Law And Order: Special Victims Unit

In the video “The Confessions” presented by Frontline, a murder of a women that was committed by one man, quickly resulted into a false gang murder-rape scene committed by eight men. The victim, Michelle Bosko, was seen to be raped and killed in her apartment in Norfolk, Virginia. From the video, it has been proven that seven out of the eight men that confessed were innocent, but somehow they all received an unequal punishment. Because the innocent men admitted to a murder that they didn’t commit out of fear, they were all sentenced to some time in prison. The head detective, Glenn Ford, intimidated the men so much that they either were convinced that they were at the crime scene or they told him every detail that he wanted to hear.

Analyzing the episode Aftershock from the well renowned television series Law and Order from a restorative perspective was really intriguing. The episode begins with a man, who had been convicted of raping and murdering a 26-year-old woman, being executed by lethal injection. Capital punishment is a undoubtedly a more extreme measure than any prison sentence, but ultimately, both actions portray the same message to the offender and to society; the justice system and the surrounding community have given up on this person, lost all empathy, and determined that this person doesn’t deserve restoration and healing. Watching just one episode of Law and Order made me that much more doubtful on the state of our criminal justice system.

Four U.S navy sailors were accused of murdering and raping Michelle Moore-Bosko. All four of them confessed of a crime they did not commit. A friend of Michelle Moore-Bosko informed the police that Danial Williams was interested in killing women (Bikel, 2010) . Later in the day, Danial Williams was detained. Robert Glen Ford interrogated Williams, believing that he was in fact guilty. He had a goal that he wanted Williams to confess. Though, Glenn Ford was known as an intimidating person, who will get people to confess (Bikel, 2010).After eleven hours of interrogations, Williams confessed of a crime he did not do (Bikel, 2010). He was then asked to tell the story of how he murdered Michelle, and he started narrating a story he made up out of fear. For Months, Ford believed that Williams was guilty of the crime. However, months later, Williams DNA test results came to serve as an evidence of his innocent. However, Glenn Ford did not believe that Williams was innocent; he believed that Williams roommate Joe Dick was guilty of the crime as well. Therefore, Joe Dick was arrested and interrogated by Detective Glenn Ford, making him confess of the same crime. Joe Dick’s DNA was inconsistent with the evidence .Therefore, he was interrogated much more, until he gave his friends’ name: Eric Wilson, Derek Tice, and

As the video evidently shows, the overall case was fabricated with the use of psychological tactics that broke some fundamental aspects of ethics. Getting one to confess to a crime is never easy, hence borne the numerous methods introduced and followed by almost all law enforcement officers to “read” possible suspects during interrogations. Further, with the right assembly of personal/background information, the combination of circumstances/techniques, and psychological manipulation can even make the most hardened suspect to confess (“How Police Interrogation works”). To add on, there was a time when “physical abuse” toward the possible suspects during interrogations and the confession obtained thereafter was accepted in court (“How Police Interrogation works”); Not only is this a misuse of authoritative power, but also unethical—inflicting mental /or physical pain upon the individual to confess almost seems extreme.

Have you ever watched a crime scene drama on television and now believe you are a forensic science expert? This is what you call the “Crime Scene Investigation Effect (CSI)”. It came into light in the early 2000’s. In 2008, Monica Robbers, an American criminologist, defined the CSI Effect as, “the phenomenon in which jurors hold unrealistic expectations of forensic evidence and investigation techniques, and have an increased interest in the discipline of forensic science”. (Economist 2010) Millions are watching these CSI drama TV shows. In 2012-13, NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service, was named the most popular watched television program in America, bringing in more viewers than Sunday Night Football according to Mancini, author of The "CSI Effect" In an Actual Juror Sample: Why Crime Show Genre May Matter.

1. Information regarding the Department of Corrections’ investigation of complaints related to several correctional officers will spread throughout the institution along certain channels (Stojkovic, Kalinich, Klofas, 2008). Starting with the prison warden this information will need to be efficient and accurate as it travels throughout the organization. Being that the prison warden will be the first to be informed of this information, the chain of command would be downward communication. This type of communication allows a clear passageway for the information to be sent to subordinates and provides for an effective management of the tone and delegation of the message (Stojkovic et al., 2008). The channels that are chosen in regards to the

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 the case because it implies the guilt of the confessor. Thus, a confession, especially the ones with detailed account and perfect representation of emotions (Leo, 2008), outweighs the evidences of innocence and stirs the case against the accused (Kassin & Wrightsman, 1985). People believe that they are open-minded about the possibility of false confession but in reality, the public, law enforcers and justice officials have biases that often infer guilt to the suspect instead of investigating for the truth, which leads to wrongful conviction. According to Leo and Drizin (2004), false confession is the primary cause of law miscarriage (Leo and Drizzin, 2004). False confessors lived many years in jail before being exonerated while others remain imprisoned (Leo and Drizzin, 2004).

