Post Exoneration 03/30/15

As stated in my last post, I want to know what happens to the individuals after exoneration and whether or not they receive anything after they are released.

"Facts on Exoneration | Resurrection After Exoneration." Facts on Exoneration | Resurrection After 
           Exoneration. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.

This link provides a lot of detail about what happens to people that have been exonerated after spending long years in jail and how that has affected their lives once they return to the real world.
This is a very useful site because it talks about the hard truths about these exonerated individuals and the hardships they have to face when returning to society.

Their release include the following:

• they get a bag of possessions and $10 from the state Department of Public Safety and Corrections.
• Often, despite the time they've served, their skills have not improved because unlike inmates with preset release dates, inmates facing death or serving life without parole often aren't allowed job training, literacy classes, or GED preparation.
• Until exonerees complete the state's lengthy pardon process, their convictions show up when potential employers, landlords, or creditors do criminal background checks.
• Most exonerees have no health insurance, which allows them no way to remedy the psychological and physical toll of the prison system.
• Some exonerees, if they get a bus fare on their release, take a bus to what once was home. But when they get there, no one is waiting.
• Often, exonerees have lost all of their possessions, their housing, and their loved ones. Their children have been raised without them; their parents have often died.
• Putting lives back together is slow, and exonerees are on their own.

When returning to the real world, these exonerated people are faced with a hard road ahead of them. People still treat them as though they are criminals and they have a hard time finding jobs to support themselves. They basically have to restart and rebuild their whole lives, which were taken away from them. The people that used to be in their lives have moved on without them and usually have no one waiting for them on the outside. On the one hand, they are proven innocent and don't have to spend their lives in prison, but on the other hand they have to start over and face a lot of judgment for something that they didn't even do. They are both hard things to endure.

Wrongful Convictions 03/30/15

Today, I want to explore wrongful convictions. How often does it happen? What causes a wrongful conviction to occur? I hope by the end of this post, I will know the answers.

"Causes of Wrongful Convictions." Causes of Wrongful Convictions. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar.
           2015.     

This link provides the most common causes of wrongful convictions. Although these are the most common, it doesn't mean that these are all of the causes. These common causes include:

• eyewitness misidentification
• junk science
• false confessions
• government misconduct
• snitches
• bad lawyering

In a many cases, these causes can result in wrongful convictions and sometimes it can even be a combination of these, not just one. This link helped answer one of my questions.

"DNA Exonerations Nationwide." - The Innocence Project. N.p., 7 Feb. 2007. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.

This link discusses the number of individuals that have been wrongfully convicted and the number of people that have been exonerated by the use of DNA testing. It then goes on to talk about the causes for people being convicted for crimes they did not commit. This site answers both of my questions that I sought out to answer.

It can take years before someone that is wrongfully convicted to be exonerated and the right criminal to be put behind bars for their crime. So my question now is what will happen to the person that has been exonerated? Do they receive anything for being wrongfully convicted after they are set free? 

    

Columbine Shooting 03/29/15

I thought that this crime deserved a separate post. So today, I will be talking about the Columbine shooting that happened on April 20, 1999.

"Columbine High School Shootings." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 29 Mar.
          2015. 

This site talks about the Columbine shooting that happened. Columbine is a high school located in Littleton. Their mascot was the Rebel Man. The gist of the story is that two teenage boys that were students at Columbine went on a shooting spree and killed 13 people and wounded over 20 people before both committing suicide. The crime was said to be the "worst high school shooting in U.S. history and prompted a national debate on gun control and school safety, as well as a major investigation to determine what motivated the gunmen." It goes into some detail about what happened during the shooting, the investigation, and the aftermath of the shooting. This is a very well-known crime and is a great representation of crime.

The Columbine shooting is a very interesting and important topic to me because I actually attended Columbine High School for 4 years. I had the privilege of graduating the same year that the infamous Mr. Frank DeAngelis retired as principal. During my freshman year, I got to read the book Columbine by Dave Cullen in my honors English class. It  was a very interesting experience because the book talked in detail about everything that was going on during the shooting and the path of the shooters as well as the actions that Mr. De took to protect his kids. It was a cool experience because as I was reading the book, I was able to picture where everything was and have an accurate visualization of what was being described because I knew the school so well. I also had the privilege to hear the story from different perspectives as some of my teachers were present at the time of the shooting. It is a very personal experience to share and I was lucky enough to hear it from them. My favorite story that I heard was from the man himself, Mr. De. From hearing his story, you can tell that he really cares for his faculty and students and we really are his children. Every year that I was there, we were put on lockdown because we would receive some sort of threat close to the anniversary of the shooting. Whenever I tell someone that I went to Columbine, I get the weirdest looks and some people are flabbergasted, but it is truly very safe and I will always have good words to say about that school. As the saying goes, once a rebel always a rebel.           

Crime in Colorado 03/29/15

I was curious about the crime in Colorado so in today's post, I want to explore the crimes and crime rate in Colorado.

