Saturday, December 10, 2011

Februrary 2006

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Law School


I applied to two law schools. The University of New Mexico, the school that was my first choice, and where I really thought that I wanted to go...and the Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville, Florida. I haven't heard anything back from New Mexico, but Florida Coastal acceptted me and I've received a scholarship. I'm the recipient of the governor's scholarship to attend Florida Coastal. It's a very nice offer and I can't turn down. Sunny beaches do have a draw on me after all, because there are still cold winters here. As for the land in New Mexico, I guess it will still be there whenever I make it out there. I just have to finish this semester and then we're on our way down there. Classes start in August, and I'm looking forward to moving. The change of scenery should do us all some good, and I'm just plain getting sick of living in here. It's really not the happiest place on earth, and it takes it's toll on one's mental health. I really don't know how someone could be a life-long resident of this city.

As for the application, I had Dr. and Dr. write the letters of recommendation. I scored a 156 on the LSAT, and that was the 68th percentile. Florida Coastal waived the application fee, and it was only $12 to buy the LSDAS report. I paid $50 for the application to New Mexico, and $12 for that report as well. I also had to pay the fees to have my transcripts mailed to the LSDAS, it was $5 per school that I had attended. The LSAT test and the LSDAS fees were the only other costs. I believe the total for those two services came to about $220. A little money, some time, and focus were all that it really took to get an acceptance letter from a law school...and with a scholarship no less. The personal statement and resume that I posted on here previously were basically all that I needed to include with the application. I changed up the personal statement somewhat, but the basic idea was the same.

Observation paper


09/29/2005
Sociology 380

Observation Paper

I gathered the data for this research at the MTA bus terminal in downtown Flint. The setting was an outdoor smoking area in front of the bus station. Across the street from the historic Capitol Theatre building. North of the bus terminal is the block occupied by The Flint Journal. I recorded my observations sitting on one of the benches out front with a notebook in the designated smoking area.
The individuals who comprised the sample data were bus passengers who smoked and entered the convenience store from outside. The sample of bus passengers was composed of eleven males, and six females. The sample was composed primarily of African Americans. They represented 76.5% of the sample. The remaining four subjects, or 23.5% of the sample, were Caucasian. No other racial / ethnic group was identified as a subject in the experiment. Only one, or 5.9% of the sample, was young (juvenile). Twelve, or 70.6% of the sample, were adult age. Finally, the remaining four, or 23.5% of the sample, could be classified as an older adult person.
No members of the sample appeared to be closely related to one another. In two instances the subjects were walking in pairs and it could be presumed that they were friends. None of the sample was wearing any noteworthy articles of clothing. They all wore casual clothing such as blue jeans, t-shirts, and sneakers. They were all walking into the convenience store that is in front of the bus station when their response was recorded.
Most of the sample, 76.5%, was made up of individuals who were walking into the store on their own. Remarkably, none of them were talking to themselves. Four of the subjects were walking in pairs. One of these two pairs was engaged in conversation as they walked.
However, the nonverbal behavior was extremely prevalent. As the bus passengers walked into the store most did not make eye contact with anybody. Most walked briskly and confidently as if to say, "Leave me alone, don't talk to me, I haven't the time for you." Smokers sat on the benches literally inches from each other often looking in the opposite directions and rarely speaking to one another. New smokers would come from inside the bus station, as each new bus would arrive with its load of passengers. They would sit on the benches or congregate across from the entrance near the trash bin. Some of the smokers would re-enter the bus station through the front door to the convenience store. The reactions of only these passengers who went outside to smoke and then walked back into the station through the store comprised my observational data.
For my act of deviance I removed from my backpack a tube of superglue and glued a quarter to the steps in front of the convenience store. Nobody particularly noticed me gluing the coin to the step. My act can be considered deviant because it was a practical joke, and this falls outside the norms of behavior at the bus station. Virtually nobody ever jokes or kids around at the bus terminal, everybody is usually very serious and task oriented. I tried to not let anybody see me glue the coin to the steps because I wanted the glue to dry before anybody tried to pick it up.
The raw data that I gathered is presented here in TABLE 1-1 below:
TABLE 1-1:
Subject gender race age response
X1 M B M ignored
X2 M B J ignored
X3 F B A ignored
X4 M W A reached and hurried
X5 M B A reached and hurried
X6* M B A ignored
X7* F B A ignored
X8 M B M ignored
X9* F B A reached and looked
X10* F B A looked around
X11 M B M ignored
X12 M B A reached and hurried
X13 M W A ignored
X14 M B A reached and looked
X15 F W A ignored
X16 M W A ignored
X17 F B M ignored

