Chapters 4&5

Chapter 4 is all about describing people and property. The chapter provides key things to follow when describing people by giving them proper titles. For example: "Jim the witness" would be an accurate description of a witness. There are many important characters that you ideally want to document however. You want to at the minimum document the victim, the reporting parties, the suspects, and witnesses. However the rules of thumb is the more people the better, so you can't go wrong adding more people to your report so you may go over it at a later time. When describing property, be as through as possible so that a normal person could see multiple objects that look similar yet still choose the correct object described in the report. Also in regards to property reporting should be an damage, missing items, or any information relating to the crime that has occurred. Chapter 5 is more specific to crime reporting. The chapter its self has much detail about what goes into a crime report and why each section is important. Like most of the underlying theme in the book the theme is to be specific and get any and all important information you can.

Do I trust the Police?

The Vice News clip we watched together in class was a nice piece about individuals feelings on police and gives you a bit about what people think about the police in different countries not just here. I think having an international view on police is important because there are many many countries that have problems with police not just ours. Not to mention in many of these countries the problems with police are far more negative than ours. However with that being said we are still the United States of America; one of the richest and most advanced countries to ever exist. Our police and community relations leave much to be desired. There are many people in the U.S. that don't feel protected by the police but instead feel like targets for policing. I understand this feeling because all the statistics show there are many people apart of minority groups that a jailed at alarming rates. In Chicago alone 89% of the convictions for Marijuana possession are African American compared to a 2% conviction rate for Whites. Now it is important to remember that both groups are being arrest for THE SAME CRIME. Yet the overwhelming majority of people jailed for the same crime are black. Now there are many reasons you can attribute this statistic to, but matter what there is no excuse to jail this amount of people for a drug that is legal in 8 states. I attribute this to the incentive of profit from jailing people which is a serious epidemic in the United States but that's a whole other blog post all together. In summation I trust the police I know, I by no means think police are inherently bad. I do believe many of them are misguided by a broken corrupt system. Like any group of people though there will be a few bad apples

Do You Trust The Police? - The People Speak

The ever entertaining text book. 

Chapter 1&2 reaction

                Chapters one and two seemed very straight forward. The material seemed very common sense based. However, that seems to be the point of the book itself. Report writing isn’t fiction its not supposed to be amazing and entertaining, it’s supposed to be straightforward and common sense based. The biggest indicator to me about this style of writing being common sense based is the “average person test” this really drove home the point of what report writing is all about. Its really a boring style of writing but highly effective. When used correctly I imagine you can paint a pretty vivid picture of an incident when using these techniques. I think many times people miss the point of report writing by trying to dress up their language. Report writing is supposed to be easy to read and easy to understand which is really the point the first two chapters are driving home.  

Twitter Fingers. 

