Year overview

This year for English and history my teacher Mr. block did a good job pusshing us to elxplor the texts and stories more and more analiticaly. That Actually helpped me to make my papers mr meaningful and detailed, It also allowed for me to find hidden facts that help put my story togeather better.

William Potts                                                                                                            5-19-11           

                                         Reflection On Prisons Readings

            The most important point that I had come across in these readings was a comment made about the amount of time the inmates are held on based on the severity of their crimes. It said that in America we treat a ten year sentence like its nothing while anywhere else a decade behind bars is seen as a sever punishment for a serious crime. There was a story written about a marijuana dealer who was caught by the police while he was carrying a gun. According to the article he was sent to prison for 55 years. Although this sentence seems to be outrageously long for man who was only cough carrying contraband and a weapon, I have recently heard a story of a drug dealer who offered drugs to a high school student in Philadelphia, The student replied with "I don’t want any of that S***"The man responded by shooting the teenager and killing him. The 55-year sentence was more than unfair, but it would seem that the police are giving people sentences for crimes that they have not committed but rather that they could commit because of their position.

 

            That is also the reason that kidnapping is now treated like murder case. The police are going hard on offenders, this is understandable, but this may cause an increase in the severity on the nature of the crimes. A clear example of this is a terrible story of about a man who hade a criminal record. The man has a young daughter to take care of and of coarse with a criminal record it was nearly imposable to find a legitimate job. So he had started selling drugs again. One day he was driving with his daughter on the highway. The man hade an incriminating amount of cocaine in the car. A highway patrol car pulled him over for speeding. The officer was a lone young woman who was new to being a police officer. She asked the man for I.D he handed over his information and she started to walk back to her car to run the information through her computer, the man realized it was only a matter of time before she learned of his history and search his car to find the drugs. So in a desperate act the man jumped the women and threw her to the ground, he started to beat her severely beating her and breaking bones and knocking her on the verge of consciousness. As he got up he stated in a voice riddled with guilt, fear and sadness “ I’m sorry, but I just cant go back to jail” he got back in his car and sped away leaving the police women on the side of the highway.

 

            The only good thing about this story is the fact that the women survived her attack. The perpetrator was caught several days later, instead of avoiding prison; he was sentenced to 60 years behind bars. He was atleast 30 years old, so he basically received a life sentence.