*subjects (6&7) and (9&10) were in pairs

Not very much can be inferred from this data except that the typical bus rider who smokes at the Flint bus station is an adult (70.6%), African American (76.5%), male (64.7%). In order to form any type of causal relationships as to who would reach for the coin (or even who has a higher probability of being a smoker) further research would need to be conducted to ascertain the composition of the bus station population. For example, if 70% of the smokers are male, and 70% of the population is male, then no particular relationship would exist between being male and smoking. With only five (29.4%) of the subjects reaching for the coin, a larger sample size would be needed to determine any patterns regarding who would be more likely to reach for the coin and what their reaction(s) might be.
I felt very uncomfortable with the idea of performing an act of deviance. In fact, I experienced such apprehension about violating any norms that I designed my experiment in such a way as to shield myself from any potential embarrassment. I believe this firmly illustrates the point that when our societal norms become deeply ingrained in a society's members, formal laws aren't always necessary because the individuals regulate their own behavior for fear of violating the society's behavioral norms.
This research supports the positivist perspective. The main points of this perspective are absolutism, objectivism, and determinism. The act of gluing the coin to the step was absolutely, intrinsically real. The super glue, coin, and step were all concrete realities to me. The deviant behavior on my part was observable, as were all the responses that I recorded. The deviance was predetermined in as much as it was assigned, and planned in advance. I have some difficulty believing that the behaviors that I observed were entirely predetermined, although perhaps they were merely reflections of socioeconomic status (like they really "needed" that quarter), or their actions may have been based on the outcome of some past experience.
Furthermore, these findings are applicable to the social learning theory because I myself learned that reaching for the coin was deviant behavior. Only five of the subjects (29.4%) reached for the coin. The other twelve subjects (70.6%) did not reach for the coin. This would imply that picking up a quarter off the ground is in itself a deviation from the norms. This contradicts my previous assumption that picking up free money off the ground was the norm. Three of the five subjects who reached for the coin reacted by hurrying into the store so that nobody would see they had been fooled. The other two subjects looked around as if trying to figure out who had tricked them. One of the subjects that looked around was with another person who had not reached for the coin. The end result of this research was that three individuals (and one researcher) got a good laugh. (or at least a faint smile)
Finally, I believe that this research supports the social learning theory's concept of differential reinforcement. I would inductively theorize that the individuals who exhibited the deviant behavior (reaching for the coin) had done so because they had previously been rewarded for their behavior. Those who did not exhibit the deviant behavior had probably never before experienced the monetary reward that one would expect from picking money up off the ground. In order to validate this hypothesis I could have arranged to survey the subjects to find if they had previously picked up money in similar situations.

Magazine Exercise


The magazine used for our research sample was the August 2005 issue of "American Hunter". The content sampled contained images of twenty-one male subjects and one female subject. The race of the people pictured was overwhelmingly caucasion with the condition of being caucasion having been satisfied eighteen times in the sample data. One subject was noted to be hispanic, and three other subjects could not be identified by race. The data gathered regarding age was bimodal with there being eleven adult subjects and seven mature subjects. Only one image depicted a juvenile and in three instances the age of the individual could not be determined.

The primary pattern of behavior portrayed was hunting. Fourteen of the subjects could clearly be identified as people engaged in the act of hunting. One subject could be identified as a soldier, and another was a guitar player. Three of the subjects were engaged in some form of firearms related activity other than hunting. The final three subjects were engaged in yardwork of some type. These patterns of race, gender, age, and activity participation can be generalized as portraying an image of an older, adult, white, male typically engaged in hunting or some other form of outdoor activity. This seems to imply a very distinct image of who the "American Hunter" is suppose to be.

