Criminal Justice Student's Blog

mens rea and public welfare

2009-08-24T18:51:00.000-07:00

People v. Jensen ,Michigan Court of Appeals No 210655, (1998)

The defendant in this case was charged with three counts of knowing that she was HIV positive in the case of People v. Jensen, 222 Mich. App 575; 564 NW2d 192 (1997)

She was found guilty of engaging in sexual penetration with a partner without informing them of her HIV infection based on MCL 333.5210; MSA 14.15(5210) and was sentenced to concurrent terms of two years and eight months to four years imprisonment on each of the three counts.

The defendant in this case argues that MCL 333.5210; MSA 14.15(5210) is unconstitutional because it does not specify that an intent or mens rea is required. She also argues that because the statute does not specify and intent to harm, one who does not understand the consequences of their actions cannot be found criminally responsible.

The Michigan Court of Appeals upheld the conviction handed down to the defendant in her trial.

The court finds that knowingly engaging in sexual conduct without informing the partner of the risks they are taking is the culpable state of mind that can lead to the partner’s death. In the case of People v. Lardie,452 Mich 231,256;551 MW2d 656 (1996) the Supreme Court found that a person who operates a vehicle while intoxicated can be held criminally responsible for causing the death of another, based on the fact they knew they were intoxicated while driving, even without a specific intent to cause harm. The court has used the same rationale to uphold their decision here in this case of People v. Jensen.

I support the decision of the court in this case. If a person who is HIV infected is going to engage in sexual penetration with another, they should understand that there is a chance of causing that person to become infected with the deadly virus. In the interest of public welfare I believe that state statutes are constitutional in banning an infected person from engaging in sexual penetration without notifying the partner of the risks involved.

Police Ride Along 08/20/09

2009-08-21T12:28:00.000-07:00

I went out for a partial shift ride with my buddy John in CO last night. I spent all day unloading a trailer of firewood so I wasn't able to make it for the whole shift, but I would not have been able to anyway because he went in early for some supervisor meeting stuff, so it would not have mattered anyway.

After going back to our company terminal and showering up, he came by and picked me up at 1800 and we stayed on until midnight.

Since my last ride along John has got a brand new 2010 Crown Victoria police interceptor. It's all nice and shiny too because John's 10 year old daughter had been acting up, so he saw this as an opportunity to teach her a lesson and get the car waxed, so he made her wax the patrol car. (with his help of course) She did a wonderful job, it looks great! Now he is hoping she will act up again soon because his F-150 is getting a little dull... As we're cruising around we got off of I-25 and we noticed a tractor trailer parked in a very odd spot, just up in a grassy area next to the off ramp, so we drove up to investigate. The windows were cracked and the vents on the sleeper were open but nobody responded. The music was still playing also and the driver had new messages on the qualcomm. We peeked inside the tractor the best we could, but did not see anyone in the sleeper. We called the company and they said the driver was a very responsible driver and he was supposed to have picked up a load nearby at 1800 and they were unable to reach him also. The trailer had no seal and we opened it to verify it was empty. We drove to the restaurant across the street to see if he had walked over there but he had not, the waitress gave us a description of the driver and she said she had seen him get out of the truck and walk up into the a residential area, not a very good one at that. We went back on patrol and the company called John back awhile later and said they had made a mistake dispatching him on a load because he had requested time off here even though he didn't live here. John told them we thought there was a girl involved in this somewhere. lol We went back and checked and the truck was still there, John told them it was not a problem really, just odd that he left the windows and vents open and also the company had a yard only a few miles away. The truck remained there for the rest of the night though.

After going back out on patrol we responded to a call for a family fight. We are thinking it's going to look like a Cledus Judd song. Grandpa punching the cousins, brothers bashing each other over the head with wooden chairs, you know...no such luck. A father kicked his son out of the house, and on the way out the son stole his puppy. So we didn't waste much time on this.

We then responded to assist some other officers in making an arrest on a warrant, but unfortunately the individual had already vacated the premise, for whatever reason, maybe he knew we'd be coming. LOL

Next we got a call of what sounded like it was going to be a good domestic! Neighbors called and said there was loud music playing and then when the male showed up they heard a loud scream from the woman and then the radio went silent. So we headed over there with a few other cops and we went around the back of the house in the alley and we met with the neighbor who told us what happened. John went around the back of the house with another officer to the door that the woman said belonged to that part of the duplex. Anyway the people they were looking for ended up being around the front side of the house. John came back and got the cruiser and we drove around the front, it was nothing more than a little party with some drunk chicks and a dude. John asked the woman if she would call him later and she said sure, whats your number, he said 1-800-BIG-HUNK! LOL

Also way back in the winter this year John sent me a picture from his phone of roll call, and I had made a joke about the one guy in the back left corner, I said "he looks like he could use a few foot chases." Nothing personal, I was just goofing around.

Every time I've rode with John we always run into him, and the funny thing is every time I see him he says lets go get in a foot chase! He didn't even know what I had said, but John kept threatening he was going to tell him, I'm like oh no don't do that, he's going to kick my ass! LOL
Well we ran into him again and John just couldn't hold it in any longer, he had to tell him "hey my rider said you were fat..." So I was left explaining the whole story to him, luckily he is a pretty nice guy. He says the camera adds ten pounds. LOL Although he did say he knew what I drove, so I may want to stay out of that area now. He's not really a big guy, I think it was the camera, or maybe it was a cold day and he was padded up.

Overall it was a pretty dead night for this district, the next district south of us at one point had twenty calls on hold, and since John's guys weren't really doing much they started sending them down there to answer calls. We were cruising down the Ave. where all the whores hang out and we heard a guy parked in a driveway just off a side street honk his horn as a girl walked by and she looked at him and kept walking, so I guess she wasn't what he thought. So we flipped around and went back there and we turned on the lights just as the guy was attempting to back out of the drive. Now he gets out of his car and pops the hood open before John even gets up to him, and he asks him what he was doing and he claimed his car had been overheating and he was just working on it. So we cleared his name and John told him he knew exactly what he was doing and he needed to just get out of here. So John comes back to the cruiser and we are getting ready to leave, the man is still pretending to be looking under his hood. He just wouldn't give up on his story.

Next call we took was for a drunk man at a motel way up on the north end of the district causing problems. This is cool because with the new computer aided dispatch they are testing out in this district, we actually were able to see the call and head there before it was ever dispatched to an officer. We showed up with the other officer and as soon as we went in the motel the man tried to make a break for the door, but John and the other officer quickly grabbed him and cuffed him. There was a man in the bar who claimed he had punched him in the face three times, but he refused to press charges because he wasn't hurt and he said the guy just needed to sober up. The motel also refused to file a complaint because he was an employee of a contract they had, and they didn't want to hurt any relationships. The man was giving the other officer a hard time getting in the back of his cruiser, and he really wasn't happy the motel refused to file a complaint, he wanted to take him to jail. But he just went down to detox to sober up and be released, all this at his own expense though. That bill should be enough to make him think next time before he gets drunk and stupid in public.

I noticed later as were driving a car with a headlight out and I told John and we went to check it out, I also saw her make a left turn onto the main Ave. with no blinker, she got away from us a little bit but we chased her down and pulled up beside her. John is like "do you REALLY want to stop her? She looks like she just came from church." So he let her go, petty stuff I know but we were really running out of things to do. LOL John is a pretty nice guy, me I would have stopped her just to make contact and see if anything comes up, I wouldn't write any tickets for that stuff.

Awhile later John spots a van with out of state plates make an illegal turn and with a taillight out, so he pulls him over, and the guy stops right on the side of the main road, but whatever, lights freak people out I guess. Anyway turns out he had a revoked license! See that's what I tried to tell him before, LOL just kidding, he knows what he's doing. So we tried and tried to write out a summons using the new laptop software. In John's new cruiser he has a printer in the middle arm rest, pretty neat. But the software is just loaded with problems and doesn't work very well, so we just gave up and he went "old skool" with the handwritten summons. In CO you can't arrest someone physically for this, a summons serves as an arrest. Then you instruct them to park the vehicle, then you turn your head and drive the other way...

It was getting late so we went to a local taco joint and John ordered me something, I don't remember what they were called but they were delicious!! Some little miniature tacos, very filling though.

To end out the night we decided to go cruise the Ave. for hookers and clean up the town. We contacted several hookers up and down the strip, and of course they were all just walking somewhere, waiting for a ride, were from out of town and had "no idea" why we were stopping them, they had no clue this area was used for prostitution, meanwhile standing in skin tight shorts up to their pubic hair and very small shirts. It cracks me up the stories we get out on this strip are the funniest. The last girl we contacted gave us a name, but John asked her for her SSN # and it didnt match the name, well turns out it was her sister. So she finally came clean with the truth and she said she had a $10,000 warrant. She was right, it was for a public health order. When someone is arrested for prostitution they are ordered by the court to submit to STD tests.
If they fail to appear, they get a huge price on their head. John felt bad for her because she had a pretty rough life, her baby had just died and he knew her father who had ran an escort service and made her work for him. He didn't want to arrest her, but had no choice with that kind of bond. So he kicked me to the back of the car and let her ride up front. We took her down to the jail, which was cool it was my first time getting to see the city jail. Usually when I ride with John his guys take care of most of the arrests. Well that was about it, John took me back to my truck at midnight and he headed home. Funny thing is he told me Saturday night, two days later they had a shootout and a car chase. That figures...used to be every time I rode with John there would be a car chase, even though we never got into one ourselves. We almost did that one time, we were on the way at a high rate of speed and the bad guys had been shooting too. But it ended quickly. Well maybe next time...I'm headed back to CO right now, so maybe I'll get a chance to grab another ride.

Worst Trip on the Road - English Essay

2009-07-27T08:48:00.000-07:00

Worst Trip on the Road

This is a story from April of 2008. It was supposed to be a good time for my wife and me to spend together out on the road in my semi truck; instead it turned into the worst trip ever. The story began as I went home for my scheduled home time in Ohio, after which we decided that my wife would come out and spend some time with me on the road. On the day we were supposed to head out, we got a load assignment that was supposed to pick up in Indiana the day before and be in Colorado the next day; which is about thirteen hundred miles away.

We headed down to Seymour, Indiana to pick up the load from a Wal-mart distribution center. I had to drop off my empty trailer and they had just finished having a snow storm there. I ended up getting my tractor wheels stuck on the ice, when I tried to pull out from underneath the empty trailer. The only way for me to get going was to drag out my heavy set of double chains, ones which cover both the outside and inside tires. I struggled putting them on while not being able to move the truck. I finally got them secured enough to get traction and pull out from under the trailer, but I was a muddy mess by the time it was all through.

