Prompted Post #8: Practicing Your Knowledge

 There is a very necessary part of law enforcement that may not be the most glamorous, but can save lives. I am talking about shooting a gun. As a young child I always thought it would be cool to carry one around like an old western movie and get the bad guy, but as I got older I started to realize how dangerous they are. It is a huge responsibility to carry a weapon, and one who does should be properly trained to handle and fire a weapon responsibly. I went home one weekend and went to a shooting range close to my house, Midwest Gun Range in Brookfield, Illinois. There I learned the basics to handling and firing a handgun. I shot a Beretta 92fs 9mm handgun which is standard caliber for law enforcement. Here are some things I learned:

1) Handguns are much heavier than I thought. After three or four shots I took my arms started to get a little tired. So what ever you see in movies or tv where they're really accurate with multiple shots is a myth. The trigger is also not as sensitive as one would think. You really need to pull down hard to fire the weapon.
2) Guns are much louder than I thought. If I hadn't been wearing ear protection I don't think I would have been able to hear the gun fire after about three shots.
3) Shooting is very relaxing. I felt at ease and it was a nice way to vent frustrations.

Image Credit: http://www.gotammo.com

       Overall shooting a gun isn't something you can learn in a college class and its textbook. While I'm sure there are programs through classes that would allow you to do something like this, knowing how to maintain and shoot a gun is very important in the field of law enforcement.

Open Post #7: ADX Florence: The Federal Government's "Supermax" Prison

      In the middle of Colorado, there is a facility in the Rocky Mountains that houses the most dangerous criminals the United States and other countries have to offer. The inmates are terrorists, both foreign and domestic, violent gang leaders,  and prisoners that are too dangerous or pose a threat to national security. They are in solitary confinement twenty three hours a day, with the other hour in recreation with three armed guards to one prisoner. CNN was able to get a very rare tour of the twenty two year old facility, making a brief video and article you can see here.

Image credit: archdaily.com

       It is one of the most secure facilities in the world, it is also quite controversial in their use of solitary confinement for their supermax prisoners. It has been the subject of investigations and potential lawsuits after many prisoners have hung themselves. For most of the supermax population, this eighty four square foot box they live in will be their home for the rest of their life. They can't see the sky outside, have no idea where they are in the prison, and have no contact with the outside world. Is it too harsh for the worlds dangerous criminals? Or is it justified for the thousands of deaths these men have brought upon to the United States. Not all of these men are of the terrorist/mobster/traitor variety. Some of these men have been convicted or murder or armed robbery, and have been sent to normal maximum or minimum security prisons. However in these prisons these men have either murdered or escaped, and now are locked up at the highest levels to avoid those incidents again. 

       One of the most interesting features of the prison that I found amazing was the walls are soundproof, so the inmates cannot yell or use morse code to communicate at all. If any facilities are really escape-proof, this would be it. There are twelve sniper towers, attack dogs, hundreds of guards and cameras, and a twelve foot fence complete with razor wire. When the inmates are out of their cell, they are chained at the ankles, wrist, and belly..

       The downside to ADX Florence is the cost. It costs three times as much as a normal maximum security prison to run each year, with less inmates and less guards. Is it worth the cost to keep these dangerous men so confined? Let me know what you think.

All information was taken from the CNN article linked above.

Prompted Post #7: Contemplating Controversy

       On August 9, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri, Officer Darren Wilson responded to a call for a robbery of a convince store. After driving around, he saw the two men, Michael Brown and his friend Dorian Johnson. He blocked the two men with his squad car, and an altercation ensued. When all the dust had settled, Brown was dead due to multiple gunshot wounds. What happened in that altercation, however, has sparked a serious controversy across the nation, and protests turned riots in the St. Louis area. We are here to review the facts that the Department of Justice has compiled from the investigation. You can find the complete report here, but I will do my best to give you the important details.

The people involved:

       There were three people in this incident, however the two we will focus on will be the officer and the deceased. First off, Officer Darren Wilson, a 28 year old police officer who had been in that profession for five years. This is him:

Image credit: www.thefederalistpapers.org

       Next, we have Michael Brown, an 18 year old man from Ferguson, MO. He was shot to death by Wilson after robbing a convince store. This is him:

Image Credit: Dailymail.com

Officer Wilson's Statement and others 

       Now since the victim is deceased, this is the only primary witness the DOJ has. Other people have alleged eye witness accounts, however, Wilson was obviously there. The DOJ report says that after Wilson stopped them, he tried to get out of the car but Brown slammed the door shut, keeping Wilson in the car. After screaming profanities at Wilson, he claims that Brown leaned into the squad car and assaulted Wilson, hitting him in the face. Wilson then managed to get off two shots, neither hitting Brown. Brown then ran from the car, Wilson in pursuit. Brown then stopped, about twenty to thirty feet from Wilson. He was "enraged and crazy" and started to charge Wilson, reaching for his waistband. Wilson, thinking it was a weapon, discharged his gun, making Brown stagger, but continue towards Wilson. Wilson continued to fire until his last shot went through Brown's head, just a few feet from Wilson.

