...After reading A Letter from Prison I have many takeaways and lessons learned. It is absolutely imperative that companies maintain their financial documents with as much accuracy and honesty as possible, and do their due diligence in taking whatever measures appropriate to have accurate financial data. If a company does not understand how to properly record revenue than it is their due diligence to comply with the accounting standards that are set and they must hire employee’s who understand how to properly handle the situation. The ethics within this case are very negative when it comes to revenue recognition and the backdating of software contracts. Recognizing revenue within certain time periods for future contracts that may or may not actually occur was another take-away from this case: you simply can’t do that and still comply with generally accepted accounting principles. The payments for these contracts were not reasonably assured because of the multi-year lengths, and, this was my “ah-ha” moment when reading this case. Safeguarding financial reporting is more about the reporting companies than anything else in my observation with a letter from prison. The company chose to backdate contracts and recognize revenue improperly without informing their auditors of these decisions or situations that were occurring. I do think that within other companies sometimes it is about the auditors and their role is to provide honest and professional auditing work of the financial statements...
Words: 906 - Pages: 4
...Andy Dufresne is put in prison. He is accused of a crime that he has not done. The officers go through a long process of questioning. Eventually Andy gets out of prison. Andy’s friend Red is released from prison as well. The warden commit suicide when he was alone, and he got robbed. Through the process of the questioning from the DA, he seemed to react as if he was calm, but irritated on in the inside from the accusation for his wife and her loved one's death. The DA asks Andy, “Do you mean to tell this court that your wife did not recognize your brand-new Plymouth sedan behind Quentin’s car?” Andy had calm responses to majority of the many questions the DA was asking. Andy was found guilty at the end of the case on a snowy Wednesday afternoon. Andy was sentenced his life to prison. He was taken into the Shawshank...
Words: 796 - Pages: 4
...9-110-045 REV: MARCH 31, 2011 EUGENE SOLTES A Letter from Prison On February 14, 2008, Stephen Richards, inmate #71320-053 at Taft Federal Correctional Institution, completed a letter to Eugene Soltes, a student at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Richards was the former global head of sales at Computer Associates. Exhibit 1 provides the list of questions Soltes asked Richards. Exhibit 2 is a copy of the letter Soltes received in return. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Professor Eugene Soltes prepared this case. HBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management. Copyright © 2009, 2010, 2011 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1800-545-7685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to www.hbsp.harvard.edu/educators. This publication may not be digitized, photocopied, or otherwise reproduced, posted, or transmitted, without the permission of Harvard Business School. Purchased by: CHUAN LAN llaass2@163.com on August 24, 2013 110-045 A Letter from Prison Computer Associates and Stephen Richards Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA) began as a four-person start-up in 1976. Its founder, Charles Wang, sought to...
Words: 3265 - Pages: 14
...Political Environment Case Study CJA 444 In this paper, my response to the letter from the state governor who asked me to end all educational, vocational, and treatment programs in the prison facility will be discussed. I will present negotiating suggestions, present updated information on how my programs have benefited our economics, present evidence on how much internal and external support my programs have. I will discuss who I will contact for support and present the effectiveness and the success of my policies. As the prison director, if I received a letter from my State Governor, verbally directing me to immediately stop all effective activities like the educational, vocational, and treatment opportunities in my prison institute, I would quickly respond to the letter stating why the he (Governor) has to reconsider his or her directives. Due to the effectiveness of my policies, I will not immediately yield to the Governor’s order on giving up my coordinated and effective programs; instead I would write the governor and prove how the society has economically benefited from my prison management system. I would also re-present my prison design and how I am getting inmates involved in education, and vocational opportunities which I believe has been productive and helpful to our societies. In addition, besides the benefit society achieves from this system, it also motivate the inmates by giving them a chance and opportunities to better themselves...
