In this reflection on the relation between nature and culture, Michel Serres relates the present environmental catastrophe to pollution generated by humanity's efforts to appropriate.

A Chicago journalist reveals how pervasive police misconduct, brutality, and corruption are changing the perspective of the criminal justice system and eroding the morals of the American people. In this shocking yet fascinating volume, an award-winning Chicago journalist goes behind the headlines to provide a far-reaching analysis of brutality, vice, and corruption among men and women who have sworn to serve and protect. This timely book draws on actual cases to examine the widespread phenomenon of corruption inside law enforcement agencies. It looks at the effort of criminal elements and gangs to infiltrate police departments and the criminal justice system, and it discusses how vigilante justice is encouraged by claims of police misconduct. Of particular importance to readers, the book also exposes the trickle-down effect of police corruption as it affects American values and society as a whole. But the news is not all bad. Police departments across the nation are fighting back against abuse of power, and the author sheds light on the escalating battle they are waging against rogue police officers involved in criminal activity. Through Stanford's investigative work and firsthand interviews with leading law enforcement professionals, readers will be privy to the backstory of the struggle of police commands to insulate their departments against the criminality and corruption so prevalent today.

The third book in his police memoir series may be Ribera's most captivating work yet. Exposing misconduct at the highest levels of law enforcement, as well as city hall's unscrupulous attempts to cover it up, this is the story kept hidden from the public -until now. Seen through the eyes of the police commander who lived it, each page of Malfeasance plunges you deeper into the corruption that is municipal politics. The truth about those we elect and trust to do the right thing is as horrifying as it is demoralizing. This book is sure to make your blood boil!

The US Department of Justice is under fire for failing to prosecute banks that caused the 2008 economic meltdown because they are too big to jail. Prosecutors have long neglected to hold corporate executives accountable for chronic mistakes that kill and injure workers and customers. This book, the first of its kind, analyzes five industrial catastrophes that have killed or sickened consumers and workers or caused irrevocable harm to the environment. From the Texas City refinery explosion to the Upper Big Branch mine collapse, the root causes of these preventable disasters include crimes of commission and omission. Although federal prosecutors have made a start on holding low-level managers liable, far more aggressive prosecution is appropriate as a matter of law, policy, and justice. Written in accessible and jargon-free language, this book recommends innovative interpretations of existing laws to elevate the prosecution of white-collar crime at the federal and state levels.

Child-molesting priests, embezzled church treasures, philandering ministers and rabbis, even church-endorsed pyramid schemes that defraud gullible parishioners of millions of dollars: for the past decade, clergy misconduct has seemed continually to be in the news. Is there something about religious organizations that fosters such misbehavior? Bad Pastors presents a range of new perspectives and solidly grounded data on pastoral abuse, investigating sexual misconduct, financial improprieties, and political and personal abuse of authority. Rather than focusing on individuals who misbehave, the volume investigates whether the foundation for clergy malfeasance is inherent in religious organizations themselves, stemming from hierarchies of power in which trusted leaders have the ability to define reality, control behavior, and even offer or withhold the promise of immortality. Arguing that such phenomena arise out of organizational structures, the contributors do not focus on one particular religion, but rather treat these incidents from an interfaith perspective. Bad Pastors moves beyond individual case studies to consider a broad range of issues surrounding clergy misconduct, from violence against women to the role of charisma and abuse of power in new religious movements. Highlighting similarities between other forms of abuse, such as domestic violence, the volume helps us to conceptualize and understand clergy misconduct in new ways.

A study and analysis of lack of enforcement against criminal actions in corporate America and what can be done to fix it. In the early 2000s, federal enforcement efforts sent white collar criminals at Enron and WorldCom to prison. But since the 2008 financial collapse, this famously hasn’t happened. Corporations have been permitted to enter into deferred prosecution agreements and avoid criminal convictions, in part due to a mistaken assumption that leniency would encourage cooperation and because enforcement agencies don’t have the funding or staff to pursue lengthy prosecutions, says distinguished Columbia Law Professor John C. Coffee. “We are moving from a system of justice for organizational crime that mixed carrots and sticks to one that is all carrots and no sticks,” he says. He offers a series of bold proposals for ensuring that corporate malfeasance can once again be punished. For example, he describes incentives that could be offered to both corporate executives to turn in their corporations and to corporations to turn in their executives, allowing prosecutors to play them off against each other. Whistleblowers should be offered cash bounties to come forward because, Coffee writes, “it is easier and cheaper to buy information than seek to discover it in adversarial proceedings.” All federal enforcement agencies should be able to hire outside counsel on a contingency fee basis, which would cost the public nothing and provide access to discovery and litigation expertise the agencies don't have. Through these and other equally controversial ideas, Coffee intends to rebalance the scales of justice. “Professor Coffee’s compelling new approach to holding fraudsters to account is indispensable reading for any lawmaker serious about deterring corporate crime.” —Robert Jackson, professor of Law, New York University, and former commissioner, Securities and Exchange Commission “A great book that more than any other recent volume deftly explains why effective prosecution of corporate senior executives largely collapsed in the post-2007–2009 stock market crash period and why this creates a crisis of underenforcement. No one is Professor Coffee’s equal in tying together causes for the crisis.” —Joel Seligman, author, historian, former law school dean, and president emeritus, University of Rochester