The norms shown here seem to be that it is considered an acceptable recreational activity for old white men to hunt. An interesting point here is that the only female subject that we have gathered data on is not hunting. She is depicted on a firing range practicing her firearm skills. One would almost be tempted to conclude from the image that she was practicing for self-defense and not for the purpose of becoming a better hunter. Especially when consideration is given that she was shown with a small caliber handgun, and not a rifle, shotgun, or bow as nearly all the male subjects were armed with.

These images are most definitely consistent with the cultural norms portrayed in the video "Killing Us Softly 3". The images collectively project a stereotype of a masculine, outdoors type of "manly man". By excluding women and minorities from their portrayal of who the "American Hunter" is, the conclusion then would be that it is deviant behavior for a woman or other minority member to participate in the activity of hunting.

A Survey


To be completed only by inmates held for the conviction of possession of heroin

AGE:_________
RACE:__________
Length of sentence:__________
Number of days served:________
Have you been diagnosed with hepatitis?
Have you been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS?
If yes, what date were you diagnosed? (MM/YY) ______
How many years have you used?:________
How many times daily did you need to fix? (enter 0 if you did not use daily):____
What was your typical dosage when you used (leave blank if you do not know):___mg
Have you ever overdosed? YES / NO
If yes, did you seek medical attention?: YES / NO
What method of use did you do most frequently:
__ snorting
__ smoking
__ injection (please indicate):
-skin popping (subcutaneous) __
-muscling (intramuscular) __
-mainlining (intravenous) __
other (please specify):_________________
Have you ever participated in a methadone maintenance program? YES / NO
If yes, could you please circle the number corresponding to your level of agreement with the following statments:

1 = strongly agree
2 = agree
3 = neutral (neither agree nor disagree)
4 = disagree
5 = strongly disagree
8 = don't know

was provided methadone in a safe enviornment 1 2 3 4 5 8
was treated with respect by professionals 1 2 3 4 5 8
received satisfactory dosage allotments 1 2 3 4 5 8
did not experience withdrawl symptoms 1 2 3 4 5 8
found the entire experience to be satisfactory 1 2 3 4 5 8

Punishment and Social Control


Punishment and Social Control
11/30/2005

Part I

I believed upon entering this course, as I’m sure many did, that corporal punishment is sometimes necessary to correct the behavior of children. I’m not saying that I thought it was all right to violently assault one’s offspring, or physically abuse children. In fact, I’ve felt morally outraged whenever I have learned that somebody I’ve known was being physically abused by his or her parents, or by anybody else. However, I concurred with the belief that sometimes, for their own good, it is necessary to spank children. I felt that corporal punishment was appropriate when children engage in dangerous or risky behavior that threatens their physical safety. I viewed corporal punishment as something that should be reserved for correcting behavior that if otherwise left unchecked might endanger life or limb.

My beliefs about corporal punishment, although reflecting the societal norms, were nonetheless contradictory. It is a fallacy to believe that by assaulting somebody you are protecting him or her from anything. The research data actually indicates quite exactly the opposite effect. It shows us that by using corporal punishment that not only are you becoming an imminent threat to their physical well-being, but you may also be opening them up to a whole host of other detrimental effects.

Corporal punishment of children can have long-term negative consequences. The physical assault that occurs when a parent spanks their child has a dramatic psychological impact. It demonstrates violent behavior that is then learned by the child. This begins a cycle of abuse that begins when a young child is repeatedly the victim of violence (corporal punishment), and ends when they initiate the socially learned behavior as their own actions. Thus the lesson of violence, including how and when being violent is acceptable, is passed along from generation to generation.

It’s a cultural belief, an accepted norm, and something that I learned from my parents.

Part II

In a country where children are taught violence by their parents it should be no surprise that our nation's prisoner inmates are treated brutally and with viciousness. The micro level distribution of punishment occurs within the family. The violence that is modeled to children through the method of corporal punishment is a characteristic trait of our society. It is a cultural norm to spank unruly children. On the macro level this societal value is translated into the brutal treatment of our prisoner's who are being punished by a society that (at least on the surface) seems to place an intrinsic value on violence. [Wait, I hear gunshots.]

