In The Spirit Of The 2008 Election

I moved to the United State from Canada in 2002 and became a U.S citizen in 2005. Having a keen interest in politics, and recognizing the sacrifices that were made on behalf by my ancestors, my suffrage is of high value to me. I therefore made it a priority to educate myself regarding the voting process, the different levels of government and their responsibility, the councilmen and women, and the issues that affect my life in order to make an inform decision when it is time to vote. Upon citing several sources, I came across the Electoral College.

The Electoral College is an indirect election. In other words, ordinary citizens of the United States vote indirectly for the President and the Vice president. This is done by voting for electors (538 members of congress) who are free to vote for any candidate eligible to be President. Essentially, U.S citizens do not actually vote for the president. According to my sources, there are various reasons given for this process: 1. the Founding Fathers did not trust the democratic system or rather the judgment of the general public. 2. The Founding Fathers believe small states would be underrepresented. 3. At the time of the creation of the Electoral College, issues concerning the popularity of one candidate over the other, as a result of minimal communication access were a concern and a clear disadvantage to some candidates. Clearly, that is not the case in today’s society where internet, cell phone, t.v are prevalent in many household.

In this process it is understood in many states that winner takes all. Most states allow voters to choose between statewide slates of electors pledged to vote for the Presidential and Vice Presidential tickets of various parties; the ticket that receives the most votes statewide 'wins' all of the votes cast by electors from that state. And electors are not obligated to stick with a particular party. Strategically a candidate can concentrate on winning the popular vote in a combination of states that choose a majority of the electors, rather than campaigning to win the most votes nationally. Interestingly, a president can lose the popular vote yet still win the presidency. This is what happened in 2000 with George W. Bush.

What I found even more interesting was that a lot of people, both young and old did not know of the Electoral College or its role. They actually believe that they directly vote for the president and most were more observant of the November election, than the election of congress members, who, unlike the president can be directly voted for by the public.

My concern or questions are: is this (Electoral College) an outdated system that needs to be replaced in order to put more power in the hands of the people? Should there be more effort by the government in shedding light on the Electoral College and its role as there is on the presidential election?

Talking about "The Wire: Drugs, Prison and Community Survival"

Hi Everyone. This is not Kerry-Ann's post -- you can look for her post sometime towards the end of the weekend. But I was so interested (depressed? outraged? impressed?) by the panel discussion we attended today that I thought I'd open up the blog to your comments about it. I also want to point out that you can access the article in Time magazine about jury nullification through the "Check it Out" link list on this page. Given that we never have enough time in our seminar to get to everything, I figured we wouldn't be able to spend class time discussing the many issues raised today. Maybe we can cover some of that ground here. And three cheers for Kerry-Ann, who stood up and asked an eloquent, provocative question at the panel!

Room for Compassion?

After reading the material assigned and reflecting back on our discussions in class last week, I felt compelled to address two topics: Compassion and the ulterior motive behind public policy.

But first, compassion. Compassion is defined in the dictionary by a deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it. For me, this is something I experience everyday; a hardened New Yorker, my heart is still wrenched from my chest at the sight of those who are suffering. It goes without saying that this compassion carries over to my educational endeavors. For this reason I pose the question, "How can we distance ourselves in such a way that we remain empathetic without becoming emotionally involved?"

Someone last class had mentioned education. I feel that education is one vehicle to obtaining this a balance, but it does not tackle the full problem. People in our positions will be faced (or already have been faced) with numerous situations that evoke compassion. To what extent should we hold back or let loose our compassion? When does compassion interfere with the goals of justice, or of equality? Is there a place for "compassion" in the American Criminal Justice System?

It is my personal opinion that another way of controlling this is through mere exposure. The more you are confronted with situations that draw compassion the better one becomes at dealing with it. I think this is something that we learn in our internships, but not necessarily as formal education. When I first started commuting to Manhattan everyday, I had very strong emotional reactions to the setting (mainly, homeless people); It was as if I wanted nothing more than to buy them a meal and suit. Now, even though these reactions are slightly subdued, I still can not help but want to help. I get by telling myself I can't help everyone.

I was recently struck by a conversation I had with my mentor about a program that works to keep prisoners in contact with their close friends and family. Studies have indicated that increased ties with those outside the prison can reduce the likelihood of that person recidivating (Bales and Mears, 2008). Furthermore, it is very likely that this program will save the state money in the future. Why is it then, that these programs are being cut? Where is the compassion?

I feel that a lot of the reason is related to what Professor Waterson discussed in Anthropologists on Writing. There is definitely an "underlying objective" governing a large majority of public policy. This is well reflected in cutting funds for a program that allows inmates more outside contact. If social programs really are designed with the purpose of "maintaining and reproducing a population under existing social conditions (Waterson, 2009)", then I understand why this program was cut. This program allowed inmates a means to transition into society, in addition to the myriad of other psychological and emotional benefits one gets from contact with loved ones. This is a program that if properly funded, could truly help ex-offenders to reintegrate back into society. If this program is cut, I feel it would be in part because someone along the line lacked compassion. There was some "underlying objective" that this program was not meeting.

I feel that compassion is sometimes perceived as an all consuming feeling of angst that obscures all reason and ability to perform professionally. While such may be true in some scenarios, it is at times hard to control feelings of compassion, and we therefore must learn to work with it; draw a critical eye to how you can become impaired in a "compassionate" situation and learn from it. It is our job to carve out a niche between the cold, distanced, scholarly education snob and the good hearted, compassionate person inside of us that makes us want to relieve all the suffering we see.

P.S. Anyone interested in reading the Legal Action Center's Blueprint for Criminal Justice Reform, it can be found on LAC's website (www.lac.org) under the publications section on the left hand side of the toolbar!

