This week was my last week in pc/bond with Janet. Janet only had 1 afternoon court session to attend this week so in the meantime I sat in on a sentencing case with my fellow intern and her advocate. This was a really great experience for me because I was able to see first-hand how involved the VWU advocates get with the victim and their family. The case involved a 55-year-old man who was an ex-boyfriend of the victim’s mother; the victim was 15 at the time of the crime which included rape, sodomy and stalking over a period of 6 months. The victim was not present for sentencing; however, her mother was, this is who we sat with to help console her and eventually keep her occupied while the jury went out to deliberate. The advocate we were shadowing
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It was a strange situation and I began to think about what theory would pertain to the mother’s actions, however I feel this would go into more of the psychological field rather than sociological. I do think the Lifestyle Choice theory would apply to this situation because the mother knew of this man’s very violent criminal past prior to becoming involved with him. I teetered on whether one of the more popular theories would fit in here, the Social Exchange theory states that people will weigh the pros and cons of a situation before making a sound decision, the interactions people have are a way for them to maximize rewards while minimizing costs-is the mother putting more weight on her getting attention than her daughter being hurt? Is her reward of attention her maximum benefit? I’m not sure if I’m stretching this, but it does possibly fit. Regardless, the man received 3 life sentences plus 10 years of parole, and the mother wailed out “Thank you …show more content…
I really like her as we have met earlier in my internship; she is also a recent KSU graduate that was hired after her internship here in the spring. Kristin told me she does not have anything for me to do this week because it is fall break and most of the judges and a few in her department have off the whole week. I was a bit deflated because there were not even any trials to go sit in on this week. I figured I would work on the computer in the law library and complete my Victim Assistance training course so I can receive my basic training certificate from Susan (my supervisor). I have learned a lot today on the program, such as understanding the victims’ rights, how to behave in court, how to direct victims/witnesses towards certain organizations that could assist them, such as SafePath, Must Ministries and the Cobb/Douglas Health Department. I was able to sit in on a jury selection by the end of the week, I was told by some of the advocates that it’s as “fun as watching paint dry”; it was a bit more entertaining than that, but not much. I found it interesting to hear all the questions being asked by the attorneys and some of the answers from the jury panels were surprising. Out of 12 potential jurors, 5 stated they viewed domestic violence and 6 experienced it. One woman stated that her brother was on death row for murder, her uncle was serving a life sentence for
It was a strange situation and I began to think about what theory would pertain to the mother’s actions, however I feel this would go into more of the psychological field rather than sociological. I do think the Lifestyle Choice theory would apply to this situation because the mother knew of this man’s very violent criminal past prior to becoming involved with him. I teetered on whether one of the more popular theories would fit in here, the Social Exchange theory states that people will weigh the pros and cons of a situation before making a sound decision, the interactions people have are a way for them to maximize rewards while minimizing costs-is the mother putting more weight on her getting attention than her daughter being hurt? Is her reward of attention her maximum benefit? I’m not sure if I’m stretching this, but it does possibly fit. Regardless, the man received 3 life sentences plus 10 years of parole, and the mother wailed out “Thank you …show more content…
I really like her as we have met earlier in my internship; she is also a recent KSU graduate that was hired after her internship here in the spring. Kristin told me she does not have anything for me to do this week because it is fall break and most of the judges and a few in her department have off the whole week. I was a bit deflated because there were not even any trials to go sit in on this week. I figured I would work on the computer in the law library and complete my Victim Assistance training course so I can receive my basic training certificate from Susan (my supervisor). I have learned a lot today on the program, such as understanding the victims’ rights, how to behave in court, how to direct victims/witnesses towards certain organizations that could assist them, such as SafePath, Must Ministries and the Cobb/Douglas Health Department. I was able to sit in on a jury selection by the end of the week, I was told by some of the advocates that it’s as “fun as watching paint dry”; it was a bit more entertaining than that, but not much. I found it interesting to hear all the questions being asked by the attorneys and some of the answers from the jury panels were surprising. Out of 12 potential jurors, 5 stated they viewed domestic violence and 6 experienced it. One woman stated that her brother was on death row for murder, her uncle was serving a life sentence for