We then took the loaded trailer and headed for Colorado. Due to federal regulations on driving which only allow a truck driver to drive eleven hours before taking a ten hour break, or be on duty a total of no more than fourteen hours, I was not going to be able to deliver the load on time and had to change out with another driver near Kansas City, MO. His load was also going to CO but for the next day, so I could legally deliver this load, which had three stops, two in Denver and one in Grand Junction. I took off from there after my break was over and headed for CO.

This first stop was going to a place I was familiar with for picking up loads, but I’d never delivered one there. Since it was a refrigerated load I took it to the warehouse we normally use for loading, they told me to go to their other warehouse across the highway, so I drove down there and they unloaded my trailer and signed my bills and I went off to make the second drop and then back to my companies terminal for a break.

After my break was complete I fueled up my truck and pulled up to the guard shack, I then realized I had forgotten to put my fuel cap on and was leaking diesel all the way across the parking lot. So someone told me to go ahead and leave and they would take care of it. We pulled out and start heading up the mountain and they sent me a message over the satellite communication system telling me that I must return to the terminal and clean up the spill or be charged five hundred dollars. So we turn around and go back and I have to clean up the diesel with a shovel, broom and oil-dri over the entire lot.

We finally get that finished up and head back up the mountain a few hours later, again. My plan was to drive all the way to Grand Junction that night to get unloaded first thing in the morning, but this too went horribly wrong when the interstate was shut down half way up to Grand Junction because of a truck wreck. They said it would be shut down the rest of the night. We had to turn around and go back the other way and park for the night beside the on ramp. We woke up in the morning and the interstate was open, but now we were going to be late for our delivery.

It was a clear, warm, sunny spring day when we left Grand Junction to head back to Denver. Along the way we stopped at several view areas off the side of the highway and we walked around and took pictures, at last we were spending quality time together. At the last stop in a rest area just east of Vail, CO, I was busy making some lunch in the sleeper area of the truck. My wife said we had better get moving quick because it was starting to snow. I said it was April; it was not going to be that bad. I finished up my lunch and we took off again onto the interstate.

It began to snow heavier now; it seemed as if it was chasing us from behind. We approached the entrance to the Johnson/Eisenhower tunnel; a one mile long tunnel through the mountain. Traffic was slowed to about twenty miles per hour as we approached the exit. There is a sharp right downhill turn immediately exiting the tunnel, making it an almost blind curve. As I exited the tunnel I noticed suddenly cars were swerving to the left and the right like a V. I looked up and a small white six wheeled box truck had slid sideways across the interstate, I tapped the brakes and I was on solid ice with an empty trailer. Immediately my trailer starting swinging around to the right side, I counter steered to keep from jackknifing and I knew I had no choice at this point but to hit the truck.

I held on tight to the wheel and we slammed right into the back of the box, pushing it down the road further, my truck went into a partial jackknife and landed in the median, my trailer still across the interstate. A pickup truck ran into the tires of my truck as I slid sideways, another behind him pulling a small trailer went into the median. Car after car came crashing into one another, I also later found out I hit a few cars with my trailer before I hit the other truck. Luckily there were no injuries, except for my wife and I suffered minor injuries to our shoulders and were taken to Denver in an ambulance for treatment.

This was certainly not the trip we had in mind when we set out together. To top it off I found out the next day that the delivery I made to the first warehouse was the wrong one. That was their dry warehouse and I had a load of milk. They signed for the product and left it sit on the dock and spoil. Now they were holding me responsible for one thousand dollars of the claim, also my safety director was holding me at fault for the accident even though the state patrol and witnesses all said there was nothing I could do. I was charged an additional one thousand dollars for that. This was one trip I was glad when it was through.

SuperMax prison

2009-07-27T08:43:00.000-07:00

The SuperMax prison in Florence, CO is supposed to be the nation’s most secure correctional facility, housing only the highest risk, serious offenders. Such as Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph, Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, Ramzi Yousef, as well as several gang leaders. But recent discoveries show there may be a serious flaw in the security at SuperMax.

Mexican mafia leader Reuben Catsro was indicted on charges of conspiracy for continuing to run his gangs drugs sales in Los Angeles from his cell. Two leaders of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang were indicted on charges of conspiracy for inciting a murderous race war at a Pennsylvania prison though messages smuggled out of their SuperMax cells. Colorado State Democratic Rep. Buffie McFayden says that terrorists inside the SuperMax could be plotting another major attack on the United States from within this prison.

A justice department investigation was initiated when Spanish authorities found that inmate Mohammed Salameh, who rented the Ryder truck in the 1993 world trade center bombing, had been sending letters to a terror cell with links to the 2004 Madrid train bombings.

The justice department report found that the SuperMax staff had failed to monitor at least half of all the inmates’ telephone conversations for the last year. So what is causing these lax conditions at a so called “Super” maximum security prison? The heart of the problem seems to be centered on budget, and low staffing. The prison employees’ union says the staffing of SuperMax has fallen well below its original staffing level of when the facility opened a dozen years ago, and has now fallen below the established minimum staff levels allowed.

A federal arbitrator recently said that because of the low levels of staffing at SuperMax; entire cell blocks were left without staffing for an entire shift on several occasions. He also discovered that inmate cells were no longer being searched on a regular basis.

An inspector general’s report found that at times, the special investigation staff whose job is to read inmate mail were pulled from their duties to fill vacancies in cell block staff. This may be a key contributor to the secret messages that have been discovered leaving the prison and giving the gang leaders behind bars the power to still run their criminal activities.

I think in light of the recent discoveries of a total lapse in security at the SuperMax prison, it’s almost more of a joke than an accurate name. One would expect that a super maximum security prison would be a top priority as far as budget is concerned. In order to get these prisons back to their intended use, we must allocate the necessary funds to them. We should not blame the staff entirely for the lapse in security, it seems as though they are just stretched thin and they can’t oversee all the requirements to maintain such a high level of security all at the same time.

End of term

2009-07-27T08:15:00.000-07:00

We have reached the end of another term here at Westwood. I'm sorry I have not been loyal to the blog this term. I was getting a little overwhelmed with three classes and trucking, also the criminology stuff is so in-depth I would not even know where to begin explaining. Basically criminology is the study of crime, we looked at many different aspects, physical, sociological, mental, and many others.

The corrections class was very interesting, I was surprised by what corrections is all about. It entails so much more than just locking people up, as a matter of fact most prisoners only spend eight hours a day in there cells. The rest of the time they have jobs, and any special treatments that they need, such as drug counseling. We looked at how the war on crime and drugs has a long term affect on the prison system. Politicians love to parade around with their "get tough on crime" laws, but when it comes time to fund the corrections department to take care of all these long term sentences they are handing out, well they don't see so enthusiastic anymore.

The underfunding and under staffing of the prison system is pathetic. In one assignment I reported on the so-called "SuperMax" in Florence,CO, also known as, "SuperLax." The security here was so bad that the 1992 world trade center bombing was planned by a terrorist behind bars. In yet another case an L.A. Gang leader was still running his operation from within this super maximum security prison. I should post that report so you can see the whole thing, it's very interesting.

Anyway I have a lot of respect for these men and women now, they are locked in every day and greatly outnumbered by many dangerous felons. They don't walk around with a whole belt full of different weapons like the officers on streets, in there the best defense is communication.

In English class I brushed up on my grammar skills and wrote two essays, one was a process essay on pre-trip inspections, and the other was a narrative essay on my worst trip on the road.

Over all I finished with a 95% grade in all classes, another great semester. However I have dropped my course schedule to part time, which is only two classes per semester. This will extend my time in school longer, but it makes it less stressful on me, and gives me a chance to devote more time to each class, so that I can really get the full benefit of each one. My next semester is pre-algebra and criminal law.

Process Essay - Pre-Trip Inspection

2009-07-09T19:57:00.000-07:00

The objective of this assignment was to use process writing skills to describe something we do often, and of course, I do this EVERY day. Really, I'm a trucker, would I lie to YOU?!?

________________

Doing a pre-trip inspection

When you’re driving a forty ton tractor trailer, safety is always your number one concern. Failure to detect a potential problem before you start driving down the highway is dangerous, and it can be deadly. Serious accidents can occur when you fail to ensure your vehicle is in safe condition by conducting a thorough pre-trip inspection before you begin driving each day.

The first thing you want to do is start from the inside of the cab. You turn your key to the on position and begin pumping your brakes and watching the air gauge on your dashboard. When the air pressure reaches 60 psi you want to hear an alarm go off; letting you know that you’re low on air. Next you will turn on your wipers to make sure both blades are functioning correctly. Now you want to tap your city horn, that’s the one on the steering wheel that is legal for use in cities. You should hear a horn that sounds similar to a car horn, next you want to pull your air horn and make sure it is working also. Air horns are not required by the department of transportation (DOT) to be working, but your city horn must be working. Finally check all your windows and mirrors for clarity, clean them if they need attention. Now turn on your headlights and four way flashers and pull down on the trailer brake handle, then exit the truck.

Once outside the truck walk around to the front of the truck and look underneath to make sure you do not see any fluids leaking on the ground, then open the hood. You want to start out by pulling the dipstick for the oil and wiping it off with a towel and then reinsert it and pull it back up again to check your oil level. Next you will check your coolant level, if you have a clear plastic tank this can be done by simple observation. For older metal tanks you must remove the cap and look inside the reservoir, using a flashlight if necessary. Finally you want to check the power steering fluid level; this is always in a clear plastic tank on the left side of the truck, so a simple observation is all that is required. Left and right sides are always determined by standing at the rear of the truck facing forward. Now you will look at your shock and check for any wear or oil leaking from the tube, and also check the leaf spring or airbag for any suspension damage, you will repeat this step on both sides of the tractor. On the left side of the tractor you will grab hold of the steering linkage bar coming through the firewall from the steering wheel and shake it, you are checking for any excessive looseness in it.

Now you’re ready to check your tires. With a tire pressure gauge that is capable of reading up to 100 psi you will check the air pressure in the left and right front steer tires, then you will take a tire depth measuring instrument and stick it between the tread on both tires making sure you are not below DOT minimum tread level. Finally you will look in behind the steer tires and check the brake pads and drums for any damage or worn down brake pads. Now go back to the front of the truck and close the hood and secure it back in place with the provided latches.

Now stand in front of your truck and check to make sure that the headlights are both working as well as any other marker lights on the truck and four way flashers. You are now ready to inspect the rest of your tractor and trailer. Walk between the tractor and trailer and check the red and blue air lines for damage or leaks and check the electric cord for damage. The process for checking tires, suspension and lights will be the same all the way around the vehicle as you did for the front of the tractor.

