UC Davis experts: Crime

The University of California, Davis, has campus experts available to provide commentary related to crime.

• Corporate crime, business ethics, fraud, bribery, antitrust
• White-collar crime, corporate ethics, social responsibility
• Corporate governance, executive compensation
• Entrepreneurial criminals
• History of American attitudes toward murder
• Defending death-row inmates

Corporate crime, business ethics, fraud, bribery, antitrust

Professor Michael Maher of the Graduate School of Management is a recognized expert on managerial accounting and corporate crime including fraud, bribery and antitrust activities. He develops profiles of companies and managers who commit corporate misconduct, and studies and lectures on corporate ethics and the responsibilities of business and auditors to stakeholders. Maher focuses his research on the efficiency of recent developments in managerial accounting, including activity based costing, benchmarking and theory constraints. He has authored more than 10 books on the principles and essentials of managerial accounting and written or edited chapters in more than 20 other publications. Maher has also conducted research on anti-trust issues related to the airline industry, the cost effectiveness of online education and health-care costs. He consults for government and many different industries, including computer software, automobile, defense, health-care and pharmaceutical industries. Contact: Michael Maher, Graduate School of Management, (530) 752-7034, mwmaher@ucdavis.edu.

White-collar crime, corporate ethics, social responsibility

Professor Donald Palmer of the Graduate School of Management focuses his research on corporate governance, the interlocking nature of corporate directorships, and the role of power and politics in executive succession. He is an expert on corporate and white-collar crime, corporate ethics and social responsibility. As a specialist in organizational behavior, Palmer examines basic psychological and social psychological processes shaping human behavior and applies knowledge of these processes to the problem of working with and managing others in organizations. He also has extensive knowledge of mergers and acquisitions, regional economic growth and the health-care industry. Contact: Donald Palmer, Graduate School of Management, (530) 752-8566, dapalmer@ucdavis.edu.

Corporate governance, executive compensation

Professor Thomas Joo of the UC Davis School of Law can comment on how poor corporate governance and executive compensation practices may have contributed to recent corporate scandals. He has written extensively on corporate governance. Joo organized a national symposium on corporate governance in 2001, and the proceedings were recently published in the UC Davis Law Review. Contact: Thomas Joo, School of Law, (530) 754-6089, twjoo@ucdavis.edu.

Entrepreneurial criminals

Some of the same attributes that create successful, legitimate business people may operate in the criminal world, says Bill McCarthy, an associate professor of sociology at UC Davis. His finding has broad implications for public policy. "Some offenders score high on measures of competence, they're willing to work with other people and they make decisions that increase their earnings," McCarthy says. "We bear a considerable cost imprisoning people like this who could make a contribution in the legal economy." Borrowing ideas from economic theories about the attributes that contribute to prosperity in legitimate enterprises, McCarthy says people who were the most successful at crime have a strong desire to succeed, specialize, are risks-takers and are willing to work with others. And, importantly, they are competent. Contact: Bill McCarthy, Sociology, (530) 752-1563, bdmccarthy@ucdavis.edu.

Defending death-row inmates

• John W. Poulos, professor of law at UC Davis, was successful in setting aside a death penalty sentence for a client in 1988 and has since represented other death-row inmates in the federal court system. Contact: John W. Poulos, Law, (530) 752-2881, jwpoulos@ucdavis.edu.
• James F. Smith, senior lecturer of law at UC Davis, is the former director of the law school's prison law clinic. He also has defended death-row inmates. Contact: James F. Smith, Law, (530) 752-3471 (office) or (916) 757-1036, (fluent Spanish speaker) jfsmith@ucdavis.edu.

Media contacts:

• Claudia Morain, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9841, .

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