 "Crime in Colorado." Crime in Colorado. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

This site provides the annual crime reports and statistics in Colorado by Colorado law enforcement agencies. These agencies are required to "submit their crime, arrest, stolen and recovered property data to the CBI" (Colorado Bureau of Investigation). There are annual reports dating from 1998-2013. This site is useful for comparing crime rates based on the type of offense committed in Colorado from year to year to see if it has gotten better or worse throughout the years. 

Sabet, Ph.D. Kevin A. "Crime Is Up in Colorado: What That Tells Us About Pot Legalization And,
           Perhaps More Importantly, Lazy Reporting." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com,  
           n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.    

This site is an article that discusses the increase in crime rates in Colorado since the legalization of marijuana. This is an interesting article because a lot of legalization advocates believe that since the legalization of marijuana, the crime rates have gone down, but this article sets the facts straight about the real rate of crime. 

"Crime and Punishment in Colorado." Communities Digital News. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

This website discusses probably the most controversial crime in the present. It discusses the crime of when a woman cut the fetus out of a 8 month pregnant woman in Colorado. The woman will be charged with an attempted murder on the mother-to-be, but not for the death of the baby girl that was cut out of her mother's womb. It focuses on how a law about fetal homicides should be passed. Even State Senate President Bill Cadman vocalized that Republicans will try to pass a fetal homicide law.
This was some really shocking news that I heard and I couldn't believe that this happened in Colorado. This article was good at filling in the missing information that was not given to me. 

CSI Procedure 03/28/15

Today, I would like to discuss the process/order in which a crime scene is investigated.

"Free Newsletter." Basic Stages for a Crime Scene Investigation. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2015.

This link describes the basic process for a crime scene investigation. It uses a possible homicide as an example. The step to step process is:

1. approach the scene
2. secure and protect the scene
3. initiate preliminary survey
4. evaluate physical evidence possibilities
5. prepare a narrative of the scene
6. capture the scene photographically
7. prepare the crime scene sketch
8. conduct a detailed search
9. record and collect physical evidence
10. conduct a final survey
11. release the crime scene

The site goes into more detail for each step process. This can be useful because it gives us a sense of what usually happens in an investigation and how it is organized so that nothing is compromised or destroyed.

CSI Schooling 03/28/15

In this post, I want to explore the schooling options that are available and which states have the best schools for individuals that would like to pursue careers in this field of work.

Free Newsletter." Forensic and Crime Scene Investigation Colleges and Universities. N.p., n.d. Web.
           28 Mar. 2015.

This website provides a list of college and university programs that pertain to the field of crime scene investigations and criminology. It provides the name of the school, the program name, and what degree is needed for each program. This site would be very useful for anyone that is wanting to start a career in this field of work.

 "Crime Scene Investigator (CSI) Education Courses." How to Become a Crime Scene Investigator.
          N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2015.

This link has some very useful information on CSI education courses available in schools and it lists the states that would most likely have the schools that provide these courses. It then goes on to talk about the different CSI programs and what sort of degree would be needed. This is also a very useful site for someone that wants a career in CSI. It makes it easier for the individual to locate which schools have the programs that they need and narrow down their options.

Crime Shows vs. Reality 03/27/15

In my last post, I discusses television shows. The answer I didn't answer from the last post was whether or not the crime shows on television line up with crime in real life.

Thoreson, Bridget. "The CSI Myth - Law Enforcement Say Crime Shows Don't Match Reality." 
         Journal Times. N.p., 06 Feb. 2012. Web. 27 Mar. 2015.

This site talks about how the way that crime shows depict the process of investigation is not an accurate representation. Like I assumed in my last post, it takes a lot more time for a crime to be solved in reality than it is showed on television. "There’s an impression that we take a bunch of evidence and throw it into a magic machine and then it gets spit out and we solve the crime within an hour, if not next week... the whole process just takes so much more time than people have been conditioned to by TV.”

There are also other misconceptions that crimes shows portray that aren't true in real life. For example:

•  people walking along a highway in an area without sidewalks are required to walk facing the traffic, not with it for safety reasons
•  The public believe there are more officers available than there are. For example, in Caledonia they have a minimum of four officers working per shift
•  those entering the field have no idea how much paperwork is involved

"Dispelling the Myths of TV Crime Scenes." Dispelling the Myths of TV Crime Scenes. N.p., n.d.
          Web. 27 Mar. 2015.

This is another site that talks about how the crime scenes on television are not accurately representing how crime scenes are investigated in reality. "The television shows can misinform about forensics and the type and quality of evidence available to prosecutors... prospective crime scene investigators enter the field of forensics expecting their jobs will be just like the glamorous visions they see on the tube." However, this is not the case. In reality, it can take up to 10 hours to collect evidence and lab processing can take up to a month, whereas on T.V. all of that is done within an hour. Experts say that crime shows contribute to "unreasonable expectations in students about what crime scene jobs are like."

At the end of this post, I believe that I was able to answer the question that I sought out to answer. After finding out that everything that is on the television shows is over exaggerated, I feel bad for the real life crime scene investigators. This is because I feel that they don't get the credit that they deserve for their jobs. These people work hard to do what they do and these television shows make it seem like their jobs are a piece of cake and that anyone can do it when in reality, the job is very difficult and time consuming.