The Central Park Documentary Analysis

In one of the most well known cities of the United States, New York City was the central focus in the 1980’s. Five minority youths aged 14 to 16 were arrested and convicted of rape, sexual assault, and almost murdering 28-year old white female investment banker, Trisha Meili, as she was jogging through Central Park on the night of April 19th, 1989. These innocent Latino and African American five young men— Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise, and Yusef Salaam—were exonerated in 2002 after serving 6-13 years in prison until the condemned murderer, Matias Reyes confessed to the rape of Trisha Meili, where his DNA was discovered to match the evidence

Ever since the first prison opened in the United States in 1790, incarceration has been the center of the nations criminal justice system. Over this 200 year period many creative alternatives to incarceration have been tried, and many at a much lower cost than imprisonment. It wasn’t until the late 1980’s when our criminal justice systems across the country began experiencing a problem with overcrowding of facilities. This problem forced lawmakers to develop new options for sentencing criminal offenders.

This has led to the formation of a systematic method of controlling crime which we now know as the Criminal Justice System primarily as a means of coping with crime with the highest possible attainable efficiency given the power to enforce laws enacted to ensure conformity as well as to punish those convicted of such acts. This

Society is dependent on mass incarceration to protect all institutions from the dysfunctions. Mass incarceration is a consequence for those that do not want to provide a positive role in society. The penal system’s purpose is to correct the behavior of individuals and return them back to society to provide positive role. It is dependent on the correction officers to maintain order. It is dependent on companies to provide food, medical, counseling, utilities and social services to operate effectively. Companies provide jobs to individuals to ensure that the demand for these necessities are met. Thus the responsibility is shared from all institutions to provide and sustain order in

In, “The Caging of America”, by Adam Gopnik explains the problems in the in the American criminal justice system focusing more on the prison system. Some of the struggles that Gopnik states in his article are mass incarceration, crime rate, and judges giving long inappropriate sentencings to those with minor crimes. He demonstrates that inmates are getting treated poorly than helping them learn from their actions. Using facts and statistics, Gopnik makes his audience realize that there is an urgent need of change in the American prison system. The main idea of Gopnik’s article is that the prison system needs to improve its sentencing laws because prisons are getting over crowed. Gopnik’s argument is valid because there is a problem in the sentencing laws that has caused a malfunction in the prison system as a whole.

In short the United States judicial system sends criminal offenders into the largest prison system in the world, where the increasing population forces overcrowding, widens the gap between state spending and revenue and fails to prevent recidivism; we must re-evaluate and reduce our current prison system in order to reduce state debt as well as provide inmates with livable conditions and keep them from returning to prison.

Mass incarceration has been an issue in the United States since the start of the War on Drugs, because of the political agenda attached to the “tough on crime” regimen thousands of people have suffered as a consequence. The solution to this is one that can only be possibly solved by approaching through several angles. The ten steps presented by Michael Tonry, are an innovative and have merit to some extent. However, mass incarceration results from more than unjust sentencing laws, which is his main focus. If ever we are to resolve the issue, society and the criminal justice system must come together to completely reevaluate what we consider to be “tough on crime” and redefine the purpose of prisons, strictly punishment or rehabilitation. The focus has to shift from harsh sentencing, stigma, racial discrimination to a basic form of rehabilitation and reduction of the prison system in general. The criminal justice system has to do what they are actually meant to do and focus on rehabilitation measures, and when possible completely stop interaction with the prison system all together.

