Intimacy plays a key role in both Dillard and O’Brien’s works; it sucks the readers into story and locks their attention. In both works, building intimacy is primarily achieved through the use of personal anecdotes. Written in first person point of view, the anecdotes make us feel as if the author is next to us, trying to share the experience and feelings of an important moment in their life. Both TTTC and PATC are utterly books of anecdotes, and this extensive use of anecdotes keeps the readers involved. From TTTC, chapter “On the Rainy River”, O’Brien writes, “This is one story I’ve never told before. Not to anyone. Not to my parents, not to my brother or sister, not even to my wife.” The act of confession, and stating how he hasn’t told anyone rapidly elevates the status of the readers; from a mere “reader” to someone even closer to O’Brien than his own family.…
In everyday life, we see many examples of the flaws of humans and narrators. For example, CNN and Fox News are both news channels who usually have the same stories that they report on. CNN could report on the story from a more Liberal standpoint but Fox News could report on the same story but from a more Conservative standpoint. Whose story would you trust? That is the main flaw about our society and about people in general, is that we lie or re-write a story to fit what we believe or what we want to hear, instead of telling the full truth. Sometimes, these traits are similar even in fictional stories, when they involve the narrator. Narrators expose flaws when they introduce themselves in their conversations and actions. In the short story…
Should prisoners serving life sentences for first degree murder be eligible for a parole hearing after 15 years? They shouldn’t. Criminals who hold life sentences for murder, rape, and kidnapping should stay in a jail cell. Without even the slightest chance of getting out. To many factors fall into play and the subject can only run deeper and deeper. These convicts were brutal in the outside world, and after taking their first step in a penitentiary it only gets worse. Their mental state crumbles, eventually leaving them hard wired to live in a dangerous environment. Being prosecuted for such terrible crimes, doesn’t happen just once for these people, and American citizens do not want these fist degree murderers set free in their communities.…
Although African-Americans only make up 12 percent of today’s population in its community, however it accounts for two-fifths of the total that are imprisoned. This is one of the greatest disparities to Caucasian and…
The purpose of the artwork is to show that African American men and women are overrepresented in the prison population. The piece represents the silencing of the incarcerated men, who were stripped of many rights. The Artist uses tar to symbolize the silencing of these individuals. Titus Kaphar also wants to shed light on the fact that so many African American children have fathers in the penitentiary system. He personally experienced not being able to find his father because the prison systems are overflowing with black men. Any of those men could be his father and he wanted to express to his audience the injustices of the penitentiary.…
“According to Black Star Project Executive Director, Phillip Jackson, in 2007 there were 321 African American men enrolled at Northwestern University (1.7 percent of the student body) but four times that number – 1,207- imprisoned at Western Illinois Correctional Center (60 percent of the prison population)” (Walker, Spohn & Delone, 2012). This is only one example of the astounding percentage of young black men currently serving jail time as opposed to pursuing a college education. Something must be vitally wrong with our criminal justice system, since it allows these staggering numbers to hold truth. Overall the total percentage of young African American males is almost five times more than that of their young white or Hispanic male counterparts. I find this statistic very disturbing and chose to research the why and how this is occurring. There are many possible reasons such as limited access to public health clinics, racial profiling, unfair judicial systems, racial differences in judges, lawyers, and law makers, poverty, and parental upbringing; to name a few. How do these young men get sucked into a life of crime, do they have an alternative or a role model to seek counsel form? The numbers do not lie and there must be sound reasons behind them. In this paper I will research and discuss the various reasons why young African American males are grossly over represented in the criminal justice and corrections facilities. While the overall white population is higher than the African American population, 10.4 percent of African American men between the ages of 25-29 can expect to spend time in jail, compared with 2.4 percent of Hispanics and 1.2 percent of white men. Throughout this paper I will discuss not only the staggering numbers but also the reasoning behind them and possible solutions or at the very least a starting point to help fix the problem at hand. “…People of color are disproportionately involved in…
A prison that houses mostly African-American prisoners is set on a place that was a slave plantation before the civil war.…