Words: 755 - Pages: 4
...North American Literature 2014-2015. Individual Freedom restricted by Puritans. Analysis of Hester, Chillingworth and Dimmesdale. [Nathaniel Hawthorne; The Scarlet Letter] ABSTRACT: The aim of this paper is to analyze how Nathaniel Hawthorne deals with the theme of freedom focusing on the major characters such as Hester, Chillingworth and Dimmesdale. I argue that, there is a sign of individual freedom due to the fact that all the characters have the right to act in the way they do it but they will be always suppressed by the decisions of the Puritans. I also argue that, there is no collective freedom in terms of society because Puritanism restricts, punishes and judges individual actions. Key words: major characters, individual freedom, suppressed, no collective freedom. The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850, is constructed by the main themes of isolation and suffering. Moreover, sin and the Puritan law are narrowly connected, making the wish of freedom almost an impossible achievement. Over the course of the novel, Hester is the only one who truly manifests her right of individual freedom. However, she has been punished by the Puritan law, which considers her attitude as a threat to the Puritan community and its religion. Hester’s freedom starts since the moment she decides to carry her punishment in New England and not going back to England, where she could have lived a new life without feeling guilty. Furthermore, her self-determination...
Words: 1186 - Pages: 5
...SuperMax Prison Michele Fuentes Ms. Calais November 7, 2012 Westwood College Week 4 Assignment CJRS 121 SuperMax prisons are lacking of personnel and super security according to the article “SuperMax Prison is Super Lax, Court Case Allege” from Drew Griffin and James Polk. These high profile dangerous criminals are still able to communicate with the world and run illegal activity from prisons. This does not make sense. How can a high security institution allow this to happen? Even if they don’t know of the matter, they are still serving time in the SuperMax security, which means top of the line-supervised institute. If illegal activity is happening outside in society and the orders/shots are being called from inside the institute, then the way of monitoring and supervising the inmates needs to change to isolate them form society. Ruben “Night Owl” Castro was accused of running illegal activities form his SuperMax cell. Castro was relaying messages in various ways like coded letters, phone calls, and though his girlfriends whom will go visit him and help send out his messages. A change that can be done to prevent Castro to do this is isolate him from society. He is in a SuperMax because he broke the law and committed a serous crime. He shouldn’t be allowed to have any visitors. He is in prison to isolate him from society, that time of isolation means no visitors, letters, phone calls, nor contact with any human besides the prison guards. This should apply to an inmate...
Words: 606 - Pages: 3
...Develop close bond with IR .open up to her audience .she can only talk to you, you can only listen to her .express how she truly feels, opinions, feeling and thoughts .seek what she really think, instead of what she tells other people Disadvantages: .never know if IR is being honest, telling the truth .only her speaking, can’t listen to other peoples view points .cant question her .not a balanced view point .Over powering, mind controlling Facts on IR character scn 1: .opening paragraph, AB doesn’t reveal much .shared few facts, facts he does share are basic doesn’t give much information .mother dead, lives alone .cousin in Canada, apparently only relative .suggests lonely, learnt to be independent .likes to write frequent letters .recently attended funeral of someone she doesn’t even know correct name of .cant of known recently decease lady .’At least it’s an outing’ .suggests doesn’t have anything better to do, didn’t have close relationship with lady .neighbours just moves in, observes street occasionally .’Don’t look very promising, kiddy looks filthy’ Hints she is judgmental, immediately assumes they aren’t promising .well spoken ‘mover over’ .few facts, gather she is lonely, judgmental, self assured, bored, nothing to do with life Positive and Negative Characteristics: .opening paragraph, IR reveals number of Pos and Neg characteristics .what she says, how she says it POS: .doesn’t use plain, simple, boring words .uses big well spoken...