Prisons are a reflection of our culture. They show us a violent and dangerous place from which there is no escape. Confinement conditions, other inmates, and sometimes even their jailers routinely brutalize prisoners both psychologically and physically. The current prison system in the United States is a sorry state of affairs. Something is wrong when mere survival is often the genuine goal of many inmates (worse still is that this is also the goal of much of the citizenry). If this is the reflection of the popular culture of the U.S. we are indeed an extremely violent and aggressive society.

Beyond the treatment of our prisoners, our cultural tendency towards violence can be seen in the wars that we wage and the enormous size of the military - industrial power structures that we have created. Unlimited government spending goes into funding the activities of the pentagon's "defense" budget (somewhere to the tune of a billion dollars a day!). Tax dollars spent for the most part on "stabilizing" the spread of Capitalist Imperialism heralded as "freedom", but which is in fact economic colonization. Maintaining the U.S. as a world leader / military super-power at all costs...no matter the level of violence required. Done everyday, proud, by our U.S. soldiers. [I was serious about hearing those gunshots outside.]

Training our children young in the ways of violence, we have paved the way for huge cultural spillover into many other societal structures.

Bloodsworth


Bloodsworth
Mr. Bloodsworth was a man who was wrongly convicted of a terrible crime. He is an innocent man who suffered through almost nine years of wrongful imprisonment.
Serial Killers: serial killers are surmised to be the product of an absent father and an abusive mother, (symptoms may include: pyromania, animal torture, gas chambers) and they may be unusually bright.
Serial killers are otherwise healthy, normal individuals who have a psychological disorder that compels them to kill people. These murderers suffer from a rare, but obviously serious, personality disorder. It is believed that this personality disorder may be the result of a child growing up with an absent father and an abusive mother. These abused children may exhibit symptoms of this behavior disorder through acts of pyromania, animal torture, or even using makeshift gas chambers. Later on as adults they may engage in necrophilia, and as a consequence require a large number of murder victims. Here I must importantly stress that not every child who exhibits these symptoms of abuse will in fact become a necrophiliac serial killer. Or in the case of Kimberly Ruffner: necrophiliac, pedophiliac, serial killer. (video: “Understanding Murder”)
Copycat killings: it is not uncommon for serial killers, the most famous of homicide offenders although the most rare, to have a “copycat” following of other individuals who imitate the serial killer’s modis operandi. Typically these cases can be distinguished from among one another by physical evidence common only to that particular murderer’s crime scenes, temporal patterns of the murders, or by any other elements of the crime that can be used to discern one killer’s murders from another’s. In the murder of Dawn Hamilton the FBI determined that the murder was most likely the work of a potential serial killer, somebody who had, or would, most likely kill again.
When Kimberly Ruffner entered the state of Maryland’s justice system, his modis operandi should have been used to identify him as the murderer of Dawn Hamilton. He killed and then raped young girls. Now I know that Baltimore, Maryland is a big place and all, but I can’t image that too many serial killers are functioning in their city at the same time committing the same exact crime in identical fashion. When a city has murders like this being committed it is understandable that they would work as quickly as they can to apprehend the perpetrator. However, when they apprehend a suspect, and the murders still continue…they should be able to rationally conclude that they still haven’t found their perpetrator...or even that they have a “copycat” killer.
In fact the record for the number of active serial killers operating in the same city at one time goes to the city of Santa Cruz. They once had three serial killers functioning in their city over a period of about three months. The murders could each individually be linked back to their respective perpetrators through common physical evidence such as the method of execution, victim selection, location, etc.
Kemper is one of those serial killers and is noteworthy because he so closely fits the stereotypical, Norman Bates, serial killer profile that is portrayed in the film media. He in fact grew up with an abusive mother and absent father. He was considered unusually bright, and had an IQ of 145. As a child he exhibited symptoms of child abuse including pyromania, animal torture, and he constructed makeshift gas chambers. Kemper murdered fifteen coed hitchhikers over a six-year period. During this time he continued to see his psychologist. He was a necrophiliac who murdered the young women in order to rape and sodomize them posthumously before adding them to his “collection”. Kemper, for two months, once managed to refrain from killing before he then killed his mother, six additional young female victims, and then after a brief hiatus, one more victim before turning himself in. He blamed his mother’s abuse for turning him into the monster that he had become. (video: “Understanding Murder”)
