The book “DIVIDE” written by Matt Taibbi was published in 2014 by Spiegel & Grau Publisher. The book consists of stories that portray the U.S society as a society that divides the citizens in to rich and poor and ones with power or without power. Powerful people gain even more power while those who are weak get weaker. Average citizens are being criminalized while large corporations are being forgiven for their criminal actions. Taibbi goes through nine examples that exemplify how justice works in United States. The system allows the wealthy Americans to be forgiven regardless of how big the crime is and they are punished with minor charges. Poor Americans, on the other side, are guilty and accept all punishments and face harassment becausethose
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Citigroup certified thousands of loans for federal backing, regardless of the lacking assessments on the loans. Citigroup paid $158 million in civil fines but no criminal charges were put against anyone or the company. In the book, he mentions “Every day on Wall Street, money is stolen, embezzled, burgled, and robbed. But the mechanisms of these thefts are often so arcane and idiosyncratic that they don’t fit neatly into the criminal code” (pg.320) Unequal wealth is demonstrating unequal outcome of criminal justice. (pg. 314-352)
Lastly chapter 9 tells an incident of when Goldman Sachs underwrote more than $11 billion in federally backed mortgages and billions of dollars in mortgage-backed products as well. Even though the bank managers knew of these loans, Goldman Sachs did not inform the regulators bur rather tried to speed up to divest itself of the loans to customers who were not aware. As a result, no criminal charges or fines were put on the company. But Fabrice Tourre, CEO of the company paid some fines and was filed for being a misleading investor in the civil court. (pg. …show more content…
One night, as he was walking home from work around 1am, he is stopped by the police officer. He was dressed in work clothes with a name badge and was talking to a neighbor in front of his own apartment building. The police claimed that he was blocking the pedestrian traffic. Andrew tried to explain that he was just coming back from work, however he was arrested, handcuffed and was put in to a van. He was strip searched and was charged. He decided to fight back after having to deal with number of law enforcements that did not seem reasonable to him. He believed that he was not guilty since he was only standing in front of his own apartment building, and there was not pedestrian traffic that he was blocking. However, number of lawyers advised him to plead guilty and take the fine which will also add a misdemeanor on his record. The court made Andrew Brown take the charge and pay the fine, and then the case was dismissed. (pg.
Citigroup certified thousands of loans for federal backing, regardless of the lacking assessments on the loans. Citigroup paid $158 million in civil fines but no criminal charges were put against anyone or the company. In the book, he mentions “Every day on Wall Street, money is stolen, embezzled, burgled, and robbed. But the mechanisms of these thefts are often so arcane and idiosyncratic that they don’t fit neatly into the criminal code” (pg.320) Unequal wealth is demonstrating unequal outcome of criminal justice. (pg. 314-352)
Lastly chapter 9 tells an incident of when Goldman Sachs underwrote more than $11 billion in federally backed mortgages and billions of dollars in mortgage-backed products as well. Even though the bank managers knew of these loans, Goldman Sachs did not inform the regulators bur rather tried to speed up to divest itself of the loans to customers who were not aware. As a result, no criminal charges or fines were put on the company. But Fabrice Tourre, CEO of the company paid some fines and was filed for being a misleading investor in the civil court. (pg. …show more content…
One night, as he was walking home from work around 1am, he is stopped by the police officer. He was dressed in work clothes with a name badge and was talking to a neighbor in front of his own apartment building. The police claimed that he was blocking the pedestrian traffic. Andrew tried to explain that he was just coming back from work, however he was arrested, handcuffed and was put in to a van. He was strip searched and was charged. He decided to fight back after having to deal with number of law enforcements that did not seem reasonable to him. He believed that he was not guilty since he was only standing in front of his own apartment building, and there was not pedestrian traffic that he was blocking. However, number of lawyers advised him to plead guilty and take the fine which will also add a misdemeanor on his record. The court made Andrew Brown take the charge and pay the fine, and then the case was dismissed. (pg.