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Articles 1 - 9 of 9
Full-Text Articles in Law
Redistributing Justice, Benjamin Levin, Kate Levine
Redistributing Justice, Benjamin Levin, Kate Levine
Scholarship@WashULaw
This article surfaces an obstacle to decarceration hiding in plain sight: progressives’ continued support for the carceral system. Despite increasingly prevalent critiques of criminal law from progressives, there hardly is a consensus on the left in opposition to the carceral state. Many left-leaning academics and activists who may critique the criminal system writ large remain enthusiastic about criminal law in certain areas—often areas where defendants are imagined as powerful and victims as particularly vulnerable. In this article, we offer a novel theory for what animates the seemingly conflicted attitude among progressives toward criminal punishment—the hope that the criminal system can …
Wage Theft Criminalization, Benjamin Levin
Wage Theft Criminalization, Benjamin Levin
Scholarship@WashULaw
Over the past decade, workers’ rights activists and legal scholars have embraced the language of “wage theft” in describing the abuses of the contemporary workplace. The phrase invokes a certain moral clarity: theft is wrong. The phrase is not merely a rhetorical flourish. Increasingly, it has a specific content for activists, politicians, advocates, and academics: wage theft speaks the language of criminal law, and wage theft is a crime that should be punished. Harshly. Self-proclaimed “progressive prosecutors” have made wage theft cases a priority, and left-leaning politicians in the United States and abroad have begun to propose more criminal statutes …
Criminal Employment Law, Benjamin Levin
Criminal Employment Law, Benjamin Levin
Scholarship@WashULaw
This Article diagnoses a phenomenon, “criminal employment law,” which exists at the nexus of employment law and the criminal justice system. Courts and legislatures discourage employers from hiring workers with criminal records and encourage employers to discipline workers for non-work-related criminal misconduct. In analyzing this phenomenon, my goals are threefold: (1) to examine how criminal employment law works; (2) to hypothesize why criminal employment law has proliferated; and (3) to assess what is wrong with criminal employment law. This Article examines the ways in which the laws that govern the workplace create incentives for employers not to hire individuals with …
Labor Unions, Solidarity, And Money, Marion G. Crain, Ken Matheny
Labor Unions, Solidarity, And Money, Marion G. Crain, Ken Matheny
Scholarship@WashULaw
For labor, 2018 was a year of highs and lows. A wave of teachers’ strikes in states traditionally hostile to public sector labor unionism and collective bargaining garnered widespread popular support. The passions animated by the strikes were credited with inspiring a range of progressive political shifts, including the rollback of right to work laws in Missouri and new challengers running on education platforms aimed at increasing investment in public education. Less than three months later, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31 invalidating agency fees that public sector unions relied on to cover costs …
Criminal Labor Law, Benjamin Levin
Criminal Labor Law, Benjamin Levin
Scholarship@WashULaw
This Article examines a recent rise in suits brought against unions under criminal statutes. By looking at the long history of criminal regulation of labor, the Article argues that these suits represent an attack on the theoretical underpinnings of post-New Deal U.S. labor law and an attempt to revive a nineteenth century conception of unions as extortionate criminal conspiracies. The Article further argues that this criminal turn is reflective of a broader contemporary preference for finding criminal solutions to social and economic problems. In a moment of political gridlock, parties seeking regulation increasingly do so via criminal statute. In this …
Inmates For Rent, Sovereignty For Sale: The Global Prison Market, Benjamin Levin
Inmates For Rent, Sovereignty For Sale: The Global Prison Market, Benjamin Levin
Scholarship@WashULaw
In 2009, Belgium and the Netherlands announced a deal to send approximately 500 Belgian inmates to Dutch prisons, in exchange for an annual payment of £26 million. The arrangement was unprecedented, but justified as beneficial to both nations: Belgium had too many prisoners and not enough prisons, whereas the Netherlands had too many prisons and not enough prisoners. The deal has yet to be replicated, nor has it triggered sustained criticism or received significant scholarly treatment. This Article aims to fill this void by examining the exchange and its possible implications for a global market in prisoners and prison space. …
American Gangsters: Rico, Criminal Syndicates, And Conspiracy Law As Market Control, Benjamin Levin
American Gangsters: Rico, Criminal Syndicates, And Conspiracy Law As Market Control, Benjamin Levin
Scholarship@WashULaw
In an effort to re-examine legal and political decisions about criminalization and the role of the criminal law in shaping American markets and social institutions, this Article explores the ways in which criminal conspiracy laws in the United States have historically been used to subdue non-state actors and informal markets that threatened the hegemony of the state and formal market. To this end, the Article focuses primarily on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) as illustrative of broader trends in twentieth century criminal policy. Enacted in 1970, RICO provides criminal sanctions for individuals engaged in unacceptable organized activities …
Made In The U.S.A.: Corporate Responsibility And Collective Identity In The American Automotive Industry, Benjamin Levin
Made In The U.S.A.: Corporate Responsibility And Collective Identity In The American Automotive Industry, Benjamin Levin
Scholarship@WashULaw
This Article seeks to challenge the corporate-constructed image of American business and American industry. By focusing on the automotive industry and particularly on the tenuous relationship between the rhetoric of automotive industry advertising and the realities of doctrinal corporate law, I hope to examine the ways that we as social actors, legal actors, and (perhaps above all) consumers understand what it means for a corporation or a corporation’s product to be American. In a global economy where labor, profits, and environmental effects are spread across national borders, what does it mean for a corporation to present the impression of national …
Blue-Collar Crime: Conspiracy, Organized Labor, And The Anti-Union Civil Rico Claim, Benjamin Levin
Blue-Collar Crime: Conspiracy, Organized Labor, And The Anti-Union Civil Rico Claim, Benjamin Levin
Scholarship@WashULaw
This Article provides an historically-rooted analysis of a recent spate of civil RICO complaints arising from labor union organizing campaigns. The Article historicizes contemporary civil RICO suits against labor unions by analogizing to nineteenth century conspiracy prosecutions of unions. In tracing this history of organized labor’s social standing, the Article addresses the cultural framing of the union and its place in political and cultural discourse over the past century. The civil RICO complaints have received limited scholarly attention mainly focusing on issues of federal preemption; this Article argues for a broad reading of the cases as a way to understand …