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Stevenson & Prejean have both dedicated their lives to issues of justice. Prejean has mostly focused on death penalty abolition, while Stevenson has more broadly focused on using the legal system to fight/change unjust punishment outcomes. What, if any, social issue do you see yourself devoting your career to? What route do you think would be best to achieve your goals?*

I would like to focus on civl rights like racism.I was very hesitant to answer this question, because of the profession I want to get. I would think about becoming a ICE agent when I graduate from Nevada State College. I know many people see this job being racist since they take people out the country but I think there’s more to the story. We have all seen how ICE agents yell and scream at the people they are trying to get but knowing they can’t speak the language that they are being yelled at and bad stuff happens. I think that me as a latino, I could talk to to them in the language if it’s spanish so the process could go faster and better.I don’t know if you heard about how the ICE agency was hiring their employees? Let me say it was all over the new that they would go to NASCAR races to seek out people. Now you may ask what’s so wrong with that ? Let me explain that these events are mostly loved by white people. They wouldn’t look for minorities at the poor neighborhoods to help them out or go to a Mexican taco shop to look for employees, no they wanted white people. Now that can be seen as White supremacist but these is were minorities could make a big change.We could see a change since there has always been white people in ICE but putting more minorities would be so different in my point of view. People without papers in these country are scary when they hear ICE is coming not only because they may be forced to go to their home countries but because the people they well have to face.We see that some people don’t deserve to be in this great country we call home but some just come to work to have a better life than back in their home country.We shouldn’t be making it harder than it already is to leave a country you grown into. I believe that social justice can start anywhere like in dead man walking  sister Prejean was just a nun with very little social power became very powerful person be starting in a humble spot. I think our problem is that we think we can start from the top down when we need to see the problems from the start not from the end.If we start from the first we could work up and get to the top to finish the job.

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Explore your own religious/spiritual beliefs, or lack thereof, and how, if at all, it may impact your feelings toward the death penalty & corporal punishment. Do you think Sister Prejean’s religion plays a role in her commitment to death penalty abolition, or is religion really her credential (i.e. much like having a law degree or being a social worker) for fighting for abolition? Use examples from the book to explain how you can or cannot relate to her fight.

My religious beliefs are about the same with sister Prejean since I am Christian and believe that love conquers all.I think that Jesus showed that on the cross, the Bible stated that “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son , that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life,” when they state that they didn’t have he died just for the good one but he full world. I think sister Prejeans religion played a huge role in my opinion. There are a lot of theories what talk about how family plays a big role and she states that her parents always showed her love and that they had the religion since she was small. She was brought up to show care and love for everyone. I think she just had a lighting up moment when they told her that she had to help not just pray for the people in need. We can see that faith was a big part of her but action was were she need help and by getting the chance to be Patrick’s spiritual adviser and seeing the wrongs in the justice system by killing people.In a personal aspect  I don’t think religion was her credential since she was a nun before becoming a activist-nun. I think that your beliefs play a bigger part than your job. We can see how police officers are not all the same. We see some with hate against minorities and we see other trying their best to do the job. I think if a cop was born into a house hold that told him that minorities were below him/her that will affect her/his job and if a person is brought up in a loving home were they teach you to love everyone you will also be different in your job.They may both have the same credential but may act way different in there jobs. I can relate to her fight because we see that we are spending money like crazy to just put people on death role that some of that money could help stop crimes before they start like putting that money in schooling. We see that poor neighborhoods have “more crime “ but they on’t talk about the poor schooling they get as well. I think if they deserve death then let them rot in prison and just let it be. We see jail time or prison as something light but is not.Just think about how it would be to sleep with another person you don’t know in a tiny cell. This no joke if there is a problem with the person you bunk with how are you going to sleep knowing h or she could kill you in the night. Lets not even talk about the food these people get. We think they live and it’s not enough but I can tell you that if we ask them if it’s easy I’m sure they would be like “NO!”

We should do a study to show people that jail and prison are no joke.

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“[The] prosecutor during the sentencing portion of the trial told the jury that Pat was incapable of rehabilitation and would kill again and the only way to protect other prisoners or society at large would be to execute him. (45)” Obviously, there is no way to know if this statement is true or not. Discuss why or why not prosecutors should be able to say whatever they want and receive total immunity, legally speaking. Point to examples from Just Mercy for further evidence.