You will want to check the air lines hanging under the trailer for leaks or damage and also check the hub oil levels on the trailer wheels through the see through hubs in the center of the wheel. The reason you pulled the trailer brake handle before you exited the truck was to make sure that the brake lights on the tractor and trailer are working.

If everything is satisfactory you may sign off on your log sheet that the vehicle is safe for operation on the highway and you’re free to begin your day driving.

Week 3

2009-06-15T16:21:00.000-07:00

INTRO TO CRIMINOLOGY I

This week we looked at where criminology theories come from. We looked at theory building and the role of research and development. It's very detailed studies, so I'm not even going to attempt to write it all out in detail. For the assignment we chose three criminology and sociology based journals from the EBSCO host and described them in an essay. In the discussion we talked about how we would build a research theory into the neighborhood watch program to convince the mayor of a fictional town whether or not he should start the program in his town.

INTRO TO CORRECTIONS I

This week we reviewed the sentencing and correctional process. We start out by reviewing the pretrial process including arrest, prosecutors who can offer plea bargains and finally the courts if the case does go to trial. We then learn about pretrial diversion programs which can be used to offer and offender a chance to enter into treatment programs, and if completed successfully they may have the charges dropped.

We reviewed other programs such as the bail system which can allow some offenders to be free while awaiting court.We then looked at the pretrial investigation into the offenders background, and the sentencing guidelines that judges have at their discretion for sentencing an offender.

In the discussion we talked about the use of plea bargains and also for the assignment we wrote an essay on plea bargains. This is a very important part of the process since 90% of all cases never have to go to trial, without plea bargains the system would literally collapse under the workload of trying every case before a jury, it's just not possible.

Week 2

2009-06-05T21:45:00.000-07:00

INTRO TO CRIMINOLOGY I

This week we looked at crime statistics, based on the traditional FBI uniform crime reporting (UCR), and the new National incident-based reporting system(NIBR) of the UCR, and National crime victimization survey (NCVS). The UCR collects data on crime reported to law enforcement agencies around the nation based on seven major offense categories, murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. All percentages on based on a per 100,000 person ratio, for instance murder is reported as 5.7 per 100,00 with a 60.7 clearance rate.

The NIBR is much more detailed data based on each individual incident, such as victim and offender information and all crimes committed in each instance gets recorded, unlike the previous UCR system. The NCVS is nationwide surveys taken to ask people about crimes they have had committed against them whether reported or not, this sytem is not totally reliable though because the information is impossible to prove, and many people might make up stories to impress the interviewers. The NCVS does often turn up a much higher crime picture than the UCR because the UCR is based only on crimes cleared, which means an arrest was made, or the agency knows who is responsible but an arrest is not possible, such as the offender being killed by the police, or a murder-suicide. The overall clearance rates for crimes in America is pretty low, so there is a lot of crimes out there being commited that we don't know who commited them.

We also covered a recent addition to UCR data, the "hate crime", agencies report when a crime was committed based on racial, religious, or sexual hate. Surprisingly, organized hate groups such as the KKK actually make up a small percentage of these crimes, it seems to be mostly random, especially after 9/11 when middle eastern people were targeted, and also Indian (India) people were a lot of times mistaken as Muslim, and became victims of hate crimes. We then reviewed the crime statistics over the last thirty years, including the peak of the crime waves in the mid nineties and the sharp decline since then. Although these numbers may be a little misleading, as one expert said in the text, it's like falling off of a very high peak, to a smaller, still high peak, below. So in other words, it's not that crime has fallen to a low level, it's just a lot lower than it was when it was extremely high.

Students from Guilford College in NC protest the attack of three Palestinian students.

You must take these numbers with a grain of salt, they are in no way an accurate representation of what's really going on, the extent to which we may not even have any way of understanding. So many crimes go unreported for one reason or another, which is why we have the NCVS, but yet there is also no way of proving that information is correct either, it's based soley on what someone tells the interviewer.

We then look at age and crime, also race. Trends show that the older we get the less likely we are to be involved in crime. Young blacks males up to 25 years old have the highest rate of involvement, and also victimization. Race as far as the statistics show, seems to be more among African-Americans. This was also the topic of our class discussion this week, however like I stated previously, the stats are based solely on clearance rates, and there are a lot of crimes being committed that never get cleared so it's impossible for anyone to have an accurate number of race involvement in all crimes. Why does it matter anyway, does it serve us any purpose to have this break down of information, if we truly want to all be American's then why do we need to be segregated into categories by the color of our skin? Just the term African-American, or Mexican-American alone should be offensive, I mean for those who were born American citizens just like the rest of us. People refer to me as an "American", not as German-American, or Irish-American or what have you. My great Grandmother was a Cherokee, but nobody calls me a Native-American. Anyway enough with the rant, we're getting off topic here.

Also understand that a clearance only means an arrest, so if an African-American is arrested for a crime but later found not guilty, it still is a mark against his race for that crime, or any race.
I would like to share with you the clearance rates for all crimes known to police under the 2006 UCR, so you can see what I'm talking about, I will give you the total number,then the clearance rate.

Murder 17,034 60.7%
Forcible Rape 92,455 40.9%
Robbery 447,403 25.2%
Aggravated Assault 860,853 54%
Burglary 2,183,746 12.6%
Larceny(includes all petty theft) 6,607,013 17.4%
Motor vehicle theft 1,192,809 12.6%
Arson 69,055 18%

So you can see there is A LOT of unsolved crime here we can't pin on anyone.
Also understand the difference between a robbery and a burglary. A robbery is the taking of something from someone with the use of force,or threat of use of force. A burglary is the unlawful entry of a structure with the intent to commit a theft or felony, and includes forced entry, non-forced entry and attempted forced entry. So you see, someone can break into an establishment and commit a felony and it's still a burglary, whether or not they steal anything.

Also on the same token, someone can enter an establishment, but if there is no proof of intent to commit a felony or theft, it's not a burglary. That pretty much made up the basis for all the studies this week, crime rates and different race,age and social factors involved.

For the assignment we used the UCR website to do research on burglary rates between Denver and Tampa, and we compared the rates for 2007, 2000, and 2002.

Intro to Corrections I

We started out this week by looking at the early responses to crime, before the corrections system was developed. These were often very violent and brutal practices, involving beatings,torture and mutilation. The punishments were sought to fit the crime, liars had their tongues ripped out, thieves had there fingers or hand cut off, adulterers had an 'A' had branded to their forehead. Banishing was also popular, as we discussed last week with the English convict ships to Australia. The brutal corporal punishments were also used in colonial America, as well as whipping posts and stocks and pillories for minor offenses, this is wear an offender would be locked into a wooden device and ridiculed in the center of town.

William Penn, the governor of Pennsylvania was unhappy with the brutal treatment of criminals in those days. The Quakers, who had settled Pennsylvania were the victims of religious persecution themselves and they decided to abolish capital punishment for all crimes except murder and they developed the idea of the first prison system in America as an alternative way of dealing with criminals. Inmates were kept in individual cells and were not allowed to communicate with any other inmates, in fear of moral contamination among themselves. They were even moved about the prison with masks over their faces in case inmates met up after being released, they did not want them to recognize each other. Prisoners were put to work during the day making handicrafts in their cells, and nights were for bible studies and penance on their crimes. The objectives were hard labor,solitary confinement, and religious study.
The first Pennsylvania prison was opened in 1826, the Eastern State Penitentiary just outside Philadelphia. The first idea of a prison was opened in 1790 when a wing of the Walnut Street Jail into housing for sentenced offenders, this was also in Philadelphia.

In 1817 New York opened a prison in Auburn which was originally designed around the Pennsylvania model of corrections,but in 1823 they began making changes and came up with their own system. They kept inmates separate at night, but allowed them to congregate during the day to work in factories to improve the goods that could be sold to help cover the costs of the facility.

Beginning in 1870 and lasting until 1910 the system entered into the "reformatory era" in which the emphasis began to shift from punishment to reforming prisoners through education and other programs so they could have a future back in society and be deterred from future criminal ways. We then learned about all the changes that have led to the system currently in place today and reviewed the importance of each of the sentencing goals, punishment,deterrence,incapacitation,rehabilitation and restitution.

In the class discussion we talked about which of these goals we felt were most important, and for the assignment we wrote a report on Phrenology, the study of the brain and certain physical features that some criminals have that are believed to be from way back in the evolution of humans, which may indicate they are not as developed mentally as the rest of us in today's sociecty.

The Night Rider - Practice for English writing course

2009-06-02T14:57:00.000-07:00

The Night Rider
__________________________________
Experience the thrill of the lone, all night trucker.

You awake from a deep sleep to the sound of your alarm; you wipe the sleep from your eyes and roll over to silence the alarm. You look at the clock and you see it has been nine and half hours since you ended your last tour of duty from the prior days work, you only have thirty minutes until it’s time to do it all again, just like you’ve done so many times before. As you crawl from your bunk and open the curtains you are greeted with the beautiful, serene vision of dusk. The sun is setting slowly over the western mountains. You see many truckers coming in, crowding the parking lot, fighting for that last few remaining spots. For many this is the end of their day, but for you, the night rider, it marks the beginning of another day.

You gather your thermos and walk inside the truck stop; you sit down at a table and order a cup and begin to collect your thoughts. You listen to all the not so discreet conversations going on among the other drivers as they take a few breaks to eat their dinners. You try and keep quiet, because you know that any little disagreement will spark a heated debate. You secretly laugh in amusement at how most of what you’re hearing is all nonsense, and how truckers seem to be experts in every field; law, medicine, politics… whatever the debate is, someone is an “expert” on it. It’s a phrase you will sometimes hear as “truck stop lawyer”, or “truck stop politician.”

You order yourself up something small for dinner, maybe a sandwich; you don’t want anything to heavy that may make you sleepy to early in the night. You sit and listen to the busy chatter of dinner time all around you, dishes clanking in the kitchen, people talking way to loud on cell phones, “expert” truckers having not to subtle debates with each other. This is the typical scene of a truck stop restaurant. After your meal has arrived, you down it quickly; as the time to get going is quickly approaching by now. You pay the cute waitress and leave her a few extra bucks for being sweet and calling you “hun” and “darlin’” and all that stuff, out here you don’t get a lot of female interaction, so these little things make your day.

