Court documents show that Mr. Duko was employed as a manager of a local sound studio from 1999 through 2006. During that time, he was said to have abused his position of trust by “embezzling over $230,000 from his employer.” These documents go on to say that Duko “diverted payments made to his employer into his personal bank account,” and that he “failed to claim any of the embezzled income on his state income tax returns for the same period.” As the Franchise Tax Board has made clear in the past, all income is taxable, and that includes income which comes from illegal sources.

The FTB stated that the underreporting of income is part of the $6.5 billion tax gap which has been facing the state of California for some time now. The tax gap is defined as “the difference between the tax that is owed and the tax that is due.”

The case against Mr. Duko was part of a joint investigation between the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office and the Franchise Tax Board. His sentence was handed down to him in Department 50 of the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center, and the case was prosecuted by Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Serena Murillo.

Dale Duko also works as an actor in Los Angeles and has appeared in productions produced by the Sacred Fools Theater Company. According to his page on IMDB, his acting credits include a role as Reverend Paul in “The Popular Kids” episode of the CBS series “Criminal Minds.” He also cast as an LA County Sheriff’s Detective in the Gary Fleder-directed TV movie “Finnegan” which starred Teri Polo and Billy Zane.

Poverty is not the cause of white-collar crimes. If poverty was the root cause of crime, then crimes such as embezzlement, computer fraud, identity theft and environmental crimes by industry would not exist (Howard). In addition, most corporate crimes are committed by wealthy, middle-aged white men (Winslow, pg. 20), hardly the class that is considered to be “at-risk” for crime. These crimes are not taken seriously by those who would ask, “Why should we worry? They’re just a minority of criminals.” It is true that they are a minority, but their actions don’t just affect a single person or even a family. They can cause serious harm to entire neighborhoods, groups of society and even the society itself.

The war on drugs has exacerbated America’s crime problem. Making certain drugs illegal has made these substances attractive to criminals and terrorists because of the huge profits they can make. Carden points out in his article “Crime and Drug Policy” that “Outlawing marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and other drugs created a whole new class of crimes and moved traffic… to the black market.” By moving the sale, transport and creation of drugs into the black market the American government has created criminals and thereby, increased crime. By driving up the price of drugs, prohibition forces drug users to commit crimes to pay for a habit that would be easily affordable if it were legal (Boaz). Drug prohibition also violates individual rights. People have rights that government may not violate. Thomas Jefferson defined them as the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The decision as to what substances to put in one’s body should be made by the adult individual, not the government. What limits on government action are there? Supporters of the war on drugs would of course say that we can’t legalize all drugs because we would become a nation of addicts and crime would go up. In reality, the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920’s crated a black market that attracted organized criminals. Only when prohibition was repealed and alcohol was regulated did we see a drop in crime.

As well as petty crime, poverty is also blamed for some of the most gruesome of crime; terrorism. When in reality, terrorism is used as a violent form of political engagement, not a reaction to being impoverished. These terrorist groups are often revolutionaries and feel the only way to get their point across is through violence. As Michael Radu of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, wrote recently: “Ever since the Russian intellectuals ‘invented’ modern terrorism in the 19th century… terrorism is just one form [of revolutionary violence] of the relatively privileged. Terrorists have been middle class, often upper class, and always educated, but never poor” (Eisner). The European terrorist groups of the extreme left were predominantly middle class, whereas those of the extreme right (neo-Nazis) belonged to the lower social stratum. In short, one would look in vain for a clear socioeconomic pattern in the composition of terrorist movements (Laqueur). Those who disagree would never consider talking or especially listening to people who want us all dead. We can’t, however, “shut them up” with bombs or threat of destruction. This only fuels the fire. To not be hypocrites we must allow them to have a voice in a democratic society. We have skin heads and KKK here in America whom have the right to speak their minds, but they are a very small minority.

The argument against my position would say that crime is the result of poverty. They may make a good point that most people in prison are poor and that the poorest areas of major cities have the worst crime rates. However, the connection between poverty and crime needs to be looked at from a critical view. It can’t be certain that a child from a poor neighborhood with poor parental role models will turn to crime before education. Most of it depends on the person and their outlook on life. Most people in poverty are hard working, patriotic and have a supreme sense of hope that things will get better.

In conclusion, the link between poverty and crime is illogical and an easy way to blame a group for all of society’s problems. Poverty can’t be the sole reason for crime because those in poverty are not the only criminals; the war on drugs has created criminals, and terrorists (who commit the worst crimes) are often well educated and have high incomes. We need a new form of thinking about these problems and solutions, as well as the humility to admit we’ve been wrong before things can get better.

Works Cited:

Boaz, David. “The United States Should Abandon the War on Drugs.” Opposing Viewpoints: Dug Abuse. Ed. Jennifer A. Hurley. Sand Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999.