I mention Kemper and Santa Cruz because until he was apprehended the murders had continued. If a suspect had been held in this case, or perhaps even prosecuted, and the coed hitchhikers had continued to disappear I’m 100% certain that it would have been realized that their murderer was still at large. It is a testament to the shortsightedness of the Baltimore City Police Department that Kimberly Ruffner was able to continue to commit murders in their community, while Mr. Bloodsworth sat behind bars for Kimberly Ruffner’s crimes.
Bob Morin was a decent enough attorney, but he was already fighting a lost case. The fact of the first conviction was more than enough to taint the retrial. However, he did do some important work in bringing in additional suspects. Richard Gray and David Rehill were both two of my suspects as the story unfolded. Richard Gray was identified by at least two of the eyewitnesses on the morning of Dawn Hamilton’s murder. It would seem suspicious that he had a pair of young girl’s underpants in his car. He was the man who made the discovery of the dead girl’s clothes in a tree. Richard Gray’s camaraderie with the Baltimore City Police seems to be the only factor that ruled him out as a suspect. Even after the police officer on the scene identified that he might have had blood on his shirt, he was the only one who “knew where to look”, and he was in possession of a young woman’s panties; he was still never examined properly as a suspect in the case. Bob Morin was right to bring this information up at the retrial, but by then it was already too late. The possibility of other suspects should have been adequately addressed in the original trial, but in the mockery of justice that we have witnessed in this case that would have just been too much to ask for.
David Rehill was another one of the suspects that could have most likely risen more than a reasonable doubt among the jurors. David Rehill was the “Cowboy Bob” suspect that was first identified by William Adams. This suspect was a mysterious man who also closely resembled the police composite, FBI profile, and all the other evidence that seemed to have convicted Mr. Bloodsworth. Rehill was if nothing else a likely pedophile. He was using rental cars to lure children with money for ice cream. When he returned the rental car that he used around the time of Dawn Hamilton’s murder the car had an unusual stain in the trunk, red carpet fiber interior (jenkies, a clue), and even worse: child pornography. I am not entirely convinced that Rehill was not in fact an accomplice to the murder. Some of the witness statements mentioned that there were two men seen by the pond where the boys were fishing. David Rehill might very well have been that second man. If nothing else he would have seemed a more likely suspect than Mr. Bloodsworth, and I have a suspicion that a jury might have felt that way as well.
Existing evidence in the Bloodsworth case could have yielded a blood type, thereby potentially (and later, actually) exonerating Mr. Bloodsworth. The state, police, prosecutors, etc should not have concealed this evidence. The jury should have been made aware of this evidence, as well as the judge in as much as a timely fashion would have allowed. A timely fashion is not after a conviction has been secured against the defendant. It is inexcusable to produce this evidence only after the man has already been convicted and sentenced to death. Just the knowledge alone that such evidence even existed at all would have been more than enough justification to have raised a reasonable doubt. If the court had known that such evidence existed as could either confirm or disprove the innocence of Mr. Bloodsworth, then they would be required to know which way the evidence pointed. Even if scientific tests could only yield a blood type, it would still be mandatory that the truth of the matter be resolved. In fact it might have not even been the same blood type as Mr. Bloodsworth.
This is an example of the state’s overzealous prosecutors ignoring important physical evidence that may not support their case. It’s entirely reprehensible that an innocent man would spend eight years, eleven months, and nineteen days imprisoned with the anticipation of his pending execution. It is unjust that he would have spent even one day in conditions like those.
This is an important case, for me personally, as well as for the criminal justice system. When I was a teenage youth of sixteen I experimented with LSD. On one of the “trips” I had a bad experience. I was at the home of a known gang member; a young fourteen-year-old girl from Detroit who had been “sexed into” the Latin Kings. While I was there I made a statement to the effect that being in a gang was a stupid idea (as if taking LSD and hanging out with gang members is a good idea) and that if she kept her affiliation with the gang she would probably end up raped and murdered someday. This wasn’t the brightest statement that I ever made, and the next day I was escorted out of my high school by the school’s administrators who told me that the gang member and her sister had told them that I had raped them both. The police were notified and I was suspended until the matter was further investigated.