You walk back into the store and fill up your thermos with the night’s coffee, as you pull down that lever on the coffee maker you hear the rushing sound as the liquid starts to swirl and fill your thermos, and you smell that wonderful aroma that you love so much. You head back out to the truck and open the hood and turn on all the lights and flashers to make sure everything is in order for your journey this evening. You close the hood and hop back in the truck, you reach down and turn the key to the on position and listen for that beeping sound, then you crank it the rest of the way over and feel that sweet vibration as the cab rocks side to side slightly and finally she fires up. You listen to the purring of the motor and smell the fresh diesel fumes, you are ready to ride!

You reach down and press in the air brakes knobs, listening for that familiar hiss of the air going through the lines; you put it in gear and begin to roll out. Some lucky driver shows up at just the right time to take your spot, you feel good knowing that you helped that tired driver find a safe place to park for the night. As you turn onto the on ramp and head for interstate you start grabbing gears one after another and you hear the marvelous roar of that big motor as you begin to pick up speed, you look out the mirrors as you place your blinker on and see your fellow drivers moving over to let you on the highway. You reach up and turn your CB on for the night, and give thanks to the courteous drivers for allowing you to merge onto the highway. You reach your cruising speed by this point and you got the truck in tenth gear and are rolling off into the night, the sun has finished setting now and the sky is lit by a full moon and all the beautiful stars of the distant skies. The traffic is starting to thin out now from the typical rush of the daylight hours, with each exit you lose more and more traffic as people and big trucks jump off searching for a place to spend the night. But you are one of the few, the special breed of drivers, you are a night rider! You’re only love is that night sky, the lonesome rumbling of your own wheels in the silence of the night and the glow of the chicken lights illuminating the highway on all sides of your rig as you roll on through the darkness.

This is where I fell in love with the night, while working for Jamestown Transportation; I had a 2005 Freightliner Classic XL, with the name “Flight 837” painted on the sleeper and the hood, this was my baby, just me and ‘ol flight 837 and the midnight sky over the desert southwest.

She was cherry red with chrome lettering, loaded with chicken lights and chrome from all sides, man she was beautiful! The best part was rolling through the night and looking in my mirrors and seeing the glow of my chicken lights illuminating the empty lane beside me. You reach down and grab a big chug of that black coffee and reach up and turn on your stereo that’s tuned to your favorite XM music channel, this is what it’s all about the freedom of the open road. You approach your first major city to pass through, it’s just after midnight and you glide right on through town, never lose a gear.

Unlike your fellow drivers you passed at the last truck stop, which will be coming around about 5 am and start piling on the highway with all the local people headed to their 9 to 5 dead end jobs. They start their day off with bumper to bumper traffic, and an hour later they make it to the other end of town finally and still have to deal with traffic all around, and angry, inconsiderate drivers all day long, people weaving in and out of lanes and such, you never know what some of these people on the road are going to do next, but you don’t have that problem now, it’s just you and highway out here, along the way you pass a smokey bear in the median sitting in his car with the lights out. You cruise on by and he doesn’t budge, you wander if he is still awake at all.

As you roll on for about five hours you decide (or that thermos of coffee) that it’s time to hit the next truck stop, you see the exit approaching, you step on the brake and feel the powerful roar of the jake brakes engage as it quickly reduces your momentum and you glide graciously off the ramp making a lone roar all the way to the bottom, breaking the total silence of this little mountain town. You reach the stop sign at the bottom and turn right and drive into the truck stop, you pull up into the fuel island and park, something that would raise a lot of anger in your fellow drivers during the day time, and may even start a fight, but nobody cares now because the only other drivers around are parked off to the side and they are fast asleep. You grab your thermos for another round of go-go juice.

As you pull the door open of this little mom and pop café you hear that distinct chime of a bell hanging above to let the clerk know you’ve entered. You look over at the clerk and she greets you with a smile and a “good morning”, you smile back and return the greeting. You hear the slight sound of country music playing overhead; you head straight for the restroom to relieve yourself of that thermos of coffee you consumed in the first half of your shift and walk back into the store to get another round for the last half of your shift. As your fill your thermos with the sweet aroma of another fresh (or somewhat recent by this time) pot; you feel a little rumble in your stomach and decide to grab a pastry to go. You climb back in the truck, fire it up put ‘er in gear and drive away, nobody outside will ever even know you were here. You’re rolling back down the freeway again with just the sight of another big truck with lots of lights going the other way every once in awhile. The CB radio is pretty quiet for the most part, not like during the day time when it’s filled with want to be disc jockeys and the Rambo’s all threatening to whoop each other. The silence is broken every once awhile by another lonely trucker trying to say something silly to stay awake, or a few drivers running together passing by and chatting to pass the time away.

You reach up and tune your satellite radio to the overnight trucking show, but after a short while you realize this is nothing more than an electronic dining area, much like the one you were in at the beginning of your shift. A bunch of “expert” truck drivers with all the solutions, and a lot of them with invalid, uninformed complaints which amounts to nothing more than adults whining, you’re not interested in listening to this for very long so you switch to coast to coast am with George Noory for awhile and listen to peoples ghost stories, and how they were abducted by alien life forms and flown off in UFO’s to distant galaxies, only to be returned with sore behinds. Not very believable, but it is certainly entertaining for a few hours.

As the break of day starts to rise over the eastern horizon your body takes it’s natural toll and tells you it’s time for bed, you start to get sleepy but you just keep driving you got only a few more hours left, you finish off that second thermos of coffee and crank up your favorite tunes on the stereo. Finally you reach your destination for today and again you pull off the ramp and rumble your way to the bottom, as you pull in the truck stop you have full access, all the trucks have left to go on their way in the day time and you pick a spot and pull those air brakes, you’re tired and glad to hear that familiar sound of the air popping and you look out your window and see a puff of dust scatter around your truck as you set the air brakes, you close your curtains and hop in bed and drift off until it’s time to do it again. That’s the end of the day for the “Night Rider.”

Week 1

2009-05-29T19:43:00.000-07:00

For the first week in the criminology course we start out by defining "criminology", which is simply "the study of crime." Now what is crime? Initially it's defined as "the human conduct that violates the laws of a state,federal government or local jurisdiction which has the power to make such laws." There are four main perspectives that make up contemporary criminology 1. Legalistic ,2. political, 3.sociological, 4. psychological. The purpose of this course is going to follow the legalistic perspective, which defines crime as I have stated. Without laws that define what a crime is, there can be no crime, regardless of how heinous an act may be to society. However in a "common law" state, a person can be prosecuted on what is accepted acts of right and wrong, it does not need to be any written formal law. These prosecutions are rare, and often unsuccessful though.

A quick look at the other perspectives of criminology are political, which defines crime as laws made by those in power to try and control the people from committing acts which would jeopardize their control. Sociological defines crime as an antisocial act that needs to be repressed in order to preserve the current system of society. Psychological perspective defines crime as a form of social maladjustment ,difficulty of the offender in reacting to the stimuli of his environment. It is a problem behavior which makes it difficult for the offender to live in a socially acceptable manner. But we will focus on the legalistic perspective only, for the purpose of this course. There is a difference between criminal behavior, and deviant behavior. Deviant behavior is simply human activity that violates social norms, the kinds of things that might get you in trouble in a "common law' state.

What is a criminologist, what do they do? A common broad stroking definition is of a person who studies crime, and criminals. It's bit more complicated than that when you break it down though. Sometimes the scope of a criminologist gets overshadowed to those who are really criminalist, one who works in crime labs, or a crime scene investigator, or anyone who works with a special knowledge in a specific area of crime. Criminologist is reserved for academics and researchers with advanced degrees involved in the study of crime and trends and societal

reactions to crime.

The desire to understand the criminal mind predates written history, prehistoric skeletal evidence shows a primitive cranial surgery. It is believed that people assumed deviant behavior was caused by spiritual possession, and the surgery was an attempt to free the evil spirit.

Unfortunately the understanding of what criminology is, is not as simple as the explanation sounds. It's very detailed and covers many different theories. There is not one right or wrong theory, in my opinion, they all have valid ideas that need to be looked at.

Theoretical criminology is the type most often found in colleges and universities, it attempts to posit explanations for criminal behavior. There is also a category called "general theory" which attempts to define all criminal behavior under one explanation, this is one theory I would not bother looking to much into, because that is impossible to do. The integrated theory takes concepts from different sources and merges them together to try and develop an understanding of crime. This theory seems like the most reasonable approach to me, and is part of what makes criminology an inter-discipline science.

The overall theme of this course is going to be one of social policy, the social problems perspective, which holds that crime is the manifestation of an underlying social problem such as poverty, inequality, and lower levels of education and so on. We must ask what we can do to control crime from these factors.

The opposite of this perspective is the social responsibility, which holds that individuals are responsible for their own actions, and they choose crime over law-abiding courses of action.

We will be contrasting these two perspectives in this course. Advocates of social responsibility believe that regardless of social programs to deter crime, certain individuals are always going to be prone to a criminal life, because that's what they choose to do. They want to see harsher enforcement and punishments, rather than government programs. This policy was best displayed in 1994, when the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act was passed.

It expanded the number of capital offenses to 52, billions of dollars was made available to put 100,000 new police officers on the streets,it also funded money for prisons.

Every crime that occurs has a unique set of causes, consequences, and participants. Everyone from the offender, victim, bystanders, police, courts, and society as a whole,a criminal act has a different affect on them. Which usually leads to some sort of new law being enacted if society feels deeply offended by the case and realizes a need for change to prevent future instances as much as possible. The roles of the criminal justice system are (1) prevent crime, (2) adequately identify and inhibit specific offenders prior to there involvement. (3) prevent the release of potential repeat offenders.

Finally we change our definition of crime to an "emergent phenomenon" , a lawbreaking event that rises from an intricate social nexus involving a wide variety of participants.

In the discussion we talked about why society needs crime, on the surface we condemn crime, and punish offenders, but deep down crime and punishment is a ritual of our lives. Long ago, before television was made popular in America, the airwaves were filled with hundreds of radio programs of detectives solving murders, and the glamorous life of the old west lawmen, marshals and of course the Lone Ranger. Many of early televisions program were remakes of previously popular radio programs. Throughout the years since, criminal justice shows have been some of the highest rated programs ever.

Today CSI : Miami is "THE" highest rated show in the world, with over fifty million viewers in over fifty five countries. Even though I hate to be the one to burst the big bubble and tell you that things don't really work quite that way in the real world, it just shows the desire and attraction people have to crime. Can you think of anytime in your life a criminal justice program wasn't popular? CHP's, Murder She Wrote, Matlock,COPS, Real Stories of the Highway Patrol,CSI,Law and Order... it could go on forever, I think it shows a positive conjunction for the thesis of this discussion.