While reading chapter three on page 45 it shocked me to hear what the prosecutor said to the jury. I thought that only facts could be stated by the prosecutor to condemn a person. I go back and forth with Pats’ case because he stated that he was always in trouble and that his dad would always get him out. We  can see that the jail system was not really affecting him in any positive way since he kept going back in and what would be different this time that he murdered two teen and the judge didn’t put the full extent of the criminal justice system on him. We would have the thought of if he would kill again ? The other question would be would we want him in our community or would we want him in prison ? People tend to think about themselves first than to think about what the prisoner is going to go through. I think if we were to ask people at random if they would like to live next to a killer or have him be put down must people would have the killer killed than to have in the back of their heads “ there’s a killer next door, what if I am next ?” Now in the beginning I said that I went back and forth because I also don’t think the prosecutor should be able to tell the people the suppose future since no one knows it. I don’t think anyone would like to be judged by the mistakes they made in their past. There is no science to the fact that if someone did a crime he or she would do it again. I think we have a problem in our system that we put people in prison than let them go and think they going to be good in a world they haven’t been in years. I think this is a huge factor where we see people go back to a life of crime. Till now we are seeing programs to help ex-convicts get a job and a place to stay. We have to understand that no one wants an ex-convicts living in their homes or working for them. The programs saw these problems an is trying to help these people because if they don’t they will go back to crime since it’s something they know how to do. I think people don’t see the harm going to jail or going to prison does. It hurts the person going to jailor prison but also the family. I talked to one of my teachers (Professor,Durante) how before people would get whips and we saw these as harsh punishment but in realty they could go to work the next day and it would hurt the person and not the family as going to prison does.

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#blog7 #JUSTDOIT!!

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1 Sister Prejean talks about how she used to see political activism as something that wasn’t for nuns. She later changes her mind, and has devoted her life to social justice movements within the criminal justice system, with an emphasis on the death penalty. She says “to be apolitical or neutral in the face of such injustices would be, in actuality, to uphold the status quo – a very political position to take, and on the side of the oppressors (5).” Discuss what she means by this. Do you agree with her? Reflect upon your own life – have you taken any actions to better society, or have you mostly stayed on the sideline?

While reading the first chapter of Dead man Walking this quote is very strong and sticks to you because we usually don’t worry about problems that are not hurting us. In my opinion I think she is saying with this quote is that if we as a society are just about of the status quo that just does what they are told we are as well part of the problem. These problem is bad in the  sence that we the people are not fighting the court system in these cases were people are being sentence to death row. The nun in the book stated that she in the beginning she thought that by only praying to the people that were being victims of this that it would be enough to be a so called good Catholic. Then she sees that she's wrong because she is able to people these people not just in praying but in coming in to their lives and trying to fight the system. I agree with the sister Prejean because I think we as citizen of this great nation have the right to vote and voice our thought on our laws and even to who leads us. We have to use the power to change our laws that don’t favor the poor and choose the right leader to lead us. This is way I agree with her statement because people who don’t vote or don’t voice their thought are because they don’t care about the problem or haven’t had a personal connection to the problem or don’t know about the problem. This is were activists play a huge role in letting the people know whats going on in our country. We see activists on the news doing marches and riots to get the action of the media to put the word out that the are fighting the system we live in. This is sad to think that we need all of this to address a problem. The media only shows when the marches are huge or the riots get out of hand. The news stations send people to see what’s going on because the hope something well happen ,since there are a lot of people in a singe space. In my personal life I have choose to always vote and stand for what I think is right. I have signed petitions for some problem that I thought should be stoped. I am not saying that everyone needs to go do a riot or walk one hundred miles in a march but anything you can do ,Do It.

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What do the crime clearance rates of LVMPD look like? Discuss your reaction. Which of the rates surprise you? What reasons can you think of that might explain why some of the categories have such low clearance rates? What are the implications of having such low clearance rates? Also discuss if you compared LVMPD to any other police unit, for example, if you moved from another county or state.

