Diane Dimond
Diane Dimond's New Site
American Greed Interview
Watch my recent Video Interview: " The American Greed Report: How to control your money, even after you die."
An Award Winning Series on Guardianship
My investigative research has uncovered a major flaw in America’s court system. It has to do with how overburdened and underfunded courts deal with family disputes over what to do with an elderly Mom or Dad. A growing number of families, nationwide, have learned that once a family member turns to the courts for help their parent could be placed under an odious elder guardianship situation managed by total stranger. Families caught up in this system say it turned their aging parent’s final years into a nightmare. These are my findings about the system in one state.
Who guards the guardians? - A five part series by Diane Dimond
(My Albuquerque Journal series was awarded the Institute for American Studies prestigious Clark Mollenhoff Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism. Please read the sidebar stories in the left hand column under: More Info.) The series also won two major awards from the New Mexico Press Association including Best Investigative Public Service award.
My Latest Book Has Landed!
Check out the cool trailer for my latest book. Just click in the box above.
Thinking Outside The Crime and Justice Box is a compilation of some of my favorite and most thought provoking columns – with updates and new text. The book discusses today’s headline crime cases as well as crime and justice issues readers may not realize even existed. Compelling human stories at the core of crime are often the centerpiece of my columns and reading about stranger’s struggles can help readers better understand the dynamics surrounding crime, law enforcement and justice. Look, there is good and evil in the world and I figure it is my job to point it out.
The e-book is available here: – here. The hold-in-your-hand book is coming soon! Thanks to the kind folks at Creators Publishing.
Latest Syndicated Column
America’s Mindset This Independence Day
Did you enjoy the 243rd birthday of our country over this long weekend? Wait a minute. Do I hear some grousing out there? Is that grumbling I hear about the state of the nation? Complaints that everything is not perfect in the USA?
Get a grip, people. No nation can be faultless in its operation. We are, after all, a group of flawed human beings trying to govern ourselves as best we can.
Our Modern-Day Debtor’s Prisons
See if you can find the logic in this. A local government issues traffic fines to residents for infractions like not wearing a seat belt, expired registration tags or a broken taillight. If the fine isn’t promptly paid then interest and penalties pile up and soon a $50 or $100 ticket can quickly balloon to many thousands of dollars.
If a person cannot afford to promptly pay the full ticket what sense does it make to keep piling on extra monetary demands?
D-Day’s Youth vs Today’s Youth
Seventy-five years ago, tens of thousands of brave and selfless young men from the United States, Canada and Great Britain took part in the largest seaborne invasion history has ever seen. It was carried out on the beaches of Normandy, France and propelled by the ideal that no one man should dominate others, no foreign power should be allowed to conquer another.
In coordination with young people from the French Resistance who staged elaborate pre-invasion sabotages against Hitler’s invaders we ousted the dreaded Nazis from their unlawful occupation of France. Even after much blood was shed on that beach surviving warriors would go on to rescue western Europe from German domination as well. The Nazi regime was crushed. Democracy emerged alive and well.
Horrible Harvey – No Way to Run a Justice System
How is it that someone accused of dozens of criminal acts can throw millions of dollars at a problem and pay his way out of trouble?
That is what’s happening with Horrible Harvey Weinstein, except if all goes as planned he won’t be paying out anything. His insurance companies will handle the payoffs to the tune of at least $44 million.
The Staggering Costs of Imprisonment in the U.S.
Guess how much our nation’s system of mass incarceration costs each year? I’m talking about the taxpayer funded budgets of prisons, jails, probation departments and the public employees who staff them. Add in the cost of running the criminal justice system; the amount spent on health care, food and incidentals for inmates and the financial burden on families that have a person in the system.
Put all that together and guess how much we, collectively, spend on our system of imprisonment in the United States?
Allowing Prisoners to Vote – Let’s Think This Through
So democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders wants to give all prisoners the right to vote. He said so during a recent campaign speech, much to the surprise of many. I was among them.
Sanders believes “the right to vote is inherent to our democracy” and even “terrible people” like the Boston Marathon bomber should be allowed to participate. No other democratic candidate has gotten behind this idea, although several have said they support returning the right to vote to convicts after their release.
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Did you enjoy the 243rd birthday of our country over this long weekend? Wait a ...
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Seventy-five years ago, tens of thousands of brave and selfless young men from the United ...
How is it that someone accused of dozens of criminal acts can throw millions of ...