We marvel at criminal behavior, as in the case of the old west outlaws, who were by all rights cold blooded killers, but society seen them as romanticized heroes. I'm not sure exactly where this comes from, I believe it's more of the detective in all of us coming out, and we don't stop to realize the true horror and life changing affects that a crime can cause. Hollywood really has desensitized us to the truth about crime over the last century, and sometimes it's not until it hits us directly that we realize what it's really about.

We posted our introductions this week, some students are returning from my previous classes and some are new. Every criminal justice student takes a little different path in the order of the classes, so the ones that I've been with the last two terms will be with me to the end, and the rest will be mixed.

No assignments were due this week.

The same procedure in this course as well for week 1, post introductions to the class. We did not have any book reading assignment this week, we just read from the online lecture material and discussed why it's important for students to study corrections, which most people think of only as jail and prison. We must not forget that parole and probation as well as other rehabilitation programs are all included in the corrections branch of the system.

For the assignment I had to write a short three paragraph report summarizing the "convict ships" of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that took convicted criminals from England away to exile to live in Australia. I covered the early days of cruel treatment and many deaths, until after 1801 when the English government got involved and put their own doctors on the ships who did not have to answer to the Captain, and also offered bonuses to the crew for the safe delivery of all the convicts.

Week 9 Grades

2009-05-19T19:20:00.000-07:00

Intro to Police I

Discussion 100%

Final Exam 43/55

Final Score 638/690 92.46%

Intro to Criminal Justice I

Journal 11/15

Assignments 100%

Discussion 100%

Final Exam 85/100

Final score 976.80 / 1035 94.38%

Computer Applications

Assignments 90/100

Discussion 100%

Quiz 24/30

Final Score 1376 / 1450 94.90%

STRAIGHT 'A's

Week 9

2009-05-18T22:34:00.000-07:00

Intro to Police I

This is the final week of this term, we did not have any assignments this week. We wrapped up our discussion of community policing and took the final exam.

We also discussed why repeat victimization occurs so frequently, and what can be done to change that. We watched this video as part of our topic.

Intro to Criminal Justice I

In this week's discussion we talked about police brutality, particularly in this video from Reagan International Airport. The description of the video is cleverly written to put outrage into the viewers. "Police beat up a girl at Reagan National Airport, throwing her across the room into a person and a metal chair. Then they picked her up and threw her against a table. After that, they bashed her head into that metal table, giving her a concussion. Then they twisted her arm so hard that it was about to break. "

I did not however see any sign of brutality in this video other than the fact that the TSA agent grabbed the woman and threw her backwards into a chair, that was pretty excessive. As far as the rest of it goes when they picked her up and "placed" her against the table, in my opinion, I did not see anything that was not routine arrest procedure. No bashing of heads or twisting of arms, the woman seemed a little agitated, and rightfully so, and may have been resisting arrest at this point.

Only one other student agreed with me, so I don't know maybe I'm missing something here, but it just did not seem nearly as brutal as I expected from the description. The camera angle is kind of hard to see,no audio, and I have no idea what the problem was, so I have to assume something in the woman's bag led to the incident. There was certainly some excessive force used, but I wouldn't call it "brutality." It was the TSA, not the police who were involved in throwing the woman to the ground anyway.

For the assignment we had to write a report on the history of police corruption within the LAPD,and most recently from the Rampart division gang unit scandal that occurred there.

In the journal entry I summed up what I've learned through the course from the careers in criminal justice workbook and all my previous journal entries. I finished out the course by taking the final exam.

Police Ride Along 05/15/09

2009-05-16T00:48:00.000-07:00

Went out riding again this weekend with my buddy the "big city" cop. For legal purposes I will not release any names, Officer or city, as you may have noticed. Anyhow he picked me up and we headed back to the district, we were doing some business checks of a main Blvd. that is known for hookers to hang out, when we pulled up a woman sitting at the bus stop kind of waved as we drove by, so I waved back at her and we pulled into the shopping center and observed her making eye contact with passing traffic and waving. She then spotted us sitting in the shopping center and she stood up and began waving again, we thought maybe she was little too friendly so we drove over and contacted her about what she was doing, of course she was just "waiting for the bus." Rule #1 in police work, EVERYBODY lies, and we were not buying her story, so we asked her who she was and she voluntarily gave up her ID, we ran it and found that she had previous contacts for prostitution. We went back and got her to admit she was out trying to make some cash, we advised her when the bus pulled up to get on it and get going, and she complied.

We went back on patrol and a few minutes later got a call to a nearby Wendy's where a man was involved in a traffic altercation with some self proclaimed local gang members who followed him into the parking lot and pointed a gun at him, they then wrote down his plate number in an attempt to intimidate him and told them they could find out where he lived and drove off. We took some initial suspect information and the other officer's showed up and we turned it over to them.

We went back on patrol a few blocks away and a vehicle rolled through a stop sign right in front of us, we flipped around and cornered him in parking lot where he was attempting to turn around, he was visiting from FL. The man driving the SUV had no drivers license and no insurance, we cited the driver for those offenses but not running the stop sign and advised him to park the car, he was from a residence that was nearby.

Next we went to a call off some neighbors fighting, possibly drunk, it turned out to be just yelling and threats mostly. We turned the case over to the district cars to settle, we are a command unit so we do not get dispatched to any calls or take reports.We also responded to a call of a suicidal woman with several other units. We arrived at the apartment complex and all squeezed into the elevator, the officers' went in and took some statements and talked with the woman, she was taken to the hospital on a mental health hold. We then responded to call downtown of a domestic outside a business, a man was yelling at his girlfriend and grabbed her arm, we were able to clear that pretty quickly, it was nothing really.

We were on patrol again we were in the left lane and a car was in the right lane, a man pulled out of a business drive right in front of the car in the right lane and they had to slam on the brakes and almost crashed into him, the car then got in the left lane and we got behind him to prepare to make a stop. When the light turned green he made a right turn from the left lane and we followed him and he drove back around the block into the alley he just came out of and we stopped him there. He was not drunk but was driving on a revoked license for alcohol offense.
We cited him for driving under revocation and ordered him to park the car.

Next were patrolling through a housing complex known for selling drugs and saw a car load of juveniles pulling out and they made a left turn without signaling so we stopped them for that to see what they were doing down there, presumably buying dope but we did not pursue the matter and let them go. Also earlier we stopped another juvenile for making a turn without signaling but it was nothing, though my buddy stated the driver was "playing for my team", not sure what that means, maybe he was an Indians baseball player or something.

Next we covered a district car that made a traffic stop on a car with five occupants, some appeared to be juveniles. Three males and two females, they were all pulled out of the vehicle and given the "Terry pat." The court case of Terry v. Ohio that gave Officers' the right to pat down people for weapons, so it has become known as a "Terry pat." The car was searched and did not turn up anything, however one of the females who was 27 years old claimed to have no ID. So my buddy started playing mind games with her, he said where you from, she said "Houston" so he asked her what neighborhood and she said "Breezewood." A few minutes later he told her he used to live in Houston and there was no such area, of course he did not live in Houston, but neither did she. He then told her she needed to come clean and take care of her past problems and not add anymore, she then revealed her name and that she was probably wanted for parole violations, we ran the name and she was wanted on a felony warrant for parole violations, so she was arrested and the rest were sent on their way.

We were then cruising another strip that is notorious for hookers' standing around,we had noticed this woman standing out their all night long, so we stopped and asked her what she was doing, she said "My foot is hurt and I can't walk, I'm waiting for someone to pick me up and take me the hospital." We knew she full of crap and told her to go home, she said she would. We went around the block and came back and she was hopping in a car, we flipped around and followed them into an apartment complex where she lived and lit them up, the driver and woman attempted to get out of the car and my buddy ordered them back in, when he approached the driver he was acting very froggy and kept trying to reach his hands under the seat, my buddy pulled his gun and ordered the man out of the car, he then did the pat down and cuffed the man and sat him on the bumper of the cruiser. I watched the suspect while he talked to the girl.
Initally she was trying to play like she just got him to give her a ride home like we told her, however the man had a fifty dollar bill that he was attempting to hide, which is why he had been placing his hands under the seat. Then a man and woman came outside one claiming to be the girl's mother and the other said that was his wife, the situtation started getting a little uncomfortable. We informed them that we were not stupid, we know what she was doing and they had best get out of the way, which they did.

When we checked the two suspects, the woman had prior contacts for prostituion and the man had prior contacts for picking up hookers, even though was still saying he was just giving her a ride home. The woman was cited for soliciting prostitution and released to her residence. The man was also cited and after we told him he was not going to jail, but he needed to come clean with the truth he admitted she had offered sex to him and he was intending on paying ten dollars for a blow job. We advised him to go back home and stay away from this area trying to pick up hookers.

We then got a call of a man who had been stabbed outside a residence while sitting in his pickup truck. We responded with several other Officers' and EMS, the man had a good slash in his arm but not life threatening, he was taken to the hospital. We secured the crime scene with tape because witnesses saw the suspects touch the mans truck, also the knife was later found at the scene, however due to the heavy rain at the time the evidence may be useless, the victims fled on foot and were not located at this time. We responded to one more call of 911 hang ups that involved screaming in the background, however we had no address because the calls were coming in from cell towers. We checked the area and one address but nobody answered and it seemed to be all quiet, so we left that one up to the district cars to handle.

We had dinner earlier in the evening at a very good local Mexican restaraunt and also made apit stop to district headquarters. We tried to get a picture of me standing next to a sign that said "Parking for Top Cop", which is the spot reserved for the Officer of the month or something, but the flash was too bright and the words didn't show up, thought it would make a cool photo though.

We called the night at 0100 instead of 0300 because of the rain,and my buddy had already worked some extra hours today on other events. Was still a great ride though, and I'm improving my skills on being able to keep track of where we are at all the time, and also observing what's going on around me. Looking forward to my next ride!

Week 8 Grades

2009-05-15T12:29:00.001-07:00

Intro to Police I

Assignments 100%

Discussion 22/30

Quiz 12/15

Intro to Criminal Justice I

Journal 100%

Assignments 100$

Discussion 100%

Quiz 18/20

Final Project 100%

Computer Applications

Assignments 100%

Discussion 100%

Quiz 18/30

Video Update

2009-05-14T06:56:00.000-07:00

Week 8

2009-05-10T23:08:00.000-07:00

Intro to Police I

This week dealt solely with community policing (COPP) and problem oriented policing. (POP)
As we have discussed already community policing is the new model of policing used by police to improve community relations and get the citizens involved in preventing crime. POP is a method of policing that aims to get to the root of a problem to resolve it, instead of responding to the same calls over and over again.