       There were many witnesses to this incident, some disputing what Wilson said, some confirming. All agreed that Brown attacked Wilson inside his car, but where the story differs is whether or not he charged Wilson or put his hands up in surrender. Some said he initially did, then charged Wilson. The majority said that Brown had charged Wilson and did not stop even after Wilson fired his weapon, hitting Brown.

Forensics

       Forensics back up Wilson's claim, finding gunshot residue and muzzle burns on Brown's hands, which would imply that he was wrestling for the gun. There was also a blood trail in the direction of Wilson, which would imply that Brown was in fact charging Wilson while Wilson was firing.

Conclusion

       The court system found Wilson's actions defensible, however there is a wrongful death civil law suit still pending. What do you think? Please be rational and level headed. No need for this to become an argument. 

Open Post #6: Police Officer deaths on the Rise

       I recently read an article in the Washington Post on the skyrocket in the murders of police officers that were fatally shot in 2016. The death toll is already up to sixteen as of April 1st, compared to the seven deaths at the same time last year. This increase in gun violence just adds strain and tension between law enforcement and the community. 

Image Credit: Carrara

       This is most likely the result of the backlash from the recent deaths of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Eric Garner, and Freddie Gray over the past few years. While these deaths have been controversial and have sparked violent riots in the aftermath, police officers all around the country have had to pay for the mistakes of a few. Now, I'm not here to state my opinion on each of these shootings, because it's not the place to do it. However I am here to talk about why these police killings will only make matters worse.

       There is no denying that there have been some bad apples in the law enforcement profession. In their case, they need to be punished justly and removed from their profession. However, to label a whole field of hard working dedicated officers around the country that risk their lives as corrupt or racist is preposterous. For every one corrupt police officer there are thousands that do their jobs to be best of their ability each day to make the neighborhoods you and I live in a safer place. And these retaliation killings of good officers will only widen the gap in-between law enforcement and their constituents. There are proper ways to respond to a situation like Eric Garner, such as peaceful protests and pushing for legislation for body cameras or more government oversight. Riots and murders, however, are not doing any good for anybody. 
       This country has bigger problems to deal with abroad, and fighting amongst ourselves will only hinder our progress as a country.

Prompted Post #5: Observing Community

       I went to a meeting of the  NABCJ, or the National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice. There was a special guest speaker from Social Services who talked about what she did in her line of work. I learned about the meeting via email from my academic advisor for Criminal Justice.

Image Credit: Twitter

       I did no know what to expect from the meeting at first, partly because I had never been to a college organization's meeting. I also did not know what to expect because since it was a meeting based around African Americans in Criminal Justice, and wasn't sure what the dynamic of the meeting would be. When I got to the meeting, everyone was very nice to me and welcomed me even though I wasn't a member of the group.
       I really don't know of any stereotypes associated with the club itself, but obviously the subject of race and criminal justice has been a sensitive subject since the 1960s. However it was great to hear about my field of work from another prospective. To be able to understand situations based in different points of view is very helpful in the field of criminal justice and law enforcement.

Open Post #5: Coast Guard Seizes One Billion Dollars Worth of Cocaine!

LA Times- The U.S. Coast Guard dropped off more than $1 billion in cocaine in San Diego on Monday that was seized in one of the most successful seasons of patrolling off the Central and Southern American coasts, authorities said.

The cargo: more than 66,000-pounds of cocaine worth an estimated $1.01 billion, the Coast Guard said. It was the biggest single offload of narcotics in Coast Guard history and the result of 23 separate confrontations with drug smugglers in the Pacific, officials said.

“There is still work to be done,” Adm. Paul Zukunft, commandant of the Coast Guard, said in a statement. “We must increase already hard-earned momentum to curb the rising tide of crime, violence and instability in our hemisphere.”

For the current fiscal year, which runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, the Coast Guard has seized more than 119,000 pounds of cocaine worth more than $1.8 billion and apprehended more than 215 alleged smugglers. That amounts to more than the previous three years’ total combined and the most in a single year since 2009, officials said.

Monday’s offload included bales of cocaine seized in two interdictions in June and July, Coast Guard officials said.

On July 18, the crew aboard the 418-foot Coast Guard cutter Stratton seized more than six tons of cocaine worth an estimated $181 million from a partially submerged vessel in the Pacific Ocean, the agency said last week.

The bust occurred in international waters 200 miles off the coast of Central America, after a Navy maritime patrol aircraft spotted the vessel and alerted the Alameda-based crew, which was patrolling the area, Petty Officer Michael Anderson said.

Video of the confrontation shows armed Coast Guard crew members opening the vessel’s top — the craft is floating at the surface — and demanding its crew to climb out.

“Afuera! Afuera!” a Coast Guard crew member yelled.

One by one, the four men in the vessel climbed out. They were taken into custody and will be prosecuted by the U.S. attorney’s office, officials said. A list of charges was not immediately available.