The clearance rates of LVMPD was looked at for the years 2011, 2012 and 2013. The first rate looked at was violent crime. The violent crime clearance rate was 37%, draping 2% from the year 2011. The second category was murder and non-negligent manslaughter. Its clearance rate for 78% dropping by 1% from the year 2011. The third category was Robbery. Its clearance rate for 2013 was at 27%, also a 1% drop from the year 2011. The fourth category was aggravated assault. Its clearance rate was at 45%, a 2% drop from 2011. The fifth category looked at was property crime. Its clearance rate was at a 16%, 1% percent increase from 2011. The sixth category looked at was at burglary. Its clearance rate was 7%, which has remain the same since 2011. The seventh category looked at was of larceny theft. This has a 24% clearance rate which was a 1% increase from 2011. the eighth category looked at was motor vehicle theft. It had a 6% clearance rate which has been a 1% increase from the year 2012. the last category looked at was for arson. This had a 27% clearance rate which has been 23% increase since the year 2011. From this we can clearly see that the worst clearance rates in LVMPD is motor vehicle theft and the best clearance rate being murder and non-negligent manslaughter. The second best clearance rate of it being arson, really did surprise me. I would believe it would easily to do since there is no evidence left behind because of the fire during everything but after thinking it through I have seen television shows where it shows that the person review the scene of fire can see what cause the fire and if it was intentional or not. This also surprised me that there even was arson crimes committed here in Vegas, I just assumed that folks were just having bad luck and it was an accident because their is so much heat by the sun when we reach the summer time. I was also surprised of the clearance rate of violent crimes. This surprised me because I feel this would be something simple to solve because the person would know who assaulted them. One way I could see why there might be such a low rate is because the folks may have no proof that the individual was the one assaulting them and with no witnesses then it is just hearsay. One however, that I was not surprised about is the clearance rate for motor vehicle theft. I know way too many folks who have woken and their cars being stolen. I feel folks are too careless when it come with leaving valuable in their cars. This is clearly not a smart idea since there is so much windows that one can check any angle to see something and know exactly where it is.  This all implies that the LVMPD isn't so worried as to investigating crimes but maybe just making sure folks get tickets and citations. Overall, lVMPD should receive credit to where credit is due because they have done a wonderful job when comparing them to other states.

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1. The sheriff, who is an elected official (AKA a politician), has a political incentive to solve crimes. What are the advantages and disadvantages of having elected sheriffs? Tie your answer to In the Dark. For example, you should consider the fact that in high-profile cases such as Jacob’s, there is an incentive (i.e. re-election) to close a case, which might have led him to victimize Dan Rassier. You may also bring in examples from Just Mercy.

The sheriff, who is an elected official, has a political incentive to solve crimes. There are many advantages and disadvantage into elected sheriffs. One advantage it has it is chosen by the people who he will serve to protect. With the electing process it will show which adjectives are important to the majority of the ones who voted. Second advantage is that it does meet society standards because they are a very big tradition and practice in our country. This has been highly accepted in our society because it makes people feel that their voice matter. The third advantage is this makes sheriffs having to be more interactive with his community. We will see them out in event and stopping constantly to hear the concert its citizens have. This makes them more approachable to talk about your concerns and not someone superior where you feel you are unable to voice your opinion. They will will also have to do a lot of campaigning, this will give more folks a chance of seeing them in real life and see their true personality and not just a picture on a posture.

One disadvantage is that is doesn’t voice the opinions of all who live in that community because either they can be an immigrant and in fear of voicing out their opinions, to old to take themselves to go vote, don’t want to vote and/or wasn’t even aware there was even an election going on. This would only give a small amount of folks actually voicing their opinion and making a difference on who wins the election and who doesn’t. Second disadvantages is that there will be folks running who have no qualification for being a decent sheriff and still might be able to win. Although it’s good for some diversity there is still too low of qualifications one must meet in order to run for sheriff. Third disadvantage is that elections are heavily influenced by the social media. We see that three months before elections opponents will pay commercials to illustrate a dark picture and awful light to their competitors in order to touch the heart of voters. Sometimes, I have even seen commercials talks about a competitor’s families, which wasn’t even related to having the procession of being sheriff. I did see this effect my mom opinion on that person because she said that he looked liked as a nice man. Appearances mean everything in elections. I have known many who have voted for folks simply because of their looks. There are people who are bias, racists and sexists, meaning if there was a man who is a racists to African Americans and sexists and sees an African American woman running for sheriff, he would never vote for her even if he knew who he was voting for has horrible intentions. Last disadvantage is that the sheriff who is being elected has his/her own personal agenda and only would want to solve cases that make him/her look good to the public’s eye. In the dark showed a good example with Dan Rassier. Dan Rassier was used to make people think they had someone to blame when the sheriff’s office publicly announced that he was a person of interest in the Wetterling case. This made the sheriff look as if they were close to closing the case which was not the case, to add to this they ruin Dan Rassier life.

