganism. So the age old question of private freedoms versus public rights popped up. The terminology that was used by my Twitter friends was the use social media as a form of surveillance in such cases as last night riots to lay charges by the police.

I am in full complete favour for the use of such media as a tool for laying criminal charges and the prosecution of such individuals by the police. My argument is two fold.

First, police already use such tools out in the public sphere for catching and bringing to justice people who are committing a crime. The courts are already equipped with the tools in the justice system to handle the difference between arbitrary issues and the weight that such evidence is placed against the accused. Photographic evidence is very difficult to use in the courts as it is. The photographer literally must be there as a whiteness if the image is in question, but then now you have a whiteness, which is the strongest form of evidence there it in Canadian Courts, testifying against the accused.

Second, as the use of cameras from smart phones and other devices become the mainstay of everyone around the world, so too does the way these tools are used by all parties in cases of criminal events like rioting. Perhaps the court of public opinion is the most serious for seeing the electronic eyes of these events. The the armchair philosopher who is tying to critically analyse these images, this is secondary to the pure entertainment value that the media gives them while these scenes are played repeatedly every hour of the day until the news losses its splendour. You do not go to a major event without your social media device. Protesters use them, police used them, and the value that we give them changes, from recording history making events, to tools for presenting your side of history, from your point of view. So now the question of surveillance rears its ugly head from the use of social media.

Like yourself witnessing a criminal event, the electronic eye’s gaze is also a party to the criminal event, and at a moral level, and under law in our Criminal Code, you do have an obligation to come forth and  present what you have seen to the police and court of law. But people seem to have a fear of authoritarian governments, and the use of surveillance over the general public they seem to bring with them. (See the movie, or read the book, 1984 as an excellent example). I believe today that the conditions have being met in Canada that justifies the use of such tools for bringing to justice those who cause such damage during acts of great civil unrest. We have balance in our justice system, and a very strong media and public process system that polices the police.

I strongly request that anyone with images of rioters from last night come forward and share your eyes with the police so that justice can be served. For the few people to created such distasteful acts in our city is unacceptable. There is a moral judgement that each person must make, and it is between the public good versus the private rights that each Canadian holds dearly. I hope I have convinced you to make that choice and move forward with it.

Posted in Around Town, Criminal Law, Criminology, Events, General, Law, Law and Order, Socail Media, Social Justice, Twitter | 1 Comment »

VOTE! Get Your Butt to the Polling Station and VOTE!

May 2nd, 2011 Thomasso

Today is the big day. I’m excited. Later on today, probably around noon, I will head down to the voting booths and cast my vote, hoping that the guy I voted for gets in power.

I am keeping that information privileged. The guy I’m voting for will remain a mystery here on the old weblog. That is personal information and my own opinion, and I have learned over the years that you should keep that bit of your life personal unless you want it to be exposed to the public. I’m a private kind of guy with this sort of stuff. Only the trained, and keen individuals, can figure out who my true colours, and ideologies, are from reading this blog, but that is for you to make, and of course, that is your opinion too. I respect that.

I have spent most of the day so far reminding people to vote. I’m going to walk with a couple of people because they like to be with people when they go out into the public spaces. I know one of them suffers from agoraphobia, so timing and comforting is everything for him. As weird as it sounds, they (my two friends with phobias) do not like to venture often, or by themselves, so they travel in pairs, or with a group of friends. But hey, it gets them out to the polling station!

I’m even going to go over who the candidates are and what parties they represent for my friends. It will be hard to do this of course while being unbiased. But, on the same token, I don’t want to be too simplistic and contrasted so that they they build a false sense of impressions and become disillusioned.

So here is to the greatest privileged that anyone can have in our modern world, the power to individually choose and take part in the election process of our government!

And on a side note: Thank you Twitter! With out you, the lest vestiges of our government’s control have been taken away and reduced to nothingness! I thank you again for  making the world an even freer place to live! Now I think we can say we are living up to the standards set out by our constitutional law, not what a small group of people’s opinions are who interpreted this as so long ago in a long ago era. (I’m off my soap-box now).

Get your ass out there and VOTE!

Posted in Around Town, Events, General, Law, Law and Order, Socail Media, Social Justice, Twitter | 1 Comment »

Politics and That Bin Ladin Guy from 9-11

May 1st, 2011 Thomasso

I was reading some tweets from friends when I noticed a huge surge of tweets with the trending topic of Osama bin Laden in them. Around 7:30pm (pacific time) these tweets started popping up. Then the grand-daddy of all tweets coming from President Barack Obama, who tweeted that he was about to do  a rare late night public announcement live, streamed live on the web. So I waited with bated breath.

It was announced that Osama Bin Laden had been killed by American forces, issued by the President (10:30 Eastern).

Oh Twitter. I laughed, I cried, and read with intent. There were so many perspectives on this event that I had to stop my stream to read them all in real time. As I type, our Prime Minster is speaking about the 9-11 and the death of Osama Bin Laden. His speech was short. I understand that he is, after all, in the twilight of an election.

Here is the President’s speech in its entirety:

So, I will continue to pick this up for tomorrow.

Election Fun:

On a Humours note, poking fun at the election, I present a YouTube clip of this acapella group, “The Tra La Las,”  poking fun at the Harper Conservatives. This is for some members of my family, who are staunch Conservative supporters–you know who you are… Heh heh heh. So get out there and VOTE tomorrow! Vote, it’s your right and privilege!

Harper is the Root of All Evil

As the night progresses, and if I have more energy, I will probably add more to this post. But I must get back to Twitter.