The police investigation involved the police escorting the two girls to the local hospital where they were both given a “rape kit” test. The gang member’s test came back positive, meaning that she had been sexually active. I was brought down to the police station where I was informed of the evidence against me and told that I was facing ten years imprisonment for two counts of rape, and that I was to be tried as an adult. The police then took my statement (“I was on LSD, and I just said that, I didn’t mean that I was going to do it, and I certainly didn’t do it!”) [Similar to Mr. Bloodsworth’s: “I was out buying marijuana at the time.”]. I was given a court order to take a psychological examination. I took the psychological exam and it indicated that I was suffering from “low self-esteem”.
The next step in the case was to meet with the judge. He was a somber old man who took my mother and me into his chambers to speak privately about the matter. While in the judge’s chambers he told me that the hospital had acquired a sperm sample from the rape test kit and that he was prepared to order a DNA test of the sample. He informed me that the cost of the test would be $400.00 and that I would be responsible to pay for the test regardless of the outcome. I responded that I was innocent and that $400.00 would be a small price to pay to avoid 10-years in prison.
The judge then told me that if I was lying that now was the time to come clean and he would be more lenient with his sentence than if I pushed the matter any further. The judge indicated that the prosecutor might even be willing to allow a plea bargain deal if I would admit guilt to one count of first-degree rape. I remained firm that I was innocent and that if he would please be so kind as to order the DNA analysis then I would be able to prove that I didn’t do anything wrong.
When the judge later met with the two girls who stood as my accusers he told them what he planned to do about the situation and it was only at that point that they admitted the truth. The gang member had been sexually active with her boyfriend that evening and that they thought it would be fun to see how much trouble they could get me into. It drove home to me the meaning of “Thou shall not bear false witness”. If it was not for the work of Sir Alec Jeffreys (the inventor of DNA fingerprinting), and the sufferings of Mr. Bloodsworth (the first man to be exonerated by DNA evidence), then I might very well have spent ten years of my own life in prison for a crime that I hadn’t committed. My blood type is A+, and if her boyfriend’s had also been A+, then the courts in a pre-DNA test world might very well have sentenced me for a crime that I didn’t commit on the false witness of two young girls.
The boyfriend of the gang member (a member himself of the same gang) later assaulted me, and he received a one-year probation sentence for my assault. However I still feel that I was very fortunate to have escaped the situation with my life as well as my freedom. My own story, as well as Mr. Bloodsworth’s, illustrate the danger that people may face at the hands of our criminal justice system. For example, a person with less confidence (or naivety) might very well have accepted the plea bargain that I was offered. It would seem rational to accept a 5-year sentence for one count of rape over a 10-year sentence for two counts, except that I was innocent of all the charges. I wonder how many other people in that situation would have accepted their plea bargain offer?
I did however spend a portion of the remaining school year in the special education section until the school’s administration could affirmatively establish for themselves that I was not a threat to the other students [similar, again, to Mr. Bloodsworth’s reentry into the community].
The female gang member that I have told you about became pregnant shortly thereafter (while she was still fourteen), and she later dropped out of school. In retrospect I realize now that gangs are just “social constructs”, and therefore not real. Also, of course, teenage sexuality [hell, even underage] is perfectly normal, natural, and healthy even. I was therefore wrong to impose my own misguided moral judgments on anybody. Even someone who thinks that getting “gang-banged” by a half dozen or so men in order to join their social clique is normal, desirable even.
Given the case that I was faced with in my first encounter with the criminal justice system, I can distinctly empathize with the plight of Mr. Bloodsworth. It is horrendous to consider what he has been through. I couldn’t believe that even after the DNA analysis was completed and scientifically proved that Mr. Bloodsworth could not have possibly been the murderer of Dawn Hamilton, the prosecutor asked for a retest before she would allow for the release of Mr. Bloodsworth. What on earth was she thinking at that point? There would still not be a reasonable doubt? Even when reviewed in a light most favorable to the prosecution any appellate court judges would have been forced to recognize the implications of the newly produced evidence, thereby granting Mr. Bloodsworth a third trial. At that point how could a jury not have found reason to have doubt?