The Central Park Five is a documentary by Ken Burns about five young black men who were wrongfully convicted of a crime they did not commit. This documentary focused on showing how these boys got convicted, why they got convicted, the effects and response from the public of their convictions, and their release. For the remaining part of my paper, I am going to show how the sociological theoretical perspectives, in particular the conflict perspective, explains why the events in the film happened the way they did. The three major parts of the conflict theory that I am going to be focusing on relates to how the people with wealth and power has a major influence in society and how they went about abusing that power that was given to them. I am

As understood by sociologists and scholars mass incarceration is a wide term that describes the increased rate of imprisonment in the prisons of United States for the past four decades. Accounting about 5% of the population of the world, United States recently have rapidly accommodated one-quarter of world prisoners. With the population statistics, the large numbers of prisoners leaves everyone with endless questions that need urgency in answering. Why the large number in the prisons? What are the causes of imprisonment? Are the constitutional laws in United States so harsh on minor faults that should have alternative ways of dealing with? Is justice really followed to the letter completely? And most importantly, who constitutes for these prisoners?

On April 19, 1989, 29 year old Trisha Meili was brutally attacked and raped in Central Park. The attack was a high profile case for a few reasons: the victim was a white woman in an affluent part of Manhattan, and the perpetrators were thought to be a group of young, low class Black and Latino teens from Harlem. Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Korey Wise were interrogated and manipulated, leading to their arrests and imprisonment for a brutal rape that they did not commit, or even know of initially. With the only incriminating evidence being the confessions of the teens, which were coerced and pressured by detectives and police officers, the Central Park jogger case is a prime example of the scapegoating

The movie: The Central Park Five is related to an incident in 1989 when five black and Latinos teenagers were arrested and charged for the rape of a 28-year-old white woman who was said to be jogging in the Central Park. She suffered through the worst of the health conditions, near to death, in a coma for days before she started recovering. The teens were referred to as a "wolf pack" by media, owned by the New York tabloids. (The Central Park Five)

The documentary “The Central Park Five” discusses two New York nightmares through riveting cinematography. The first being the rape and beating of a 28-year-old white woman, inside Central Park within the early morning hours of April 20th, 1989. She was found fighting for her life, bound, gagged, practically naked, her head crushed and shirt soaked in her blood. For years she was known only as the Central Park jogger. Her assailants were believed to be the five teenagers of color, aged 14 to 16: Antron McCray; Kevin Richardson; Yusef Salaam; Raymond Santana; and Kharey Wise. These men had become known as the Central Park Five. This documentary was created to provide a solid argument to the fact that the convictions of these teens were racially

Reflected in this work is a step by step recommendation to end the issues that have created mass incarceration in the United States. It reviews and suggests that many laws and practices were passed that have not served humanity well. These works ask for fair and effective sentencing and the repeal of three strikes and mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Studies suggest that many offenders after the age of thirty-five are less likely to commit crimes. Therefore, age should be a factor in release programs based on offenders age. This paper is important because it provides a background to practices that have resulted in the United States mass imprisonment of its citizens

“The history of correctional thought and practice has been marked by enthusiasm for new approaches, disillusionment with these approaches, and then substitution of yet other tactics”(Clear 59). During the mid 1900s, many changes came about for the system of corrections in America. Once a new idea goes sour, a new one replaces it. Prisons shifted their focus from the punishment of offenders to the rehabilitation of offenders, then to the reentry into society, and back to incarceration. As times and the needs of the criminal justice system changed, new prison models were organized in hopes of lowering the crime rates in America. The three major models of prisons that were developed were the medical, model, the community model, and the crime

Criminals need to be punished for breaking the laws of the land. However, the space in which we discipline those who do not respect the law is vanishing. So, what will we do with criminals once all our jails exceed their maximum capacity? Those who break the law pose a danger to our society which is why we developed the system of incarceration. Jails have functioned in our society to protect citizens, or those who obey the constitution. For years, our jails were able to separate criminals from obedient citizens as well as punish criminals for their wrong doings. In the past, people have questioned whether this system was effective or not. Now, we have shifted our focus onto how much longer our jails will exist due to our lack of resources. The longer we wait to find a solution to mass incarceration the harder the problem will be to fix. Our jails continue to overflow which increases the risk to the safety of our society. To ensure the safety and well-being of our society, we should all become conscious of the diminishing resources, the excessive costs, the criminal justice system in use, the viewpoint of former prisoners, the neglecting of the problem, and the reasons for incarceration.