Carden, Art. “Crime and Drug Policy.” 5 Sept. 2008. The Independent Institute. 2 Nov. 2008. independent.org/newsroom/article.asp>

Eisner, Jane R. “Global Poverty Does Not Cause Terrorism.” Opposing Viewpoints: Poverty. Ed. Karen Balkin. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2004.

The John Howard Society of Alberta. “Poverty Does Not Cause Crime.” Opposing Viewpoints: Crime and Criminals. Ed. Tamara L. Roleff. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2000.

Laqueur Walter. “Poverty Does Not Cause Terrorism.” At Issue: At Issue: Is Poverty a Serious Threat?. Ed. Mercedes Munoz. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006.

Winslow, George. “Poverty Causes Crime.” Ed. James D. Torr. Opposing Viewpoints Crime and Criminals. Farmington Hills, MI, 2004. pg, 20

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Embezzlement is a modern crime. In early English common law, a man could not be charged with theft if the property he took had been turned over to him legally, even though he did not use the property in the way it’s owner wanted. But merchants and bankers needed a law to protect their property while their employees handled it. The courts devised the crime of embezzlement to cover this situation.

The punishment for embezzlement is imprisonment. Usually, the penalty is the same as for larceny, a year or more for a major theft and less than a year for a minor one.

G.W. Bush (2002)

Africa. What can be done to attend to this continent’s chronic political and humanitarian crises? It is taken as gospel that the root cause of the decay, instability, and humanitarian disasters which characterise Sub-Saharan Africa is a Western-educated elite who pervert democratic norms. However, much blame can be attributed to Western democracies, and to the former colonial powers – countries which systematically stripped Africa of its resources and natural wealth, then deserted it. Only our better-off Western powers can now heal Africa.

Due to the constant instability of the region, foreign companies are hesitant to invest in Africa. This lack of investment and unpredictability has created communities of high unemployment. African countries rely on an aid system which puts countries into debt. They are unable to set-out their own stall and be self-sufficient. Therefore, the majority of Africa’s people live in poverty.

This lack of wealth has effectively turned Africa into a white-collar fraud free-for-all – where political cliques and ethnic groups are engaged in a constant dogfight for ownership and control of a finite stock of resources. So Africa is locked into a destructive cycle of unemployment, civil war and debt.

In addition, since colonial times, Africa’s economic and social status has been fully concerned with the business of primary industry — agriculture, oil and minerals. As a result of this monism, Africa now has a problem adapting to foster an environment fit for the money-producing service industries. Consequently, it is unable to compete in the global economy.

Though unique cases in their own right, Uganda, Equatorial Guinea and the Sudan, exhibit typical characteristics of an African state.

In Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni has been in office since 1986, when restrictions on multi-party elections were imposed.

The first multi-party election in 25 years happened in February 2006 and Museveni was declared the winner. However, despite a technically democratic election, the opposition parties had endured harassment by the incumbents.

Museveni’s government has been accused of corruption, embezzling public funds and charging opposition leader Kiiza Besigye with treason, rape and terrorism. His supporters say these charges were politically motivated.

Uganda does not and cannot suppress democracy by itself. For example, a South African-based subsidiary of British defence company BAE Systems supplies the armoured vehicles which are routinely used to quell opposition protests.

It is this type of support the Western world must stop. One cannot denounce a regime with the right hand, and supply it with military hardware with the left. The short-term profit of Western companies must be forsaken for the long-term prospects of fully functioning and legitimate African markets.

Since its independence in 1968, Equatorial Guinea has only been ruled by two men – and they are from the same family. The current president of Equatorial Guinea is Teodoro Obiang Nguema. Nguema attended a military academy in Spain and his assent to the leadership of Equatorial Guinea has something of the aura of Greek tragedy. He overthrew and executed his uncle.

Country officials say Nguema won more than 97% of the vote in the country’s most-recent presidential elections, in December 2002.

The majority of the £370 million revenue the country generates is confiscated by the president, whilst most of Equatorial Guinea’s 500,000 subjects subsist on less than a dollar a day.

Diplomats and ministers have been caught smuggling drugs using diplomatic bags and even the president’s baggage.

Teodorin Nguema Obiang, 35, the eldest son of the President, is the favourite to succeed his father. In August 2006, the ageing dictator sacked his 50-man cabinet but reinstated Teodorin as minister of forestry. While Teodorin is his father’s favourite, the Western oil companies favour Gabriel, his younger brother.

Two-thirds of Equatoguinean oil is bought and sold by American oil companies, which should make the country’s activities a key concern of the United States government.

But Teodorin, a graduate of Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, doesn’t have a care in the world. Two years ago, a South African legal battle shed light into Teodorin’s wealth and extravagance. He has homes in Los Angeles, Buenos Aires and Paris, and once descended on Cape Town spending £1M on two Bentleys, which sat in their garages unused. He has an on-off relationship with the Grammy Award-winning singer Eve. The couple met when Teodorin hired the 303-foot yacht Tatoosh which belongs to Paul Allen, the Microsoft billionaire.

