Miscarriage of Justice
On January 18, 1985, Ronald Cotton was sentenced to life in prison plus fifty years (Thompson-Cannino, Cotton, & Torneo 2009). An innocent man’s life changed on that day, this does not minimize the fact that a woman was raped and violated and she picked the wrong guy in the line up, this young man turned himself in, confident he had nothing to hide but his world was shattered when he walked into the trap of fitting a profile of a line up, he walked into a “Harsh and heavy-handed tactics” (Walters, Clark, Gingerich, & Meltzer, 2007) which the criminal justice system is notorious for, by “Treating offenders as subhuman entities that need punishment to change, has been applauded (Clark p.123). Therefore, delivering …show more content…
This again, speaks to the potential injustice and the flaws of a system prone to get it wrong in some cases. This man wrongfully convicted for 20 yrs in prison for a crime he did not commit. A DNA testing is what proved his innocence. meanwhile, in Ronald Cotton’s case he was given a harsh sentence without proof of DNA. Also in 1991 another man convicted of raping and murdering a young woman in Peekskill, N.Y. was wrongfully convicted and was saved by the then vetoed death-penalty legislation annually that prevented Jeffrey Mark from being executed innocently (Golway …show more content…
The prison facility covers approximately 18,000 acres which according to the New York Times reporter Peter Applebome is larger than the island of Manhattan and houses more than 5,000 inmates. The Louisiana Justice System is known for stiff and harsh sentences; according to applebome (New York Times October, 1998) 80 percent of Angola’s inmates are mostly murderers, rapists and armed robbers who have sentences so long parole is not in their foreseeable future. In his book “God of the Rodeo” Daniel Bergner, a New York –based journalist and novelist spent time at the prison with permission by Burl Cain the prison warden who refers to his work as a calling and wrote about what he observed and experience in the form of gladiator like games known as Angola’s annual prison rodeo, according to the report (77 percent of the inmates are black, two-thirds of the guards are white, a representation of the top leadership). Meanwhile, in the midst of the controversy and the lightening rod that this prison is known for, there is a strength perspective component being incorporated to rehabilitate and reform the inmates. My first encounter with the prison was a documentary “serving life” by Forrest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey. I watched in
On January 18, 1985, Ronald Cotton was sentenced to life in prison plus fifty years (Thompson-Cannino, Cotton, & Torneo 2009). An innocent man’s life changed on that day, this does not minimize the fact that a woman was raped and violated and she picked the wrong guy in the line up, this young man turned himself in, confident he had nothing to hide but his world was shattered when he walked into the trap of fitting a profile of a line up, he walked into a “Harsh and heavy-handed tactics” (Walters, Clark, Gingerich, & Meltzer, 2007) which the criminal justice system is notorious for, by “Treating offenders as subhuman entities that need punishment to change, has been applauded (Clark p.123). Therefore, delivering …show more content…
This again, speaks to the potential injustice and the flaws of a system prone to get it wrong in some cases. This man wrongfully convicted for 20 yrs in prison for a crime he did not commit. A DNA testing is what proved his innocence. meanwhile, in Ronald Cotton’s case he was given a harsh sentence without proof of DNA. Also in 1991 another man convicted of raping and murdering a young woman in Peekskill, N.Y. was wrongfully convicted and was saved by the then vetoed death-penalty legislation annually that prevented Jeffrey Mark from being executed innocently (Golway …show more content…
The prison facility covers approximately 18,000 acres which according to the New York Times reporter Peter Applebome is larger than the island of Manhattan and houses more than 5,000 inmates. The Louisiana Justice System is known for stiff and harsh sentences; according to applebome (New York Times October, 1998) 80 percent of Angola’s inmates are mostly murderers, rapists and armed robbers who have sentences so long parole is not in their foreseeable future. In his book “God of the Rodeo” Daniel Bergner, a New York –based journalist and novelist spent time at the prison with permission by Burl Cain the prison warden who refers to his work as a calling and wrote about what he observed and experience in the form of gladiator like games known as Angola’s annual prison rodeo, according to the report (77 percent of the inmates are black, two-thirds of the guards are white, a representation of the top leadership). Meanwhile, in the midst of the controversy and the lightening rod that this prison is known for, there is a strength perspective component being incorporated to rehabilitate and reform the inmates. My first encounter with the prison was a documentary “serving life” by Forrest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey. I watched in