Sara Burns The Central Park Five Analysis

The Central Park Jogger case is one of false confessions to a crime, with a little help from police, which the defendants did not commit. Evidence taken at the crime scene did exclude the defendants, however, because of videotaped confessions they were sentenced to prison for a crime they admitted to committing even though they did not. It was not until many years later did the original perpetrator step forward from prison to admit he was the one who committed the crime with evidence (DNA) and firsthand knowledge of the scene. The five original defendants were released from prison but until serving a lengthy term. There are cues that can be noticed when investigators are conducting preliminary interviews that have a very high rate of

When this Central park case was made public, the New York Police Department and District Attorney office’s main focus was to solve the case as quickly as possible. When the five teenagers were found “wilding” in the park the night of the women’s death, the police believed they had found the suspects. The police were so confident of the teenager’s guiltiness, the five boys were interrogated of their involvement in the crime. The police used their authority and persuasion to get the boys to confess and promise them that they would go home if they talked. Through strenuous and intense interrogation, the five boys confessed to the killing and rape of the young women on videotape. These confessions were given even though

True crime is a relatively new form of non-fiction, only breaking into the literary scene with the 1966 publication of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. However, since its earliest appearances in print, public fascination with true crime has grown exponentially, powering the creation of hundreds of newspaper, novel, and television tales featuring everyone’s favorite crime-- murder. In many ways, it is extremely puzzling to see how, in such a short time frame, it has managed to dominate such a large portion of modern media. And yet, when one takes the time to explore the significance of true crime’s cultural impact, it becomes clear that these stories stir something much deeper than viewer interest. Using aspects of suspense and fear, “true crime” stories provide appealingly packaged examples of the power of individual impact in human society. As demonstrated by the similarities between Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, common characteristics of true crime stories intrigue us not just as an audience, but as authors of our own narratives.

Innocent people's rights and state of being were taken away by these terrible men. Knowing about their struggle and the racism, shows us that racism is an extreme problem, and is something bad to get into.

According to Brene Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston has said “The majority of shame researchers approve that the difference between shame and guilt is best understood as the difference between “I am bad” and “I did something bad”. Shame is about the humiliation that we go through, who we are, and guilt is about our actions.” Shame is dishonest all the time. It makes them do cruel things such as criminal acts. She believes that people can change their conduct when they feel guilty. Guilt is different from shame because it involves feeling remorse. Guilt is a feeling it is a form of anticipation of physical punishment. A drawback to public shaming is that it destroys confidence. It corrodes us the capability of change.

When there’s a disaster like this, the media expect a lot of looting, lack of response to the disaster, victims in need of rescue, and even death. But if the media does not believe it is sensational enough, they will create or as this learner likes to call it lie about the facts to gain the attention they need to create ratings for their news stations no matter what, because good news does not catch the viewers’ attention nor does it help their ratings, but bad news is a attention getter, and will help raise their ratings, and maybe even put them in line for The Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards for reporters. The other things that they did not see too much of was the lawlessness or looting, so they exaggerated the severity.

In the article, it first talks about a case about a female jogger who was raped, horrendously beaten, and left abandoned in the park. The female jogger survived, but lost her memory regarding the event. Police found five boys who were apparently being wild in the park. They were convicted of the crime, even though there was no physical evidence of them committing the crime. Four of the boys were videotaped for the interrogation. All of them confessed to committing the crime in shocking detail and were sentenced to prison.

Twenty-five years ago an eight-year-old boy was tortured and decapitated in San Jose, California. His assailants were two men over the age of sixteen and a fifteen-year-old boy. Unlike his older partners, the fifteen year old boy was only sent to a juvenile detention center until he was released at the age of twenty-five. On the other hand, the other two men were sentenced to life in prison. Once the public heard about this event, they were outraged. California then moved the youngest age at which one could be tried as an adult from sixteen to fourteen, in order to provide for the appropriate sentence for the fifteen year old and other young offenders in California (“Introduction” 2005). At first, laws were put in place by the Juvenile Justice System for smaller, less severe crimes, such as shoplifting and vandalism; however, as time

“We find the defendant guilty as charged.” With these words, a boy lowers his head in disappointment—disappointed at the competence level of his hometown. He watched an entire trial attentively and implemented his father’s teachings; always walk in the other man’s shoes, always be honest and fair, always show compassion; and yet he just saw the most overt form of injustice—the conviction of an innocent man. Suddenly he completes the last steps of the journey to being an adult.

The name of the article that I found on The Washington Post is called Detroit’ and the police brutality that left three black teens dead at the Algiers Motel. This article is about people who were killed in the devastating riots in Detroit in 1967, but there were three African American boys who were killed by police officers, which gained most attention. The three teen boy names are Aubrey Pollard, 19; Fred Temple, 18; and Carl Cooper, 17. This article was to inform residents, readers and those who would visit the Algier Hotel about the incident regarding those teenagers. "Once inside, the police interrogated 10 motel guests and ordered five black teenagers and two white women into a hallway, where they forced them to stand spread-eagle facing

In the film Central Park Five, the movie states while Kevin, Raymond and the other kids were being interrogated, the police had gather other suspect for questioning, but it just seemed like they did try hard enough to find the actually people but instead they let the others in question, charged with smaller sentences. The police officers fed all the kids the story, the kids didn’t even know each other and they we all pin point to this crime. Another surprising thing is how the parents didn’t try hard enough to prove that their children didn’t do anything wrong. The family’s kind of let their kids down, they didn’t fight, they didn’t try to get them lawyers, and they believe the cops instead of their kids. There was evidence that the kids didn’t

Confession is a way to evaluate the feeling of

For a society that is greatly influenced by Crime Scene Investigation, Criminal Minds and Bones, a confession of the offender is seen as an ultimate checkmate of a case. A confession, especially the ones with detailed account and perfect representation of emotions (Leo, 2008), implies the guilt of the confessor, outweighs the evidences of innocence and stirs the case against the accused (Kassin & Wrightsman, 1985). However, not all confessions are true. The public, law enforcers and justice officials believe that they are open-minded about the possibility of false confession but in reality, everyone have biases that infers guilt to the suspect which often leads to wrongful conviction. According to Drizin and Leo (2004), false confession is the primary cause of law miscarriage (Drizin & Leo, 2004). False confessors lived many years in jail before being discharge while others remain imprisoned (Drizin & Leo, 2004).

The novel states that it’s not the media in general that's the issue, its how these issues are portrayed within the media. When the media uses their power to essentially glorify the given shooter(s) this sparks interest of other individual’s who desire to obtain this attention and power. I believe this subtopic within the novel upholds a great significance to myself, as each individual including myself has the ability to present this horrific information to the public eye in a much more presentable and safe way to hopefully limit and restrict these events in the

When an admission is made it has to be proved. Admission tends to lean toward guilt however it is not sufficient enough to prove guilt. If there is no evidence to prove complete guilt at trial then more likely then not a judge will dismiss the case. On the other hand confessions are statements made by individuals who are taking responsibility for committing a crime.