It is unfortunate that crime exists in our daily lives. There really is no way to stopping crime completely, no matter how many laws or punishment are present, people will continue to keep breaking rules. There are many theories of why that may be the case, for example, Caesar Lombroso and his “atavistic” theory with the Positivist School theory and how people were “born criminals”, or the Rational Choice Theory, devised by Cornish and Clarke, described that people could think rationally and how people will naturally avoid pain and seek pleasure referred to as “hedonism” (Cartwright, 2017, lecture 4). Since it is apparent that crime will continue to exist, it is not only important to understand the study of crime and the feedbacks to it,

The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is one of the two ways crime rates are measured in the United States. These Crime Statistics are produced from data received from over 18,000 city,

“Surprise, AZ (November 1, 2012) The City of Surprise had the second-lowest rate of property crime and violent crime in 2011 among the largest cities in Maricopa County, based on the city’s analysis of the latest FBI statistics” (Arthur, n.d.). Could social economic play a role in Surprise, Arizona’s low violent and property crime rate? Or could it be sufficient guardians set in place formal (police, security guards, etc.) and/or informal (neighbor, friends and others, etc.)? “According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report for 2011 as analyzed the Surprise Police Department, Surprise recorded 1.09 violent crimes and 21.79 property crimes per 1,000 residents last year” (Arthur, n.d.).

The hit television series Law and Order Special Victims Unit deals with cases that can be very controversial when the accused is a celebrity. In the fifteenth year episode nine the detectives had to make a decision that would could destroy the accused career if they made the wrong choice. Through the different characters in this episode there are different ethics that they follow.

“Making a Murderer” starts with Avery’s exoneration of the conviction of rape and assault of Penny Beerntsen. Consistently, Steven Avery asserted that he was innocent and that he had an alibi. Regardless of his assertions he spent 18 years, of a 32 year sentence, in prison before he was finally found innocent by DNA evidence and was released. Reasonably, Avery pursued a $36 million lawsuit against the Manitowoc County for his wrongful conviction. Consequently, this lawsuit made Avery an enemy of the county. When Teresa Halbach, an AutoTrader magazine photographer, was reported

The role that the media plays in today’s society is incredible. One inaccurate portrayal of a criminal investigation displayed almost every episode is Law and Order: SVU. I will admit that I enjoy watching this show but there are a ton of discrepancies in the situations that they act out. Eyewitness testimony is exhibited in the show and most of the time, deemed reliable by the detectives. In reality, there is much more that an eyewitness needs to specify before they are considered dependable. Another example of an inaccurate portrayal of a criminal investigation is that there is always evidence at the site of the crime, which is not the case. For instance, there are occasions where an entire fingerprint can not be retrieved or the perpetrator

The police procedural TV series, Crime Scene Investigation (CSI), had episodes where a case unravels to reveal more than one case; intersecting each other. The suspect in one murder can be a victim in another. The chains of the relationship become a sophisticated network I find engrossing. The inverse interaction between inflation and unemployment as delineated in the Keynesian Phillips curve has proven a rise in one variable can lead to a fall in another in the short run. However, the Monetarist’s expectations augmented-Phillips curve suggested the two variables are always spiraling upwards in the long run. The elements operate dependently because a change in inflation will eventually affect employment and vice versa. In order to reduce both unemployment and inflation but still have positive economic growth that is when Aggregate Supply comes in and intervenes.

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights article 11, “Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense” (Claiming Human Rights). This right to the presumption of innocence is a basic human right, which everyone is entitled to because a human right is a right one has because one is human. However, in some cases people do not presume ‘innocent until proven guilty’ perspective, rather their thinking is the opposite, ‘guilty until proven innocent’. This is illustrated in the case of Denice Haraway, who one day disappeared from her job at a convenience store in Ada, Oklahoma. The police took off on a relentless mission to capture the person(s) responsible for this heinous act and, they did everything in their power to bring someone or anyone to justice, which they did when they arrested Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot. Even though they repeatedly said they were innocent, but everyone including the police believed them to be responsible because they ‘confessed’ to committing the crime, a confession based on a dream. This paper will illustrate the reasons that are relevant to the innocence of these two men. The one factor that is persisted throughout this case is the incompetent efforts of the law enforcement such as inadequate efforts on the crimes scenes leading to lost of evidence, not following proper protocol in