Words: 2207 - Pages: 9
...to understand how the correction system work. There are several different entities that goes along with the criminal justice system. This has often been overlooked by parts of the justice system which is corrections. This being many ethical dilemmas that can present themselves, by both which is institutional and community corrections settings. Let’s look at the difference of the two corrections. In being institutional you would see things like a prison guard being approached by an inmate whom was put on mail restriction which means the inmate cannot receive any type of mail service. This some things guards go through on a day to day bases. In institutions such as this you have inmates who are serving a long sentence so they end up in getting in trouble and while in trouble they find that one guard who they can make feel sorry for them. This prison guard is facing a dilemma of should he mail the letter and break the rules of the restriction. Or should he not mail the letter and follow the rules. The guard were to mail the letter maybe the inmate would keep other inmates in line for him. If he does this, it can make the inmate think he...
Words: 752 - Pages: 4
...particular place in Christian history by closely examining his background and historical setting, and some of his more significant works. This paper will look into Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship, and Ethics, and his Prison Correspondence. These works are important in understanding the man and as a theologian and they give an accurate picture of what it was like to live back in those times as a Christian. Despite the numerous accounts of WWII that are out there are very few that give us an account from the perspective of a Christian and the hope that all Christians can share even in the darkest of times. But before we get into his works let us take a look at some of his background. Who was Dietrich Bonhoeffer? With every great hero there must be a great villain, and in the case of Bonhoeffer there was no greater villain than the Nazi party or specifically Adolf Hitler himself. Not many people realize this but when Nazism first started it was considered a Christian movement coming from the Lutheran Church. The Nazi party tended to get much of their beliefs from the sayings of Martin Luther in his later life. Because in Luther’s later life he did come to write many anti-semantic statements that the Nazi party adopted and went about trying to enforce and in some cases over exaggerating Luther’s original intent. This is when Bonhoeffer's story takes place, at a time when the Nazi party had its greatest influence in the German church and many submitted to their rule out of fear. Bonhoeffer...
Words: 3057 - Pages: 13
...Court began at 8:30am room 575 with Judge Bernini Deborah. Six inmates were present, including many family member in the audience. First case was Case no. CR20134419 Event was disposition hearing with the State of AZ vs Betancourt, Richard Samuel, richard was in custody for shoplifting and for probation violation. Judge mentioned that she received richards letter Judge Bernini Deborah takes time to read over letter, lawyer also mentioned that five richards family were indeed present. Letter written by richard was an apologize to the court and made it clear that his mistakes were never because of no family support, he mentioned to the court that his family support is beyond amazing and that he does indeed have a job waiting for him when released, judge asked how long will they hold that job for you, inmate answered that he did not know. Richard samuel betancourt was sentenced to 30 days, no probation. Judge was impressed with his family support, his letter and the fact that he has a job awaiting for him....
Words: 877 - Pages: 4
...Fishman, Shorunda Hinton: Instructor: Ms.S BSHS / 355 September 4, 2015 Social Policy Paper War on Drugs; Take A Stand: The Case for Reforming Drug Policy: Most of us cannot imagine a place where it is legal to sell, buy, and use drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin, crystal meth, ecstasy. The mere thought of these substances being legal like tobacco and alcohol seems absurd since the War on Drugs, the prevailing approach to drug policy in the United States is in its fifth decade. Yet there are advocates, many of them well respected authorities and government officials, of drug policy reform, the decriminalization of drugs, and even legalization. Has the War on Drugs been lost? Do we need to look at drug use and addiction as a public health problem instead of a crime problem? Should we focus attention and funds on those who use drugs or fight to keep drugs from coming into the United States from other countries? “ We believe the Global War on Drugs is Now Causing More Harm Than Drug Abuse Itself.” That was the half-page headline of a two-page add in The New York Times on June 8th, of 1998. The heading was followed by a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The letter pointed out that “U.N. agencies estimate the annual revenue generated by the illegal drug industry is at $400 billion, roughly eight percent of the total international trade.” It blamed crime corruption...