For the assignment this week we watched a video on the web about how the city of Boston, MA has used foot patrols to reduce the crime rates in high crime areas (http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=3028081n) Then we wrote a report summarizing the video.

In the discussion we debated whether police should put more emphasis on solving crimes they get called to, or using COPP and POP strategies.

Intro to Criminal Justice I

This week we got into very detailed study of the rules of search and seizure, including the "exclusionary rule" that was created by the US Supreme Court that set forth very strict guidelines for the ways that police can obtain evidence through search warrants, arrest warrants and incident to arrest searches. It also covers some modifications that have been given to police in emergency situations to do searches and seizures. It also covers the special circumstances surrounding vehicle searches, because of the ability of a vehicle to flee a departments jurisdiction quickly. They were covered under incident to arrest and plain view searches, meaning anything in plain view of an officer or when a person in a vehicle is arrested the entire vehicle is legally able to be searched by the police, however rumor has it the US Supreme Court within the last few weeks has changed the incident to arrest procedures to those of arrest warrant searches where only the person being arrested and the area within their "immediate control" can be searched, this could really cause problems for the officers on the streets.

In the assignment we wrote a report on scenarios provided and referencing them with court cases provided in the text to tell if the evidence seized in the scenario would be excluded in court or not. I also turned my final project for this class, which is worth 150 points. For this project I did an interview with my friend Eric, a police officer, and also wrote a report on Westwood College Online CJ instructor Mark Smith.

In the journal entry I had to provide what states I intended to contact to start my criminal justice career, for which I picked Ohio and Kentucky. Kentucky police departments all have paid training through the academy, Ohio does not. So I'm looking at moving down there as it would be a much easier route than trying to go through an Ohio academy at my own time and expense, which is about six months long. Unless of course I pursue a career with the Ohio Highway Patrol, then I would receive paid training. But I really do love responding to calls in a city environment also, so I'm not sure yet which way to go. If I do decide to go the city officer route I will certainly look to KY then.

Police Ride Along 03/09

2009-05-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

This is a ride along story that happened a few months back on the 1700-0300 shift. I was out with a buddy of mine who is an officer in a major city. We started out the night after he picked me up and headed into the district by assisting a Deputy who had pulled over a car on the city and county line because he was alone and had two occupants in the car. The driver of the car was trying to give false information as to his identity and he was around 21 years old and had a girl in the car who was underage, 16 I believe. My buddy pulled the girl out of the car and questioned her and got her to reveal her identity and phone number, the Deputy then called her parents who said they knew he was, it was her boyfriend but they were alright with it. We then left the scene handing control of the situation back to the Deputy. We then responded to a call of a group of juveniles who had beaten up an elderly man on a transit bus, a felony in this state due the age of the victim. They had fled the scene, we responded and the transit police were also on scene. We took some basic information, then went back on patrol.

This is when the "crap hit the fan" so to speak, officers from another district had been in a pursuit with a vehicle wanted in connection with a felony. There were at least 30 cops chasing this car and the helicopter, the freeway was literally covered with cruisers, they pulled off the on ramp and we were positioned at the top off the ramp to block it off. Everyone in the car was arrested except for one male who jumped out and ran across the freeway into a residential neighborhood. A very tight perimeter was quickly set up around the block he headed into with cruisers blocking off every escape route, and the hunt was on! We cruised up and down streets spotlighting, checking everything from cardboard boxes to dumpsters. They were preparing to turn the K9's loose to track him down, but he was apprehended by an officer who spotted him first.

We then responded to a call at a hotel where I used to work as the security guard for a domestic that had just occurred, a man had struck his girlfriend then took off, we searched the area along with other officers and the man was eventually located. We assisted as cover on a few traffic stops and we made one traffic stop also on a minivan who had a taillight and blinker out,no citation was issued,just a courtesy stop. We assisted on another traffic stop that involved a vehicle search but did not turn up anything so they turned him loose, we then ran to another traffic stop for cover that turned up a warrant on one of the males in the vehicle and he was arrested.
About 0200 we headed to a bar that had problems with people shooting off guns as they were leaving, and driving recklessly. We just sat back and watched the people pile out of this busy bar on foot and auto. No shots were fired, however there were a few people who started revving up their motors like they were going to start acting crazy and they would punch the throttle and take off and then they spotted us and they would slam on the brakes and act like nothing had happened, it was pretty funny. We did not make any traffic stops, a few flashes of light to let them know we seen what they were about to try and do was enough to resolve the situation. About that time calls started flooding in about someone walking down a street throwing rocks through a window, so we headed up there to see what was going on. Just as we pulled up I noticed someone walking down the sidewalk so I brought it to the attention of my buddy and he spotlighted the man just as he was crossing the street, other officers arriving on scene quickly ran down and stopped the man to find out what he was doing, he did not have any incriminating evidence on him, such as rocks, and he seemed to just be walking back to his home so he was turned loose. There was no immediate suspects located, though my buddy was aware of the residence and some of the problems they were having with the juveniles who presumably committed the crime. The complainants face was also bloody from a prior altercation that she (although originally I thought it was a he, but that's another story) had with the juveniles, so she could identify who they were.

Also during the night, and I may be mixing up the order of events here, sorry, but we attempted to make a traffic stop on a car load of juveniles with a cracked windshield. We turned around to go after them and they took off and started playing a game of ditch the cop with us by driving in circles around the neighborhood blocks. This certainly raised our suspicion levels so we we went up and down each street very carefully. Just as we were going down one street we passed a car then slammed on the brakes, backed up and lit up the inside of the car with the spotlight..jackpot! There they were, tried to use the old lights out trick. So we backed up behind them and lit them up. My buddy asked them why they were trying to ditch him, but of course they had no idea what he was talking about. They parked in front of this particular house to "wait on a friend." (one whom never showed up incidentally.) Anyways by this time a cover car had arrived and they had one of the boys out of the car and his stories were falling apart quickly.

He was initially taken into custody for providing false information, there was no record of his name that he was giving and he had no proper ID, only a school ID or something but it made no sense because at his age he should surely have had a drivers license or state ID by now. They ended up releasing him, but to this day my buddy is still working on that case, he has made some advances and did prove that the kid lied about his name and found out who his father was, so there may still be an arrest to come for this kid.

We also responded to a call earlier in the night of a suicidal woman who had swallowed some pills, we arrived first on scene and the ambulance and cover cars arrived shortly after. The woman's boyfriend had called 911, but the woman resisted the efforts of the paramedics to take her to the hospital. However protection of life is the #1 priority of the police, and a person does not have the right to refuse medical treatment when their life is presumed to be in danger. The police had to use a little force to get the woman up and to the ambulance, she then screamed and the boyfriend became combative and had to be calmed down by the officers. He thought they were trying to hurt her, but she was not hurt. She then walked out to the ambulance on her own.

So that was pretty much the main stuff that happened that night that I can remember, another awesome ride along! The felony stop just blew my mind, I had never seen anything like that before, nice thing about big cities, there is always plenty of cover to be rounded up in a very short amount of time when needed.

Next Term..

2009-05-10T19:47:00.001-07:00

My next term which starts on May 27, 2009 consists of Intro to Corrections, Criminology, and College Writing.

Power Point Presentation

2009-05-10T19:19:00.001-07:00

This is a Powerpoint presentation that I made for Computer Applications for a fictional job presentation.

Police Ride Along 05/09/09

2009-05-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

Went to meet with my buddy Eric for a fun night on the town patrolling and fighting bad guys. My wife and I arrived Saturday afternoon and met Eric and his wife for dinner at the local O'Charleys. We left the restaurant at 1830 hours, and went back to the motel. Eric picked me up from the motel at 1930, our shift began at 2000 and went until 0600. We went to headquarters for a brief "roll call" where the three 3rd shift officers coming on duty meet and chat for a few minutes. This is my first ever ride on 3rd shift, or with a small agency. Things here are much more laid back than I'm used to seeing in larger departments. We hit the streets and got our first call outside a bar on a rural road for a minor no injury accident. We arrived on scene and took some quick notes for a report. Car A was coming around a sharp curve and struck car B backing out of the bar,nothing to major. However car A left their car in the middle of the road right after the blind curve, which I thought was maybe not the best idea. We were off and running, this is a county police agency which is something very unique to me, it has some larger cities on the north side of the county which are suburbs of a major city, that have their own police departments, and several small towns in the south side of the county that have no police, their is also no Sheriff patrol in this county so the county police are responsible for these areas, as well as the major highways and interstates that run through the county because the state police do not patrol much, if any, in this county as well.

So our role here is like sheriff, police and highway patrol all at the same time, it was very unique and fun. Unlike all my other ride alongs where I have been with a patrol car assigned to a sector of maybe one mile, responding to calls here sometimes means driving up to 30 miles. We started out by doing a few business checks, an average of ten per night is required by the department, and an average of 3 traffic stops per night is also required. There is a ticket quota here as well, but it does not have to be citations, written warnings can also be given to fulfill the quota.

We made a few traffic stops, one was some teenage kids we followed who were riding the fog line, when asked why, the 16 year old driver responded "what is a fog line?" so we just said nevermind and sent them on their way with a warning. We then responded with other officers to a call from a small town buried deep in the hills where a male driver was apparently DUI and hit several cars on the street then fled on foot abandoning his car in the middle of the street. This is where I learned what it's like to respond quickly to a call using rural narrow windy backroads. Let's just say I was quite queezy by the time we arrived on scene. lol I was a little nervous, but I had faith in Eric that he knew what the hell he was doing and was not going to get us killed! His wife tried to warn me prior to riding, but I didn't take it seriously, now I know what she means.

Anyhow when we arrived on scene the witnesses said he ran towards his parents house the next block over, which is where the car was registered. The parents said their son was not at the house and gave consent to have the house searched, he was not there. He had been there briefly but took off again, assuming the police were coming and knowing that he had just wrecked his fathers car. We went to a bonfire across the street and he was not there either,though the neighbors said if he did show up they would gladly turn him over to us, didn't seem to be very big fans of this guy. One guy at the fire said he had dated his daughter, so he was more than happy to help us get him. We then left that scene and went back on patrol.

We went back to the north part of the county and made a few more traffic stops along the interstate and highways. One for speeding, we released the driver with a warning. We made a couple more stops for cars that were weaving, but was not able to turn up a DUI,all the drivers were released with warnings. We stopped another woman on a back road for failure to dim bright lights, she said she forgot she had them on and as soon as she saw us turn around she realized what she had done, she was released with a warning. We responded to an inactive domestic violence call back in the rural part of the county, woman complained her boyfriend struck her then left. We showed up and took the initial report then went to an address in a city within the county where she said her boyfriend lived. The address turned out to be fake,and we were not able to locate any vehicles matching the description of his within the area, so we went back on patrol.