Inside the vessel was 16,000 pounds of cocaine in hundreds of bails and bricks, Anderson said.

The smuggling vessels act like low-tech submarines, which are mostly submerged with only a cockpit and an exhaust pipe above the surface. They’re extremely difficult to detect and dangerous to operate, Coast Guard officials say.

In June, they stopped another partially submerged vessel carrying 5,460 pounds of cocaine.

There have been 25 known semi-submersible interdictions in the eastern Pacific since 2006. The patrols are a joint effort between the Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy and cooperating governments in Central America, officials said.

       Unfortunately there are not any pictures that capture the sheer mass of all the cocaine seized at once, however just a couple of quick thoughts.

       First, Great job by the Coast Guard on taking this down. This is definitely a drug bust to write home about. Not a bad day at work when you snag enough coke to make Tony Montana weak at the knees (sorry if you didn't catch that Scarface reference).

       Secondly, What happens to all of those drugs? I'm assuming there are warehouses across America where they keep these things but that is a lot of drugs to be keeping in once place. I would be a little nervous transporting a billion dollars worth of drugs. 

       Lastly, on a more serious note, this type of bust is just a small dent in the drugs imported into the USA every year. For every billion seized I'm sure another ten billion get through no problem. The United States has a serious drug problem that cannot be solved with just busting transports at docks. What they have to do to keep drugs out, no one knows.

Prompted Post #6: The House I Live In

       As you may have been able to tell by two of my previous blogs, I enjoy watching CJ documentaries. Not only are the interesting and relevant, but they also give my an excuse to sit in my bed and watch Netflix for two hours and call it "homework". With that being said I find these documentaries insightful to the future application of my education as a CJ major. The topic I'm writing about (yes its supposed to be for next week but oh well) is to find something that makes an argument about your field. Whether it be a book, scholarly article, or documentary, find something that brings up something about your field and see what they have to say. The House I Live in, produced, directed, and featured in by Eugene Jarecki, makes one of the biggest and controversial arguments in the American Criminal Justice System today: the War on Drugs has been a huge failure. They in fact say it has done more harm than good, destroying communities while the drug trade is as strong as it was forty years ago when it was created. And I agree with them, it has been a failure.

Image Credit: Philks.com

       With that big of a statement, you have to have some proof to back it up. Well, here it is. Jarecki interviewed almost everyone connected to drugs in America. Narcotics officers, normal police officers, corrections officers, prominent members of the media, doctors, professors, judges, and even (alleged) drug dealers, past and present. They all say pretty much the same thing. The war on drugs cannot be won, and it often does more harm than help in the long run. But at one time, the American people thought it was a wonderful idea. And the idea itself is good, to get rid of drugs in America. That's what Richard Nixon thought, and in 1971 he officially coined the term "War on drugs". The 1960s was a time of radical change, with civil rights, Vietnam, and the rebellion of a whole generation who were labeled as "pot smoking hippies". Human nature and society is reactive, not proactive, so naturally the American people wanted to get some law and order. Enter Nixon condemning drugs as the "primary enemy of the USA". It at first was good, primarily because the majority of the money was going towards rehabilitation, not law enforcement. Drugs were on the decline at the turn of the decade, enter Ronald Reagan. Reagan was seen as very tough on crime, and with the mass hysteria of the new dangerous drug crack cocaine (cocaine heated up with baking soda and water), he approved Congress' new mandatory sentencing laws involving drugs. Here is the root problem to the war.

       Law enforcement was arresting non violent drug offenders and putting them away for decades purely because the law said they had to. This caused a severe spike in incarceration, specifically for blacks in the 1980s due to crack. Soon after in the 1990s when methamphetamines became the new crack, whites saw an equal boom in their prison population. The vast majority of these being lower class males who either lost their jobs or grew up in a place where jobs were almost nonexistent. 45 million arrests and one trillion dollars later, there has been no change.

       So if it isn't working, why keep pouring time, money, and lives into a war that cannot be won? This problem is bigger than law enforcement arresting everyone with weed in their pocket, it goes higher up to Washington. Both sides of politics, liberal and conservative, have supported this war for decades because there is money to be made somewhere. Private prisons have popped up all over, offering jobs to the town it resides in and money for everyone. However in order for their to be money, there needs to be bodies in the cells. It creates an irrational demand for prisoners, continuing the vicious cycle. Someone grows up in a bad neighborhood without good influences and then they get into drugs. They have kids along the way. And when they get caught, they go to prison for decades, leaving their kids without parents. Rinse and repeat.

Image Credit: Illinois Times

       Overall I thought that the argument presented worked because it had primary accounts from both sides of the "war on drugs". And both the enforcement side and the drug side said that it doesn't work, and only leads to distrust between law enforcement and their communities. Hopefully legislation can work towards putting money in the community to prevent drug use, not just for putting the drug users away. And in no way shape or form do I think violent drug offenders should get this treatment. I am very okay with locking them up for good. It was a great documentary and I recommend it to everyone in America, because we are all in this war in some way.

All facts and statistics were taken from "The House I Live In"