Words: 1449 - Pages: 6
...to Beijing and sorrowfully turned himself in to the police. "Frankly," a police official told him dismissively, before sending him home again, "we don't want you anymore." Fear has diminished, though certainly not vanished. Cultural restrictions have relaxed, allowing newspapers and magazines to write about issues like pollution and homosexuality. Thousands of political prisoners arrested after Tiananmen have been released, and most are allowed to leave China. Political study classes are out, and talk radio is in. One human face of these changes is Wang Dan, the slight, earnest 24-year-old who was the leader of the Tiananmen student movement. Captured a month after the crackdown as he tried to flee the country, Mr. Wang was released from prison in February and today seems not at all intimidated by the experience. 'A Contradiction' Mr. Wang now sports a beeper and hopes to get a cellular telephone this summer, apparently through the...
Words: 762 - Pages: 4
...parents going to jail or prison. One might think that the child is not affected by the removal of one or both parents from their lives as long as they still have someone to care for them but that is not true. Children with one or both parents in jail or prison are extremely affected emotionally, academically, and socially. Today prisons are overcrowded and over two million male and female Americans are in jail or prison. Two thirds of those people incarcerated are parents. Approximately two million children are separated from their mom or dad because of incarceration. These children suffer from poverty, inconsistency in caregivers, separation from siblings, reduced education, increased risk for substance abuse, alcoholism and incarceration themselves. Furthermore, in midyear 2007 it was estimated that 52% of state inmates and 63% of federal inmates reported having about 1,706,600 children under the age of 18. That number of children account for 2.3% of the U.S. resident population under 18 years of age. From 1991 to 2007 the number of parents in...
Words: 1640 - Pages: 7
...Jail System The Prison Law of the People's Republic of China was adopted and went into force on December 20, 1994 at the 11th meeting of the Standing Committee of the Eighth National People's Congress. Regulatory Authorities The Prison Law provides that the State Council judicial administration (Ministry of Justice) supervises all prisons across the country. The Ministry of Justice has a Bureau of Prison Administration that supervises all prisons in the country. In the provinces (municipalities directly under the central government and autonomous regions), offices of justice are responsible for managing prisons in their own jurisdiction through their prison administration arms. Prisons in China are divided into two categories: Prisons incarcerating inmates who have been condemned by courts to a fixed-term sentence, life sentence or death penalty with two years reprieve. Male and female inmates are warded separately, with female wards managed by female law enforcement personnel. Prisons may also be divided into wards for felons and criminals of misdemeanour. Penitentiaries for juvenile delinquents, criminals of minor age who have been condemned by courts to a fixed-term sentence, life sentence or death penalty with two years reprieve. Special protection is extended to juvenile delinquents, with customized procedures in place to cater to their needs. Prison Setup and Staffing The Prison Law provides that the State Council judicial administration approves the establishment...
Words: 2190 - Pages: 9
...Accepted Answer Hi - Here are my opinions based on this case: 1.How serious were Stephen Richard’s actions? Why? Stephen Richard's actions in this can be viewed as extremely serious because he used his high position of power in sales to coerce clients into boosting sales earnings by quarter. This led to "overly aggressive accounting practices" to boost their reported earnings. Evidence supported that the managerial use of discretion to greatly influence reported earnings was not only used by Richards', but it had become a company-wide practice. This naturally drew the attention of the DOJ and the SEC as they investigated the potential wrongdoings. Investigators found enough evidence to prove that the former CFO illegally facilitated the backdating of many contracts. Richards' involvement, as the global head of sales, included facilitating extensions of the fiscal quarter, allowing other employees to obtain contracts after the quarter-end (to boost reported earnings), and he failed to bring to the accounting and finance departments' attention that contracts may have been backdated. Stephen Richard's actions are notably serious because he had knowledge of the wrongdoings and he was in a position to report it, but he chose not to. 2.Suppose you were placed in Stephen Richard’s position at Computer Associates and you were under pressure to extend the fiscal quarter. How would you handle the situation differently? What would be the expected consequences? If placed...
Words: 760 - Pages: 4
