When news media outlets report about violent crimes throughout the nation, many people have become de-sensitized to the fact that violence has become a part of everyday life. But how do people feel when a child escalates to a level of unthinkable violence? In August of 1993, Eric Smith was accused, tried, and convicted for the murder of 4 year old Derrick Robie. The community of Steuben County, New York were in shock and disgusted but were unaware that Eric Smith, who was 13 at the time, committed this heinous crime.…
Thomas can rebuild his life and even be a better man, because he know the process that comes with committing a crime. He never committed a crime in the first place, but now he knows most definitely never to commit one at all. For anything other than destruction to come as a result, the issue of acceptable police tactics must be on trial next. ” Young infant mortality comprises 40% of estimated 10.8 million child deaths worldwide annually.…
April 9, 1931, eight teenage “hobo negroes” were sentenced to death after being convicted of attacking two white girls on a train. This story became quite popular in the press and years later still manages to conjure up arguments about the social injustice. Nine black teenage boys climbed upon a train, in a way only to look for work, and were confronted by two white males where a dispute broke out, in the mix of it all, two white females, joined in the argument. At the time the story broke out, no one truly knew the story because everyone believed the words of the whites who after the dispute left the train and reported the “committed crime” to local police. The “negro” boys were taken into custody in Scottsboro, Alabama, as the boys were referred…
Angie Thomas’ intriguing novel, The Hate U Give associates with police brutality, more specifically a teenage girl who has witnessed the act more than once. The main goal of the protagonist, Starr Carter, is to get justice for Kahlil, a sixteen year old black boy who was murdered at the hands of a police officer. As an act of police brutality, many people believe that Officer Cruise made the immediate assumption that Khalil was holding a weapon, simply because of his skin color. When Khalil was fatally shot Starr was the only person present to witness the act. Now that this was the second time in Starr’s life of seeing someone murdered as an act of police brutality and racism, she knew she had to speak up and help get justice for Khalil and…
Brooks’ “The Boy Died in My Alley” is written as dialogue between police and the speaker, who are discussing the death of a young boy. Lynda Koolish sees Brooks’ poem not only as an account of the boy’s death, but also as a source of insight into “the issue of individual transformation” when one is exposed to such violence (citation). Koolish believes the boy’s death, like that of other African American boys, was a “secondary [cause] to racism, poverty, powerlessness, and despair” (citation). The speaker, as recognized by Koolish, feels a sense of “accountability, not self-indulgent guilt” and “it is that accountability” that “transforms the waste of a young man's life into not only the hope for a different world but a call to action” (citation).…
A Close Reading of Nate Spears In the poem “My Life Has Passed Me By,” Nate Spears describes the death of Trayvon Martin, a seventeen-year-old black young male. His neighborhood watch member, George Zimmerman on February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida, shot him. This poem was coming from the viewpoint of Trayvon Martin. Spears starts off with the exclamation that Trayvon was too young to die; in the third stanza, Nate Spears starts to analyze America, which is the “Land of the free, the Land of I don’t care.”…
Tallahassee is not as safe as families may think. Recent Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) reports have shown that Tallahassee, Leon County has a shocking total crime index due to it’s rather small population compared to cities like Miami and Jacksonville. With a total population of 287,671 in 2016 there was a total number of 16,269 crimes accounted for during 2016. Many families, college students, and citizens did not realize how awful crime was in Tallahassee. “I’ve lived in this city all of my life, I have a family here.…
Each year children are sentenced life in prison without parole. That is 2570 children sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole according to the American Civil Liberty Union. Children are abused immensely in prison. Some sexually assaulted from the prison guards and the inmates and some just beaten. Children that are sentenced are taken advantage of and can’t do anything about due to their small size and of the word “snitch”.…
About seventeen years ago, on September 19, 1999, at four o’clock in the morning, a horrible tragedy occurred. Natalia Bennett was driving her and four friends home from a birthday party. Then suddenly, a boy named Reggie Stephey drifted over the center lane and crashed into Bennett’s car. Stephey had been drinking that night with his friends and thought he was capable driving home under the influence of alcohol. He obviously was not capable.…
Through the use of rhetorical strategies, Truman Capote manipulates the reader’s emotions by portraying Perry Smith in In Cold Blood as a sympathetic character. Perry Smith, along with his partner Dick Hickock, murder the Clutters, a well loved family in the town of Holcomb, Kansas. This small town consists of people, who immediately outkast the murders because they only understand their own lives, and nothing outside of Holcomb. Although there are two murderers, this rhetorical analysis will solely focus on Perry’s traumatic childhood. To share an outsider’s point of view of the situation, Capote uses simile, alliteration, and theme to influence the reader to sympathize with Perry, rather than to condemn him.…
Injustice in the Legal System Throughout the novels that were a required reading in class, one topic is brought to light in each, the legal system, and how it affects various families in different ways. The legal system is a procedure for interpreting and enforcing the law. Although 57 percent of Americans believe that the system is fair and just, there are more children with a parent incarcerated than are diagnosed with autism and juvenile diabetes. “In 2005, 61 people were cleared of crimes they did not commit. The amount has significantly raised till most recent in 2015, where 149 people had been released after being accused for crimes, having served on average about 14-and-a-half years in prison” (“Exonerations”).…
In time of grief, the surviving victims are trying to find who to blame for the mishap. The blame in this case was set upon the parents of the shooters, “ we think of them a a Dr. Frankenstein who created a monster. We blame them and we hound them” (Schwartz 294). We give them no sympathy, because people don 't think about how they lost a loved one too. People lose sight of the fact that these parents never intended to create these monsters.…
On a very early morning at about 3:00 am a burglar attempted to break into the Smiths’ house. Everyone in the family was asleep at this time except 15 year old Matt Smith. He was up late studying for his test the following monday. Matt was a very hardworking,busy boy. All week he had football practice from 5-8 and he also had to do any school work and eat dinner.…
Tabb Hall ENG 240 Professor Steven Waszak Reforming prison education Growing up in a household where drug use, violence, and abuse were all part of the normal routine John’s childhood was anything but ideal. Living in a place where he had no positive role model John didn’t really know what right looked like. He started running with the wrong crowd committing petty crimes and doing drugs in his early teens. His record looks like most people’s school pictures because of his regular run-ins with the law.…
Long identifies with the mothers of people whose children have committed violent national tragedies like Adam Lanza, Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris, James Holmes, and Seung-Hui Cho. She feels like they all experienced similar issues during the process of raising their children, such as a lack of help, few…