Sudan has been the victim of an almost continuous civil war since 1956. In June 1989, President Omar al-Bashir led a military coup and gained control of the country.

The Sudanese government’s militias are accused of being guilty of crimes against humanity and it continues to neglect its citizens in Darfur. In addition, government forces have attacked civilians and humanitarian workers in Darfur. Sympathizers of rebel groups are arbitrarily detained, as are foreign journalists, human rights workers, student activists and refugees.

The Darfur Conflict is a war the likes of which is rarely seen. Since 2003, the nomadic tribes have been fighting against the sedentary population of the region. The United States’ State Department’s human rights report (issued in March 2007) reports that “All parties committed serious abuses, including widespread killing of civilians, rape as a tool of war, systematic torture, robbery and recruitment of child soldiers”.

The war, if it can be called that, can be attributed to three factors: the ethnic and tribal lines of the people’s involved; ownership and control of the (hereditary) grazing grounds and farmland; and the marked decrease in rainfall; ergo water.

Peace and security: The Case of Sierra Leone

The president is head of state, head of government and commander-in-chief of the Sierra Leone Armed Forces and the Sierra Leone Police.

The government maintains strong control over the media. The political elite cannot be mentioned in the press, and the imprisonment and beating of journalists is not rare.

In 1991, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) began attacking villages near the Liberian border in the south, seizing diamond mines and destabilizing the country. Rebels sold diamonds on the black market to buy weapons and became notorious for chopping off the limbs of victims.

There was a brief return to civilian rule in 1996, which was halted by another coup, which was eventually repelled by the West African peacekeeping force, the Economic Community of West African States armed Monitoring Group or ECOMOG, led by troops from Nigeria.

A peace agreement was signed in 1999, which integrated RUF leaders into the government, and the United Nations set-up a body to oversee the transition to peace: the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL). However, the RUF took members of the mission hostage and confiscated their arms and ammunition and the violence resumed.

In 2002, with the aid of international forces, including 200 British troops, the rebels were disarmed.

Up to the present time, more than 70,000 combatants have been disarmed and put through vocational and educational programmes. However, a fractured economic base without jobs makes it difficult for youths to reintegrate into society.

A report by Human Rights Watch, released in 2005 said that “There is an inextricable link between the level of economic deprivation and the continuing cycle of war crimes throughout the region.”

What Can the Western World Do About Africa?

Before we can determine what should be done to heal Africa, several questions need to be answered: how will we know when there is a successfully functioning market economy? What are the systems and conditions that need to be in place before a modern society can grow and thrive, and can these prerequisites exist in Africa? Finally, how does globalisation affect the democratic and economic prospects of an African nation?

In Africa, more than in any other continent, the international community has the power to demand more democratic and responsible governance and to support the people that support that cause.

African states are internationally weak and dependent (70% of Chad’s budget comes from international donors). In Nigeria the regime needs foreign investment and its leaders crave legitimacy and acceptance from the world. Also, the personal assets of many corrupt African elites are invested heavily in Europe, Canada, and the U.S. Their children attend private schools there and they shop and spend holidays in the Western world. They need visas to do this. This gives the Western democracies real leverage, if they choose to use it.

The Western aid so systematically directed toward military budgets should be redirected toward schools, hospitals and businesses.

A plan needs to be formulated which brings Africa into the 21st century – a continent which no longer relies solely on primary resources. This plan must not only include the widespread basic education that has been so instrumental in the East Asian miracle, Sierra Leone and Zambia, but also information technology and marketing schools, as well as investment from big business.

Since nineteen United States servicemen were killed in 1993 in the infamous “Black Hawk Down” incident, it would be extremely difficult to get the American public to support the deployment of U.S. troops to restore democracy in an African state, but Britain has had success in peacekeeping missions in the cases of Kosovo in 1999 and Sierra Leone in 2002. Other powerful nations could step-up and give assistance to such efforts.

On the matter of violence within Africa, the United States National Security Agency (NSA) suggested three linked strategies: Countries with a major influence on their region; like South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya, should be hubs for regional engagement; there must be coordination with allies and international institutions for conflict mediation, as in the example of Nigeria and Sierra Leone; and Africa’s capable states and regional organizations must be strengthened as the primary means to address terrorist activities.

Pressure from Western states has made a difference in several instances, but only when the major democracies have been united. African states need to hear a coherent message. One large obstacle to Africa’s democratic and developmental progress has been the lack of consistency of Western powers over time.

When African military officers depose a functioning democracy, they should be told clearly, unanimously, and forcefully by the international community that their regime will be isolated from any support and that they must leave power and restore a constitutional system.

There are still too many “Western-approved” regimes – although they are never overtly referred to as such. For example, the continuing French support for a number of authoritarian “customer” states and continuing American support for Egypt shows compliance and a degree of recklessness on the part of these powerful states.

A new bargain needs to be brokered between Africa and the West, swapping debt for democracy and investment for integrity. However, as we know, this is easier said than done.