Got another call from a rural residence of a loud party in the area, woman was not able to identify exactly where it was coming from but said she could hear it from her residence. We responded with another officer and searched the area but could not hear anything,on call back the woman advised the noise had ceased, so we then went back in service and headed to the gas station to fill up the cruiser along with the other officer. Eric and the other officer had just gotten the nozzles in their fuel tanks and I was chatting with the other officer, I said it's kind of quiet out here tonight, and just as I said that we heard a loud bang and tires squealing. He said well it looks like you may have just got something! Two males were in an old pickup and the driver had driven over the curb trying to get into the gas station. As they exited the pickup and started to walk(or rather stumble) into the store Eric and the other officer ran over and shouted at the man to come talk to them. The passenger of the vehicle started to get up in Eric's business as he was trying to talk to the driver, but a quick threat of get over there and be quiet or you're going to jail calmed him down and he stayed out of the way. Driver was given the standard field sobriety test between the two cruisers, and he didn't do to well. The passenger was given a breathalyzer test and was found legal to drive, he was given permission by the driver to assume control of the pickup and the pocket knife he had been carrying.

We took the man back to headquarters for a breathalyzer test where he was advised his rights under state law regarding the breathalyzer test. He refused to take the test, making the charge an aggravated DUI.(Double fine and jail sentence for refusal) We attempted to call an attorney to come down to the station at his request, but the attorney didn't answer his business phone and the Defendant refused to contact him at his home number because he didn't want to wake him. He was read his Miranda rights at that time, in which he said he didn't like the way they were worded he wanted "complete sentences."

Now he wanted to get into a grammar argument,however the rights were read to him directly the way they are presented on the card,which is all that has to be done. The Defendant became verbally abusive to both Eric and I, and we took him to the jail after his refusal. When we pulled in the jailer just looked at us like should've known it was you! lol Eric is a very proactive officer and makes alot of arrests, he jokes with the woman at the jail every time he brings someone in he tells her "I'll be back in 15 with another one!" She just says shut up and get out of here. lol

We headed back out on patrol before long we were blinded by a driver going the other direction who did not dim his headlights, we did a quick flip around and pulled him over. Upon approaching the vehicle Eric noticed immediately the smell of marijuana and we called for cover, the other two officers showed up and the car was searched and the marijuana was found along with a fake drivers license the kid was using probably to get into bars, it was made out of cardboard though and was not very convincing. So we bagged another one and headed back to the jail. They didn't seem surpised to see us back again, after all ,we did tell them we would be back! This time there was a combative man who had been restrained in a special chair raising a fit in the booking area. He was cursing and screaming for attention. At one point he yelled "HEY CUTIE!" Eric says "He's talking to you.." (though I presume he was refering to the female Deputy)so I looked at him and he said "COME OVER HERE AND SUCK MY DICK!" But I just politely informed the gentleman I was not going to be able to do that because I was married, then went back to ignoring him again.

We had about an hour and a half left on shift and headed back out, found a couple hanging out in a pickup at a bar and we contacted them to see what was going on, but it was nothing so we just informed them to get going since the driver was sober. We came upon another occupied vehicle in the parking lot of a famous bar that is supposedly haunted, incidentally the crew from ghost hunters was in town doing an investigation of an allegedly haunted bar, but it wasn't this one.Another officer made the comment on the 800mhz radio system that all the police agencies in the county can use to talk to each other,kind of like a high powered CB radio, that he was going to go by and "rattle some windows" lol He was joking of course,but it was pretty funny.
Long story short their was a semi tractor who had permission to park on the lot who was waiting for the last thing to straggle out of the bar and he was having sex with them. The city police also showed up because they had already informed the women to get moving a few minutes prior to us showing up. I had been in the car and Eric told me it was ok to step out, so I did and then one of the city officers came back over and I apparently caught him off guard, he was like "WHO IS HE! WHERE DID HE COME FROM?!?" Eric advised him I was a rider and he was like "Oh ok, well I guess your ok then!" lol It was pretty funny though, he thought people were just coming out of the woods or something. He then described the woman who was with the trucker as a "one caser, maybe two with a paper bag." LMAO That was one of the funniest things I think I've ever heard, I think I'll adopt that line for future use. That was pretty much the end of the night, a quick stop to the white castle and Eric took me back to my motel at 0600. He stayed on until 1000 to cover some over time and fill out the reports from the nights work.

All together it was one of the most exciting rides I've ever been on. It was very exciting to be able to take on so many roles of police agencies all in one place. I really like this agency and the fact that they provide paid training,something you don't find very much in Ohio may make it my future home. I hope to do more exciting rides here in the future! Also want to add something very cool is all the officer's get to wear black BDU uniforms after training, trainees and FTO's who have a trainee have to wear the blues, but after that you get to wear the BDU's which are much more comfortable and command a more authoritative message to would be attackers then regular police uniforms. One thing that did suck is the power inverter that runs the laptop gave up the ghost,so we lost the laptop after the battery died and we had to go "old school" using pen and paper,maps, and the 'ol trusty "blue book" of statute codes.

Week 7 Grades

2009-05-09T12:07:00.000-07:00

Intro to Police I

Assignments 28/30

Discussion 30/30

Quiz 13/15

Intro to Criminal Justice I

Assignments 18/20

Discussion 30/30

Quiz 18/20

Journal 15/15

Computer Applications

Assignments 100%

Discussion 30/30

Quiz 26/30

Week 7

2009-05-04T15:25:00.000-07:00

Intro to Police I

We discussed and read about the differences in police work from each shift,and what the advantages and disadvantages to working each shift are. In the assignments we were given a scenario of pulling a good looking man/woman over late at night for running a red light and listening to the story of the driver, then deciding how to use our police discretion whether or not to issue the driver a ticket, then we had to answer for a another possible scenario depending on our decision.

Scenario 'A': You use your police discretion give the driver a ticket, the driver becomes angry stating that you could have given me a break.” He/she continues by saying “I am going to file a complaint on you because the only reason you pulled me over was to try and hook up with me." Explain your actions and how you would defend yourself to the Chief.

Scenario 'B': You use your police discretion and don't give the driver a ticket. You let him/her go along his/her way. Upon his/her arrival at home their wife/husband is angry because he/she has come home so late. He/she then says, "I would have been home quite a bit earlier had it not been for that cop who pulled me over just to meet me. I would have been home on time. I know the cop didn't have a legal reason to stop me because she/he didn't give me a ticket. The wife/husband then calls your supervisor to file a harassment complaint against you. Explain your actions and how you would defend yourself to the Chief.

In which I respond with A, The vehicle was observed running a red light, it was 2 am and they pulled over into a dark parking lot (this was part of the initial scenario) so I had no way of knowing what the drivers sex or looks were. I issue the citation so that there is no questions of ethics that would arise from stopping an obviously attractive woman,as would arise from scenario B.

This week was basically dedicated to the patrol function of policing, the "backbone."

Into to Criminal Justice I

Basically another cross over week with the other course, going more into the community policing styles, and looking at older methods of policing that existed before the 1980's when community-oriented-policing-program (COPP) began. For the assignment this week we had to take the community policing plan of the Chicago police and contrast it with the plan of another department. For this I worked with my friend in the Denver police department who provided me all the guidelines for DPD problem-oriented-policing model (POP) We will discuss POP more in week 8. For the journal exercise I explained why my interest in criminal justice is to be a state police officer.

Week 6 Grades

2009-05-04T15:03:00.000-07:00

Intro to Police I

Assignments 100%
Discussion 24/30 I need to keep in mind that this is a college course, not a chat room. I was a little excessive in my responses, without a lot of detail into the topic. Need to reduce amount of posts to the requirement and make sure they are substantial.
Quiz 12/15 points.
Current grade 93.83%

Intro to Criminal Justice I

Assignments 100%
Discussion 100%
Quiz 18/20
Journal entry 100% (Careers in law enforcement we find most interesting, I chose National Park Police.)

Computer Applications I

Assignments 100% (although originally I got a 0 for submitting the wrong assignment)
Discussion 100%
Quiz 26/30

Week 6

2009-05-04T14:15:00.000-07:00

Intro to Police I

This week we looked at the organization and management of police agencies.
We discussed the importance of communication through the ranks of a police agency, and for the assignment I wrote a report on the differences between the two main chief executive officers in law enforcement, the police chief and the sheriff. The police chiefs are usually selected from within the department as opposed to county sheriff's who are elected and usually have a much more political role. Chief's are more likely to have a college education and started out as patrol officer's and worked their way up through the ranks of the organization.

Intro to Criminal Justice I

We begin to see a crossover between the two courses this week. We go back to the beginning of Intro to Police I and look at the history of police from English roots, and Sir Robert Peeler, so we won't get into that all over again.

Then we learn about what was called the Kansas City experiment, I'm sure most any officer out there has heard about this. Conducted in the early 1970's in a year long experiment the city was broken up into 15 areas. Five were patrolled in the usual traditional way, in another 5 areas patrols were doubled over normal coverage, and the last 5 areas were not patrolled at ALL, police only coming into the area to respond to calls for service, the public was unaware of this experiment at the time. The results showed that crimes like burglary,robbery,auto theft,larceny and vandalism showed no differences in rate of occurrence in any of the three patrol areas,proving that the though of increased patrol is a deterrent to crime.

Then we look at types of law enforcement agencies from local to federal, again a crossover with the other course. Finally we look at the effects of private security and the effects they have on law enforcement. More than 80% of property in the US is said to be under private control, and the business is a growing one, with officer's receiving on average eight hours of training. The relationship between between public and private services has not always been a good one, but there defiantly needs to be some level of cooperation between the two in understanding their roles in defending the homeland. Their certainly is not enough police officers to do it alone, it takes a lot of cooperation with the public.

In discussion we talked about the relationship between public and private security.For the assignment I watched a video on the use of 50,000 volt stun belts by police and court officials to detain potentially dangerous suspects in the event they get out of control. I did not agree with it, the demonstration looked very brutal, I think 50,000 volts is way to much voltage. The news story was from the early 1990's so I'm not sure that it even applies today, the belt had been banned in some states, today it could be replaced by the taser.

Week 5 grades

2009-04-25T21:01:00.000-07:00

Intro to Police I

Assignment 100%
Discussion 27/30 points (Lacking a little on my details)
Mid-term exam 46/55 points (7 out of 53 incorrect)
Bringing my total score for this course to 95.26%

Intro to Criminal Justice I

There was no written assignments this week.
Discussion 100%
Journal 100%
Quiz 16/20 points.