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1.    In the Dark is such an interesting podcast because it starts like any other true crime story, yet it’s really investigating why the case was unsolved (for so long!), and how incompetency caused such an injustice. It’s only coincidental that the case was solved, once the podcast was almost done, after 27 years!

Reflect upon episodes 1-2 of In the Dark. If you listened ahead, try not to spoil. Ideas include:

·       Read about the Jacob Wetterling case itself and the impact it had and continues to have. The lasting impact has made this case notorious. What are some of the cultural and legal consequences of his kidnapping?

·       Discuss the shortcomings in the police investigation. What were they? Why do you think they occurred? What could have been done better and more importantly, why wasn’t it?

·       Did you find yourself Googling anything about this famous case? I know that sometimes when I listen to podcasts I end up going off on research tangents. If this is you – what did you Google? What did you find?

·       Has anything surprised you so far?

In all honesty when I began to listen to the podcast “In the Dark” I was thinking it was fake or over exaggeration of the happening, but reading about the Jacob Wetterling case gave me chills. This case was open so long the people who were kids at the time were old or died. This is probably the worst part since it’s hard to remember stuff from the same week, it’s much harder to remember stuff from a couple years ago but twenty-seven years see so long I think they wouldn’t remember anything useful by then. When think about the short coming of the police department and their investigation I get mad and think about the kids’ parents. We have seen at least once in our life time when a mother or father lose their kid in the store, they go crazy yelling their name asking everyone if they had seen them or as the clerk to say their name on the speaks. Some parents ask for the employees to please help them and some customers join the search. These is what I feel the police department should have done to start with. In the podcast, it was saying they how they did a lousy job at the first steps. They didn’t talk all the people in the area, which the FBI stated was part on the book or steps in doing a thorough investigation. The FBI also said that they weren’t supposed to ask if the people around had seen anything weird or strange but what they saw because people don’t say everything they saw if you ask them to just tell you the weird or strange stuff they say. The FBI talks about how people have short memories and should be talked to the same day in the hours if possible. The reasons the police gave for not asking all the people was because it was night time. I think if it was my son or daughter I would wake the whole city up and question everyone. I thing that was their big setback. Another setback would be not listening to the kids. If anything, kids have a better memory then older people but yet they weren’t taken into account. This is very troubling to think of, if only the police would have paid more action to the kids statement maybe it would have ended sooner. Lastly, I did see myself googling kidnapping cases here in Las Vegas and how often they happen. For my surprise, there was an attempted kidnapping here in Las Vegas not too long ago. The story was published by “The Las Vegas Review Journal” stated that a “white or Hispanic man between the ages of 18-20 tried to take kidnap some kids but was confronted by some neighbor and ran away then he tried again in a park. This is scary to think about since we see kids running around all the time. I know now that my kids are going to stay home or have a GPS tracking system on them because it’s hard to compare the pain of a parent in that situation.

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In the introduction, Stevenson discusses his family’s background and what impact that had on his career choices. Write about your family’s history, or your personal history, and the role it plays on your current intended career path. If you don’t have a clear idea of what you want to do for a career, what qualities do you look for? What role do you want to play in society? Does this relate back to your life experiences? How?

My family history is a very common story in the latino community. My dad crossed the border between Mexico and United States to start a better life here.My grandfather owned a couple bars so my dad had money to live a give The United States a try. My father then saw that he had to work hard to get anywhere in this country so he worked he’s ass off to become a united states citizen. He had he’s kids including me and thought us to work hard for you stuff because no one would hand it to us. So since I was little my dad would take me to work with him if i wanted a new pair of shoes or a new game, in all honesty he just made me get him waters or clean nothing big but it showed me that  had to work for it. When I was little i wanted to be an engineer like my father. i liked to work with my hands and learn stuff about how to fix a house till I had a confrontation with a white police officer that hurt me in a way that I was sacred. I was playing football with some of my friends when this happen, someone had broken a window of some older women and they said it was a hispanic kid and was tall. The police officer came at me yell telling me not to move or he would be forced to shot me, I was 14 at the time and didn’t know what was going on. So did want he asked and he started to yell if I had broken the ladies window, I said no since i had been playing football the whole time. He didn’t believe me and started to talk about how latinos come here just to hurt society and were good for nothing in this country. I can remember clearly he said “fucken latinos” then went on to tell me he was going to send me back to Mexico and other stuff. Lucky one of my teachers saw me since I was at the school park and defended me and stood up for me. That day I was so scared and could my self I wanted to be a cop to stop these white cops from treated us minorities bad and stand up for our kids and show them that not all cop are bad or mean but some look like us and talks spanish. These part of my life changed what i wanted to be and thats why I am getting a bachelors degree in Criminal Justice  so I can be someone my community can look up to.