The Supreme Court applied Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to law enforcement in 1972. Agencies could be sued for discriminating against qualified women. In some cases, the courts issued consent decrees which forced agencies to hire qualified women. Many law enforcement agencies used height and weight limits to prevent women from meeting the qualifications until the courts struck down this practice in 1977 in Dothard vs.…
Racial disparity in sentencing continues to be a long time culmination in the criminal justice system. The disparity in criminal sentencing is seen when individuals who commit similar or the same criminal act results in acquiring different sentences upon conviction (Jones-Brown, 2002). The paper will take a look at racial disparity in sentencing today, do an examination of reasons for racial disparity in sentencing, and possible solutions to racial disparity in sentencing.…
I totally agree with your post. I believe when we look at the disparity of inmates in prison show us the real fact of our correctional system. In term of racism is this country, it has gradually decreased and in the current society people are segregated by class and that fact will never change no matter how many time we debate about that topic. Because if we look at other countries, where there is no racial discrimination exists, there is a bias towards the rich and the poor, but apparently will never change, because it is the divide line in every…
The Thirteenth Amendment was designed to free slaves. However, the prison system appears to be a form of slavery itself with the high number of Africa-American incarcerated. Out of the whole prison population, about 80 percent or more are of African descent. After the Civil War, an enormous amount of African-American men were being sent to jail or prison for a long time because of petty crimes such as loitering. That was in the late 1800’s and it is still going on today. The tension between law enforcement officers and African-American is caused by the way police officers are portrayed to African-Americans and how African-American are portrayed to police officers.…
The intersection of racial dynamics with the criminal justice system is one of longstanding duration. In earlier times, courtrooms in many jurisdictions were comprised of all white decision-makers. Today, there is more diversity of leadership in the court system, but race still plays a critical role in many criminal justice outcomes. This ranges from disparate traffic stops because of racial profiling to imposition of the death penalty based on the race of the victim or the offender. A particularly important aspect of the role of race in the criminal justice system relates to sentencing because the prospect of a racially discriminatory process violates the ideals of equal treatment under law under which the system is premised (The Sentencing Project [], 2004, p. 1).…
The standard that courts must use to decide if segregation is unconstitutional is if it violates our eighth amendment. Courts have found that inmates placed in solitary have the right to adequate personal hygiene, exercise, mattresses, ventilation, and rules specifying how they can earn their release. I don’t think that segregating inmates within a prison based upon their ethnic background or race is a good idea because that’s just a form of discrimination. Just because someone may be a different color than the rest does not mean that they should instantly be separated. With that said, we should not use different prisons for different ethnic groups or races to avoid cultural or racial violence. We’ve come a long way from the 60’s and we should…
Over the last 40 years the prison population has increased 600 percent and it has negatively impacted young Black males, especially those living in socially disorganized neighborhoods (Childress, 2014). In 2001, Bonczar (2003) notes that Blacks accounted for nearly seventeen percent of individuals previously or currently incarcerated, which was six times more than White males. Besides having a higher chance of serving a prison term, African American are also likely to be sentenced to longer sentences than White Americans for the same crime. According to Kahn and Kirk (2015), in 2012, Blacks received a federal prison sentence ten times longer than their White counterparts. Bonczar (2003) explains that one in…
While prisons house a number a social outcast, misfits and some all around dangerous people, they face a number of problems as well. The prison agencies are taking steps to deal with health threats from acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). The Justice Department reported that twenty-two thousand four hundred eighty state and federal inmates were infected with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), the virus that causes AIDS. Another issue prisons are facing is dealing with geriatric offenders; the significant expansion of America’s retiree population has led to an increase in the number of elderly people who are behind bars. Mentally ill inmates make up another group with social needs; some are neurotic or have personality problems, which increase tensions in prison. Prisons provide a part of the answer to the question of crime control; they also face problems of their own.…