Understanding Murder


In the video, “Understanding Murder”, we were presented with a collage of factors that may increase the likelihood of a person committing murder. Primarily the video addressed the issues of serial killers and mass-murders. While these murders are a very small minority of the total number of homicides committed, (approximately 2%), they are the crimes that attract the public spotlight. Among the explanations that were given we witnessed biological, psychological, and sociological explanations.
The biological disorder that the film highlighted was that some homicidal psychopathic individuals are biologically defective with a brain disorder that hardwires them for violence. Their aggressive behavior, it is theorized, can be linked to a defective pre-frontal cortex of the brain. Brains of some psychopaths can be scanned with medical imagery devices that show major portions of their pre-frontal cortex are not properly functioning. This organic defect translates into impaired judgment in their behavior akin to a patient who has had a frontal lobotomy.
Serial killers are otherwise healthy, normal individuals who have a psychological disorder that compels them to kill people. These murderers suffer from a rare, but obviously serious, personality disorder. It is believed that this personality disorder may be the result of a child growing up with an absent father and an abusive mother. These abused children may exhibit symptoms of this behavior disorder through acts of pyromania, animal torture, or even using makeshift gas chambers. Later on as adults they may engage in necrophilia, and as a consequence require a large number of murder victims. Here I must importantly stress that not every child who exhibits these symptoms of abuse will in fact become a necrophiliac serial killer.
Mass-murderers, and especially school shooting massacre perpetrators, are subjects of social strain. They experience frustration that they express through shows of violent aggression. The mass-murder experiences a deep rage against some perceived social injustice against them. There are feelings of unfair oppression and exclusion from the social group or community. These individuals become depressed, and are usually suicidal. In fact, many mass-murderers take their own lives at the end of their murderous killing spree. Because they are so depressed by the conditions of their existence, they commonly seek out mental health treatment, and as many as half of all mass-murderers are receiving some sort of mental health therapy at the time they commit their act.

Senior Seminar - Declaration


Criminal Justice 450: Senior Seminar Declaration

Racial Bias in Criminal Sentencing


January 23, 2006
Research Question

My question is whether the race of an offender influenced the length of the sentence that they received for the conviction of a crime. If a black male and a white male are both convicted of the same criminal conduct, who will receive the longer sentence?

Rationale

It is widely speculated that the criminal justice system is biased against poor, young, urban, black, males. This is the stereotypical image of the typical criminal portrayed in the mass media. To detect any unfair bias that may exist in the criminal justice system, I propose to compare the incarceration lengths of “white” vs. “non-white” offenders who committed similar crimes.

Description of variables

Independent Variable: “Race” is a nominal variable with two categories, for the intent of my illustration: Non-white and White.

Dependent Variable: “Length of Sentence” is a ratio measure of time served in incarceration (measured as time between sentence date and discharge date).

Hypothesis

Offenders who are racially classified as “Non-white” are more likely to have received a longer sentence length than an offender racially classified as “White”.

Research Method

Two websites, used in conjunction, will provide the data for my research. The first website provides a list of criminal offenders who were all convicted of similar crimes. The Michigan Sex Offender Registry (www.mipsor.state.mi.us/mipsor/default.htm) provides just such a source of information. Providing the Registry with a zip code will generate a list of all the registered sex offenders who reside in that area. The entries also indicate the level of criminal sexual conduct as classified on a scale of first degree through fourth degree. Similarity of crime can then be limited to offenders who have been convicted of criminal sexual conduct comparable by degree of offense.

The second website I will use to gather the dependent variable, “length of sentence”. This information is available to the public through the Michigan Offender Tracking Information System (O.T.I.S.) website at: http://www.state.mi.us/mdoc/asp/otis2.html. The name of the offender can be looked up on this website revealing the dates on which they were sentenced and discharged.

I will record my observations on the “Data Coding Form” on the next page. I will record the race of the offender, the length of their sentence, and the degree of criminal sexual conduct for which the offender was convicted.