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Joe Sullivan was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole at the young age of 13, for a crime he allegedly did not commit. Examine how a restorative justice approach might have dealt with Sullivan's case. How has Stevenson's and the Equal Justice Initiative's (EJI) efforts, as described in the book, embodied the ideals of transformative justice in Sullivan's case, and in general?

The restorative justice approach would have dealt with Sullivan’s case in a different manner. The restorative justice approach is both the defendant and the offender come to an agreement that would involve something within their community. Sullivan and 72-year-old woman could both agree that she could not 100 percent identify the charges for rape but was guilty for robbery so he would his punishment would be just on the theft. Then they both can agree that it would be okay to do 1000 hours of community service together. This would help both of them have a long time to communicate together and not just be limited for a short amount of time. I think the process of healing can take some time and should not by any chance be fake for both parties. The victim then has a choice to limit those 1000 hours when she felt her healing process has ended and she can move on forward without fear or intimidation that the offenders will recommit the crimes to her. They would do different kinds of community service that would help them grow together. One example would be to prepare the meals in the soup kitchen. They would have to work in teams to make sure they meet their goal in time before the hungry folks are welcomed in. They could also both attend meetings with a counsel. This would make both parties safe because another nonbiased person is in the room and is willing to hear out both side to the story. Then Sullivan can go on to say he was not the one who raped her but his peer and after hearing that the women can go on to say how that experience has been on her life personally and how after hearing he was not the one who committed the rape that she has found new trust in him. I believe both examples would be very timing consuming but both beneficial in the long run. The EJI took on Sullivan case to make sure that his life sentenced was with merit and not because of false accusations. In the EJI they fought to be made sure Sullivan’s trials was fair but late they fought the Florida state for cruel and unusual punishment. This lead his case to go to the supreme court and there the judges ruled against him but did take out he could not have a life sentence. The EJI then took back for resentencing which then gave them the news he was able to be released on June 30, 2014. Although he is not a free man from the supreme court he was able to gain his freedom and not be sentenced to life for a crime he was not a part of.

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#blog #funny

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After listening to In the Dark and researching crime clearance rates, evaluate APM’s argument that there are “no perfect crimes” only “failed investigations,” and instead, that blaming “perfect crimes” is just an “excuse by law enforcement, and we buy it,” in reference to police unable to solve so many major crimes. How can we improve law enforcement clearance rates? What policies should we put in place? Should agencies be penalized for not solving crimes? One pressing question I have is, how can we force police to do better without it being seen as an anti-police political movement? Discuss.

While listening to the last podcast of “In the Dark” I felt she had a lot of good point in how it wasn’t the perfect crime but just failed investigation. I felt like she may have put to much blame on the law enforcement in a plural stance, which I felt was partially wrong  because that cities law enforcement wore the worst there are still good officers doing great jobs in our cities. I am not saying it’s couldn’t be better but we have to also think about the police force resources to catch a person. Every city puts a budget for what they think if fair to catch a criminal but clearly it’s not enough. We don’t have sometimes the man power to knock in every door or the money to be looking for every criminal out here. The points I do gave the woman talking on the podcast is that they didn’t do the basics of a good investigation. Everyone knows that the first 24 hours of kidnapping are crucial to the investigation. We got people who forget fairly quick now a day and have to question them as soon as possible to great to have a greater chance of closing a case. I feel they didn’t do that so that’s crazy to think where the kids was buried was infant of there the killer used to party when he was younger.Now in my humble opinion in how we could improve the clearance rates of our cities is a easier thing said than done. To start I think we would need more police officers with the right training in these cases.I think that is we just have more officers without proper training then we are going in circles since they don’t know what to ask for or even what they are looking for. I don’t think law enforcing agencies should be penalized for not solving crimes. I think that would be kinda dumb for our part since they are not getting the best payed career out here and I think it’s a stressing jobs as is now to add more would just be foul in our part. It would be like is we but a fee to teachers if the whole class didn’t pass when the teacher can be doing the best job but maybe doesn’t have the resources to teach it more clearly. I think one way we could hint that police offices need to do a better job could be be motivating them with bonuses or giving them more resources to show them that they have what they need to get the job done. These podcast was great but very sad how it ended.