Donald Trump has taken to twitter many times to express his displeasure with many things. These things include but are not limited to: Other politicians, businesses, masses of people, other countries, the "fake news media" and many other things. Trump uses twitter to repeatedly bully his way to the front of the media circus that is today's political climate. Trump has said so many controversial and awful things I had no idea where to begin. The fact that even after his seemingly impossible win of the presidential race he feels the need to attack his "many many enemies" is preposterous. You would expect a level of professionalism from someone holding the title of "The leader of the free world". President Obama held the office with such respect, class and world renown professionalism that Trump; in terms of personality and professionalism is a significant step-down. Although I consider my political views Bi-partisan I cannot endorse a word out of Donald Trump's mouth. He continually insults many of the people in this country and then attempts to preach about equality. He continually lies about his policy plans and how he will go about achieving them. His alternative facts are as laughable as his political agenda. His plans are disastrous, he has plans to essentially privatize every sector of government he can. Which is an awful idea, if you don't believe me research the Icelandic government from 2000-2008. His plans are thinly veiled economic distractions for him and his nepotism appointed cabinet and staff to directlly profit off of his position of President. Donald Trump is literally the politician he is always warning the American people about, which frustrates me to no end that his supporters cannot see this. His "Drain the Swap campaign" what happened to that? He took some of the most disreputable bankers, oil lobbyist and Wall St people he could find and put them on his team. Then we have the Wall he wants to build, the 21 Billion dollar wall which Mexico was going to pay for right? After 4 years of studying criminal justice and learning about drug trafficking. Some of the things the traffickers are capable of would astound people. I pose a simple question for you. Would a wall stop you from continuing to make billions of dollars? Might I add you have the capability, money, and engineers to build underground tunnels that stretch 100s of miles and smuggling techniques that police would render a wall useless. I can talk about why the wall isn't a deterrent all day long, but simply put it's a "YUGE" waste of money that will not stop drugs from coming in. The money that is going to be used for the wall can be used for something important. A perfect example of something important that needs attention are the roads and water mains all across America that are deteriorating. There are high concentrations of lead in water all across America and even in major cities, such as Chicago. Lockport itself, the water we drink in the school has been found to have a concerning concentration of led in it. These are important issues that need attention. Last time I checked we need water to live; what we don't need is more privately owned toll roads, which happens to be Trump's main infrastructure plan. The most amazing part about Trump to me is how many people he has convinced to not believe anyone or anything but him. To simplify what he says it would sound something like this "Don't believe anything you see, read or hear! Believe me and only me! I know everything and I never lie" This is his literal approach to any kind of negative report on him or the fact when someone won't buy into his lies. At the end of the day those are tyrannical like statements. He continually questions the constitutional rights of Americans, and acts like a petulant child on a daily basis when he sees something he doesn't agree with. Many have drawn comparisons between Trump and Hitler but I will not. Instead, I will offer a chance to study someone I feel Trump much more relates to. The man I believe he is similar to in many ways is Qin Shi Huang the first Emperor of China. After a quick study you will surely see the similarities. I could continue to go on with what I believe to be the major flaws of not only Trump but his entire administration all day long. Not to mention there are possible elements of treason already emerging. However, until there are undisputed facts I will not go into that. It is unfortunate that we as a country find ourselves so divided on our leader but he is someone who the everyday person should not support. Trump's administration will run the most aggressive supply-side economic plan of all time and it will continue to drive the insanely high wage gap between the 1% and the rest of us. The real enemy of America is corporate greed and Donald Trump is one of the greediest of them all. Proving he's greedy is an easy task, ask any of the hundreds of people who have sued him for non-payment of services rendered. Or how about the people who paid tuition into his illegitimate college in hopes of bettering themselves only to have their money stolen from them. A lawsuit he had to settle because he was clearly defrauding those poor students. So to imagine he would do anything to help the everyday man is laughable. I will end the blog post at this point because like I said I can go on all day about problems with this administration. In summation, I believe this man is not only a joke but dangerous on many different levels. Then again he would call this entire post "Fake News" so what do I know. -__-

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/movies/27cowb.html


The review and I had the same notions about how the people were interviewed in the Doc. The author states how the stories are told in a casual way. I compared them to be told in "a matter of fact" way. Either way, we both seem to have found the stories shocking. We both also talked about how much the Cocaine business affected the economy in positive ways yet it was all built on the awful things the drug trade has done. At the end of the review, the author takes a tuff stance on the film calling it a "tabloid headline". Although I agree that the film sort of glamorized the situation, I think the quality of information and stories need to be shared. People need to know what happen and face the reality of the world we live in whether it glamorizes it or not.

Cocaine Cowboys

Cocaine Cowboys is a crime documentary about the cocaine wars in Miami. The Cocaine wars took place in the early 70s to mid-80s and mainly were surrounding the Columbian drug cartels operation. The operation was headed by "La Madrina" Griselda Blanco also known as the God Mother.
Studying criminal justice for the last four years I had pervious knowledge of Griselda Blanco and the Medellin Cartel's dealings in Miami. With that being said all the stories and first-hand accounts in Cocaine Cowboys brings forward an amazing realization that these things actually happened. Many of the stories told are sort of "matter of fact" as if these were normal things that happened in major cities in America. The stories range from public executions, a truck full of automatic weapons being fired in public and even a man executed in front of his family at his son's birthday party. These brazen acts of violence have really spoken to what people are capable of in pursuit of money. Although I don't believe the desire of money is inherently evil, I do believe people are willing to go to any length to obtain it. This documentary really exposed the real world drug trade for the violence, glamor, and greed which attracts the nefarious types that populate it. One of the main points I found interesting is how Miami is supposed to be this paradise in the sun, yet the amazing city we see today was built on the back of drug money. Many drug laundering projects became major buildings and establishments in Miami and many people died for that money to end up where it did. Historically many great cities and states have been built on the back of war, however, this was a war on American soil. A war in which there is no foreseeable end. The United States and the war on drugs is a long and convoluted story. One in which there is no possible happy ending, just a continuance of wasteful spending, violence, and oppression. With the war on drugs in mind, Cocaine Cowboys is a microcosm of not only the United Sates want for drugs but also our need for the silent economic train that is the drug trade. In conclusion, I found Cocaine Cowboys to be an amazing insight film that all criminal Justice majors should watch.