Having your cake and eating it too...

This past week I started my internship at the New York City Criminal Justice Agency. The two days I worked were a flurry of introductions and way too many names to remember. However, when I met the director of the agency, we had an incredible discussion about the idea of preventative measures for incarcerated prisoners. At the end of our conversation, I walked away with no resolutions, but it sparked my interest into how this type of solution is received by society, and whether or not it is a viable option.

Consider an offender who consistently beats his wife and children. He is arraigned and released on bail, and released back into society with the chance of him committing an even more heinous crime against his family…or possibly he might have just learned his lesson. In order to protect society, is it infringing upon an offender’s rights to have him locked up on the off chance that he might commit a crime again?

As a member of society, I can fully support locking up a person who harms other people. However, if I was in that person’s shoes, I would never want to be locked up in jail unnecessarily. So how can we solve this? Can preventative measures reduce the number of offenses that occur in our city? Or are we putting a person’s liberty and freedom at stake? But what about the government’s duty to protect society from harm? Each question is answered by a million more questions.

Before starting my post, I reread the comments from last week and Professor Waterston’s comment really struck a chord with me. By looking at the political-economical perspective and thinking in terms of the larger society, perhaps preventative measures are the way to go. On the flip side, the very first line of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is “…recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom…” Where do we draw the line? Are ankle bracelets that track the offender’s every move, yet release him back to society a fair compromise? Do daily phone calls and a detailed log of every move give the offender enough freedom without compromising his liberty? How about house arrest? Should we even be considering a compromise? Is the answer to this an obvious no-brainer?

There are no conclusions that I’ve come up with that satisfactorily solve this conundrum. I understand the motivation behind both perspectives of this debate, kind of like wanting to have my cake and eat it too.

Are All Dreams Attainable In Society Despite Ones Past?

I was very lost in what I should choose to blog about. The very theme of being lost and our discussion in our class of our personal experiences helped me bring it all together. As I was reading the speech to M.L.K I had many emotions that overwhelmed me with how many people in today’s age are still suppressed, despite their rights as an American. One example that came to my mind was a man that one of my mentors works with. She told me his story, and how times she deals with these type of clients. From the ages of 16-55 he was in and out of jail. He has been so accustomed to the way of living inside the jail system that he is faced with serious issues with being able to reintegrate him back into society. His whole entire life he has not had a job and can’t seem to learn the life skills that C.E.O offers. This is not only the struggle of one man, in fact there are millions of released felons that are faced=2 0with the same issue. This is in a sense a monopoly affect caused by our society. If we keep suppressing their voting rights and not allowing them to hold certain jobs of employment, than how can those handful be determined to alter their lives? What happens to those individuals that have changed and learned from a turning point in their lives but could no longer follow their dreams because we as a society have shut the doors on them? The question I raise is if we all have dreams shouldn’t every equal man be able to pursue theirs despite obstacles every imperfect human may have encountered?

Do We Need Another Hero?

Professor Reitz

This week my sons and I have been finishing up this 1,000-piece Civil War puzzle, and I was struck by the choices the artist made in capturing this major event in American history. All of the generals are featured along the border in postage-stamp sized images, the major generals (Lee, Grant, Sherman) get a little bigger picture and then in the middle are large drawings of Abraham Lincoln (of course), Confederate President Jefferson Davis (o.k., I guess that makes sense) and, interestingly, Frederick Douglass. This week we are reading from Douglass’s Narrative and while I’ll save specific questions about that text for our class discussion, his image on that puzzle got me thinking about heroes, our need for them, and how they relate to social justice.
In this week of Barack Obama speaking 45 years to the day after MLK spoke in Washington, D.C. (we’ll read MLK's speech next week) – neither of those men could have been where they are without the Frederick Douglasses -- it is impossible to say that we don’t need our heroic individuals to rise up out of the masses and shape our stories, give us hope and lead the way. And I was thrilled to have the opportunity to tell my sons, as we looked for the weird puzzle piece shaped like Ohio that we assume our dog must have eaten, that Douglass was as important a player as Lincoln or Davis in the events that shaped the Civil War and its aftermath. How fantastic, in a history that all too often seems like a sea of white, male faces floating in clouds, to be able to include people of color, or women (Harriet Beecher Stowe and Harriet Tubman are on the puzzle, though not as big as Douglass).

But it is also a problem. Our culture tends to glorify the hero, the individual who can stand apart from everyone else. We see this with our bizarre fascination with celebrities, or our tendency to celebrate individual athletes (Michael Phelps) over teams (women’s soccer). We will talk about our culture’s ideology of individualism later this semester, but I think our need for heroes owes something to our tendency to recognize the excellent individual over the group. Of course we could and should celebrate both the individuals and the group. But this is hard to do. Once someone distinguishes his/herself, he/she tends to be seen as an individual, rather than a representative. He/she tends to move outside the group he/she came from.

Jacques Derrida, a post-structuralist critic that, if you study hard and stay out of English graduate school, you may never have to read, describes this problem as “the paradox of exemplarity.” He was writing about Nelson Mandela, whose heroism is without question, but his point was that the individualism associated with the hero tends to support the power structures that exist and that, by and large, tend to work against the interests of the masses. We see this in our history books that are comprised of the stories of Great Men (and Women) and therefore fail to reflect the stories of the millions of average folks whose lives constitute the under-represented background for these great individuals. Mandela embodied the interests of deeply oppressed South Africans, but in being the hero he also separates himself from them, becomes different from them even as he represents them. While heroes make for good stories and perhaps personal inspiration (your writing assignment for this week) -- not to mention puzzles -- is the idea of the hero somehow unjust or at odds with the broader aims of social justice?