In order to limit the amount of data that will be recorded I will only use one zip code to generate the list of offenders. The zip code that I have chosen is 48506, an urban (urban: 33,451; rural: 53) area of Flint, Michigan with a population of 33,504 (29,573 white; 1,816 black). The median income of this area is approximately $33,163. The median age of its residents is 32.8. Except for one, all subjects who are registered sex offenders in this zip code are male.

Ethical Issues

All of the data that I will utilize is public record. The offenders on the registry are legally required to provide this information to the general public. In spite of the common knowledge and public nature of the information, I will not publicize information regarding names and addresses of subjects. Though they will not be anonymous to me (as I will access their records using their name), and are easily accessible to any who repeat my methodology, I will exercise a policy of confidentiality regarding offender’s identities.
Data Coding Form



Start Time: ___5:00p.m.__ End Time: __10:00p.m._

Race sentence/max % Degree Race sentence/max % Degree

W 49/60 82 1 W 140/180 78 1
W 140/180 78 1 W 157/180 87 1
W 184/240 77 1 W 207/240 86 1
W 198/360 55 1 W 280/480 58 1
W 36/36 100 2 W 48/48 100 2
W 63/180 35 2 W 143/180 79 2*
W 36/36 100 2 W 133/180 74 2
W 58/60 97 2 W 112/180 62 2
W 138/180 77 2 W 151/180 84 2
W 36/36 100 2 W 36/36 100 2
W 78/180 43 2 W 154/180 86 2
W 59/60 98 2 W 59/60 98 2
W 44/60 73 2 W 107/270 40 2
W 47/60 78 2 W 24/24 100 2
W 36/48 75 2 W 24/24 100 3
W 96/180 53 3 W 116/180 64 3
W 145/180 81 3(x6) W 149/180 83 3
W 107/180 59 3 W 60/60 100 3
W 60/60 100 3 W 116/180 64 3
W 160/180 89 3 W 73/27 270 4
W 13/24 54 4 W 31/60 52 4
W 23/27 85 4 W 59/60 98 4
W 31/31 100 4 W 36/24 150 4
W 0/24 0 4* W 27/36 75 4
W 59/60 98 4 W 11/24 46 4
W 36/36 100 4 W 49/120 41 CSC
W 36/36 100 CSC W 24/24 100 IND

B 170/288 59 1 B 52/180 29 2
B 60/60 100 2 B 48/48 100 4
B 13/48 27 4 B 60/60 100 CSC
H 65/180 36 3 H 20/24 83 4
H 24/24 100 4 N 155/180 86 2
O 24/24 100 CP

X1 mean: 83 months 83% of maximum sentence
X2 mean: 63 months 75% of maximum sentence
*These two subjects are currently wanted for violation of probation/parole.
Data Collection

I collected my data from 5:00p.m. until 10:00p.m. on Friday, November 25. I was able to locate the sentencing information regarding 65 of the 98 registered sex offenders in the 48506 zip code. Cross-referencing the data was not difficult, but somewhat time-consuming.

Findings

Figure 1-1 illustrates the findings of this research. Approximately 15% of the registered offenders were "non-white", while approximately 11% of the 48506 population was "non-white". However, 5/11 (46%) of the "non-white" sample served their maximum sentence, while only 15/54 (28%) of the "white" sample did.

Figure 1-1: Did “Non-White” offenders receive longer sentences for CSC in 48506?

White non-white Total
(N=54) (N=11) (N=65)

Percentage
that served maximum 28% 46% 31%
sentence

mean
sentence 83 63 80
length
(months)

mean percentage 83% 75% 81%
of sentence served


Interpretation

The findings in Figure 1-1 do not support the hypothesis that "non-white" offenders receive longer sentences. In fact, these results support the opposite conclusion; that being "non-white" will actually result in a shorter sentence (among registered criminal sexual conduct offenders in the 48506 zip code).

A sign test performed on the non-white sample rules out the possibility that they received smaller sentences merely by chance. With a calculated sample mean of 80-month sentence length the sign test yields 2 positive results, 9 negative. This leaves only a 2.69% possibility that the sample of non-white offenders was randomly drawn from a population with a mean sentence length of 80 months or greater.
posted by pre-blawger at 2/01/2006 01:25:00 AM | 0 comments

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