Posted in Criminal Law, Criminology, Events, General, Humour, Law, Law and Order, Socail Media, Social Justice, Twitter, Video | Comments Off

The Underground Economy

April 10th, 2011 Thomasso

I have been trying to help an old friend from moving back into the realm of criminal activity, and convincing him to keep his life on the straight and narrow. My efforts have been doubly difficult as the economy is making the search for legitimate employment more difficult for him. As our self melodious Prime Minister touts, Canada is in good economic terms compared to the rest of the world, but that is coming from a politician that wants to get re-elected. OK, if that is the case, then we are in big trouble as the Canadian economy is hurting, to use the lack of a better word. That is not going to help my friend who is on the verge of moving out onto the street.

My friend has done time in prison before. He was convicted of possession of illegal narcotics, and served less than six months, then three years on parole, where he was finally let free, back into society, basically to fend for himself. He has managed to keep himself in good shape, and has been working, earning a legitimate wage for over the last three years. His good fortune turned when he was laid off and now has been unemployed for a couple of months. He is now keeping himself going by selling what he can of his own personal belongings for cash, and feeding himself by going to the local food bank in Langley City, when he can. He will be homeless after this month, as all of his savings are almost gone.

I have taken some time study the underground economy in Canada. Partly because I did a lot of research way back when I was a second year Criminology student, writing a paper on this topic. I learned then that the public associates the underground economy with drug dealers and organized criminal gangs, while revenue Canada view it as any money where taxes have not been paid on it through profits and income. I see it as a hybrid of the two, mostly pertaining it to both organized and White Collar crime. As I gathered more statistical evidence, I found that the numbers of dollars circumvented from the tax man seem to be neck in neck with White Collar criminals as compared with the drug trade; although finding the true measure of the dollar amount will always remain a mystery as any research on criminal activity will be classified as being involved in the criminal activity itself.

For my friend, the ease, and the lure, of moving back into the illegal world of commerce has never looked so good right now for him. Based on my research, the underground economy is very much alive and well in British Columbia. Sadly, some predictions say that there could be a spike in people migrating towards the underground economy, as never seen before. As money and services start to contract, companies start cutting corners to remain competitive, or current market wages could be undermined by the cheaper available labour, citing some examples of what is happening. Under the table labour is becoming the next bastion of life for many people who are on the brink of becoming homeless in the Vancouver area. My friend is struggling with these temptations. He is down to the choice of feeding himself, or going hungry.

In his mind, if the means are available, then how be it a broken social system dare tell him what he can and cannot do to survive.  Even he knows that the resources for law enforcement are stretched so thin through under funding by all three levels of government that resources for White Collar crime is almost nonexistent, and adds to the legitimacy of doing such crimes here in Canada.

I continue to appeal to my friend, asking that he keeps on trying, searching for the legitimate job. However, I too can see the strain of his temptation to dive back into the criminal world. He told me that as of last week the crime world is the only world that is hiring! That shocked me when he said that. I guess it is true, in a sad and truthful tone.

My hope is that he can find some work soon. Like so many, our economy is collapsing, and the bottom economic strata are always the first levels to fall in times of economic hardship. His criminal record, by the way, does not seem to deter him, as he told that most of his former employers never asked. So, as he said, it is the availability of work that is at play here. The last thing I want to see is him moving into a cardboard box sleeping out in the elements somewhere in Langley City as a vagrant. So I am really hoping that he finds something soon!

Posted in Criminal Law, Criminology, Diatribe, General, Law, Social economics, Social Justice, Story Telling | Comments Off

Frustration: Cold Cuts and Mysteryville

March 8th, 2011 Thomasso

I have been going like mad, jumping through hoops, and bending myself, to fit the needs of others in the world of my new career path. At 1:00pm today that little world suddenly closed up, and within the time it took to press the Enter key, that door shut. I had been working on some contract work within the scope of setting up a project in the form of rehabilitation programs for inmates who would seek special permission to enter this project, and we would offer counselling.

Just a note here: I have to be vague about this contract becuase of the nature of its content. I know it sounds like I am talking in riddles and circles, but I have to. The goals are still the same and direction is still moving forward, but competition is huge, and I will not let the team down. Plus, I need to start making some serious money here!

Like all efforts through government and private venture, the money holder want guarantees, fitting their ideology and needs, and yet the flexibility to meet the market demands. Cost seems to be the sticking point. And oddly enough, it was not the high or low end of the money scale that was the issue, it was the “happy” scale that seemed to matter. Let me clarify some more here. You have to spend the prescribe amount of money to make the world of the bureaucratic agency happy. Due to some weird rule in the accounting department, there is a scale that is posted, and everything must fit nicely into that. The only problem is that they do not share that information.

So, if we were to volunteer our services, then the bureaucratic agency would not have the effective control that they desire, as part of that check and balance issue that gets tossed around many times over. So spending the money means having some sort of leverage over the third party, or group in lieu of services. If you ask for too much money in your budget, then you are simply over priced and no longer fit the mandate of that agency. So where is the middle, happy, ground?

Well, I have not found it—yet.

So, I am frustrated at this point in time. Myself, and the rest of my team have decided not to wait out the  April 15th deadline and have already started onto other projects. We have also put the word to our other colleagues as to our dismal performance with this project, and have posted numerous warnings and questions on the forum website that we use.  I read the forum too, and have seen other patterns, with other groups, who have gone through similar problems that we have experienced.

I may have to consider relocating to another province if I am to continue with on my career path. British Columbia seems to be over saturated, and lowering its standards based on the facts and figures that I have right now. If too many practitioners are released into the workforce, then their value drops, but if they all relocate, then the talent drains away from the source into other markets, and market place stagnates.

Sustainability on my part is my immediate concern, as somewhere in there I need to make a living too.

Posted in Bitching about work, Criminal Law, Criminology, Diatribe, General, Law, Social economics, Social Justice | Comments Off