Bringing my total score to 94.52% for the course.

Computer Applications
Assignments 100%
Discussion 25/30 points (I forgot to include a required link in my post.)
Quiz 24/30 points.
Bringing my total score for the course to 95%

My total GPA is currently 3.5

Week 5

2009-04-25T20:27:00.000-07:00

Intro to Police I

This week we continued to study the new police officer. We read about training programs and academies. We then looked at the field training officer (FTO) program, which a good friend of mine happens to be an FTO ( Hi Eric!) In the class discussion we talked about whether or not the amount of training an officer receives is enough to prepare them for the streets as a fully functional officer. The truth I believe is no, just like in trucking, training program does not make a good driver, it takes time and experience on the job to develop that professionalism. The written assignment this week was on something called "Police cyncism" which is basically something that can happen when new officers come into the career with the misconception that their job is filled with lollipops and happiness and "helping" people all day long. When they are faced head on with the reality of the streets, and this applies mostly to the days before the wide acceptance off the community police tactics (COPPS) which we will get into in another week.

Anyway the fact of the matter is cops had to deal with the "bad guys" most of the time and begin to drift away from their fantasy world and develop an us vs. them attitude and assumes that everyone is bad except their fellow officers. It can lead to depression, seperation from family and society, divorce, and even suicide. It's not a good road to go down. The days of community policing are here now, the police get to deal a lot more with the good people in a proactive manner, which I believe helps to level out the emotions a little bit and keeps the officers perspective a little more balanced in the good.

Also took the mid-term exam this week.

Intro to Criminal Justice I

This week we studied criminology theories. This is all different sorts of studies on reasons that lead to crime from hereditary, biological, to social status. This is such an in-depth study that I wouldn't even know where to begin to blog about it. It would go on forever, but you get the basic idea. In the discussion we also discussed theories. In the journal entry I wrote about physical fitness preparation for a law enforcement career. The truth of the matter, I believe, is their is no one certain reason that leads to crime, most the theories make good points, and a few are just absolutly ridiculous. But it is a combination of factors that can lead people to crime, either one time, or a life long career.

Week 4 grades

2009-04-25T20:20:00.000-07:00

Intro to Police I

Assignment 100%
Discussion 100%
Quiz 13/15 Points.

Intro to Criminal Justice I

Assignments 100%
Discussion 100%
Journal 12/15 points. (Was a little lacking on my details)
Quiz 18/20 points.

Computer Applications

Assignments 100%
Discussion 100%
Quiz 22/30 points.

Week 4

2009-04-19T18:37:00.000-07:00

Introduction to Police I

Beginning this week we start to look at the hiring and training process for new officers, referred to as the "hurdle process." The process may vary depending upon department,some use more of the methods than others. But consist of some of the following and the percentage of departments nationwide that use each step in the hiring process of new officers:

Application 100% (obviously)
Personal Interview 98%
Medical Exam 85%
Drug Test 73% (This is kind of surprising, one would assume 100%)
Psychological Evaluation 67%
Physical Agility Test 50%
Written Aptitude Test 43% (This is primarily used in large departments)
Personality Inventory 26%
Polygraph Exam 25% ( This is really surprising, and we will discuss later why)
Voice Stress Analyzer 4% (Have no idea what this means)
Second Language Ability Test 1% ( Really only applies to specialized federal positions)
Background Check 99%
Background Investigation 98%
MVR check 96%
Credit check 55%
Volunteer Service Check 8%

Now let's look at some examples of why polygraph's are a good idea and should be much more widely used:

Applicant in PA came highly recommended by a police Lt. and his previous employer from a home for blind and mentally challenged children, admitted to 50 counts of sexually abusing the children under his care.
Applicant in KS admits to burglaries and the police clear eight unsolved cases.
Police officer in CA applies to transfer to new department and admits under polygraph to burglaries while on duty, and sex with underage girls in his patrol car.
Another applicant to a CA Sheriff's office admits he likes to beats Blacks, Mexicans, and long haired pukes to release his frustration. (although he used some other terms)

Without the polygraph, these officers may be out patrolling the streets right now. For my assignment is class this week I wrote a report on the "hurdle process" of the Ohio Highway Patrol, and in class discussion we discussed the hiring process.

Introduction to Criminal Justice I

This week we began our study into crime, covering all sorts of crime. Part I and Part II offenses.
This was a very in-depth look at all sorts of crime, so I wont go into much detail about that. In the assignment for this week we took the crime of murder and compared it's results with the FBI Uniform Crime Report and the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics site. The UCR site basically takes each type of crime and gives and gives a total number for the year,regardless of factors. The SCJS site takes a crime and breaks it down into several factors, weapon,gender,age,size of city, etc. The discussion this week we discussed the influence of the media on the criminal justice system. In the journal entry I wrote about ethics.

Week 3 Grades

2009-04-19T18:30:00.000-07:00

Introduction to Police I

Scored 100% on assignments and discussion and 14/15 on the weekly quiz.

Introduction to Criminal Justice I

Again 100% on assignments and discussion and 18/20 on the weekly quiz.

Computer Applications

100% on assignments and discussion and 22/30 on weekly quiz.

Week 3 04/04/09

2009-04-04T15:51:00.000-07:00

A very action filled week in the police courses, starting see some personal emotions coming through the instructors in the discussion boards,especially concerning the 9/11 discussion in Police I.

Intro to Criminal Justice I

This week we studies in our text books about criminal defenses in court. Basically falling under four categories.

Alibi
Justifications
Excuses
Procedural Defenses

An Alibi is pretty easy to understand, someone has witnesses that can prove they were not able to have committed a crime due to their being somewhere else at the time of the crime.

Justifications are reasons that led someone to commit a crime in order to prevent a greater evil from occurring. This would include self-defense, defense of others, home and property etc. Also resisting an unlawful arrest, however how many people arrested believe that they are the victims of an unlawful arrest? Your personal opinion does not justify use of force against a police officer. I would recommend full cooperation with law enforcement and let the system work out the details. That is the safest bet nobody is going to get hurt, however if an officer is using unreasonable amount of force during an arrest and you fear for your safety you may resist such arrests.

Excuses apply to things such as age,duress,involuntary intoxication,provocation and insanity, which is the focus of class discussion this week. This basically sums up that in some way a person was provoked to commit a crime such as in marital homicides and or removal of male genitalia due to some extended time of abuse. Age applies to holding children criminally responsible for their acts. Any child under seven is not mentally capable to reason right and wrong under the law and can't be taken to trial. Insanity we will discuss more in the discussion section.

Procedural defenses apply to the defendant making accusation that the CJ system made some sort of error in the way the case or evidence was handled.

In the written assignment this week we got to play the role of a defense attorney, given several scenarios, we had to determine a defense that we would try and make for the defendant and why.

In the discussion board this week we looked at the insanity plea and what it means. You may think that a person with a mental illness would be found insane, but this is far from true. Many mentally ill people are perfectly capable of being tried for a crime. Insane determines the persons ability to defend themselves in a trial. A person found to be legally insane can not stand trial, also it considers the persons state of mind at the time of the crime. Many people try and claim some form of temporary insanity, which is near impossible to prove, because the person has claimed to make a full recovery since the crime, so they can not be sentenced to a rehab facility, yet if they were insane in the commission of the crime they can not be sent to jail. Because of it's difficulty to prove the insanity plea is rarely used, duress may be much more successful,it will not keep you from prison but it does put consideration into the sentencing phase.

This week I also made another entry in my journal regarding job interview process and watched videos of Westwood instructors ,taking notes for the final written assignment of this course.

Before we move on to the next course lets look at a common thing that I hear thrown around "That's police entrapment" You know the one's, the cop had his lights off, he was hiding.. blah
Great example I hear two truckers not long ago in TX talking about an officer who would hide his cruiser in the woods and bust speeders, they swore this officer had committed entrapment, so what is "entrapment"? I think after reading this you will realize how ridiculous most claims of police entrapment are,and are rather people not taking responsibility for their own actions.

Entrapment is an improper or illegal inducement to crime by law agents. In other words the officer has to do something to make you commit a crime that you would not have otherwise committed! You were speeding long before you even knew a cop was or was not present at a location, nothing he done made you break the law. As I tell people, the officer could be hiding in the woods in the dark with lights off, under a bush, if you're not speeding, you wont get a ticket.

A successful scenario of entrapment would be if an undercover officer approaches you to buy drugs, and you say no thanks man, I'm not interested,and he goes oh come on buddy..this is some really good stuff, and you say well alright I'll buy some. See the difference, the officer has induced a person to commit a crime they had no intention of committing. Now does this apply to the undercover CB radio operations like that in West Memphis,AR? NO...That is not entrapment,if the officer gets on the CB selling drugs and YOU contact him with the intent to purchase drugs, the officer in no way induced you into that act,they only provide the opportunity, same thing as vice operations.

In intro to Police I this week we reviewed the roles of different federal law enforcement agencies and how their roles have changed since 9/11. For instance the FBI became a counter-terrorism agency rather than their old role of hunting down fugitives. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created, with 180,000 new jobs. We also studied ATF, and DEA in detail.

Written assignment this week was picking three federal law enforcement agencies and detailing their creation and role in the federal system. I chose..

FBI
DEA
National Park Service : Ranger Division

I did not want to be too obvious so I that's why I chose the Ranger's for my last one, so it took a little bit of work to get the information.

The board discussion covered the effect of federal law enforcement and creation of the DHS.
Which has naturally brought out a lot of strong emotions from students and the instructor.

Week 2 Grades 04/04/09

2009-04-04T15:26:00.000-07:00

Intro to Criminal Justice I.

I did pretty well in this class this week, scoring a perfect 100% on my written assignment, my first ever in APA standard, so I was very surprised I got it right the first time! It was a report where we were given examples of crimes and had to define which crime category each one fell into. In the journal entry for this week I also got a 100% where I had to do an assignment from our careers in criminal justice workbook. It was about preparing for job interviews. Discussion I also scored a 100%, we discussed the mala in se and mala in prohibita offenses. The quiz I scored 18/20 points missing one out of ten questions. Going into week three my score in this class is 92%.

Intro to Police I

I am very happy about my performance in this class this week, a full 100% across the board! My first time ever doing that so far. My written assignment on the ways modern forensics could catch Jack the Ripper got a very good review from the instructor. The quiz I scored 100% also my first time I have not missed any questions on a weekly quiz, and discussion 100% where we discussed Sir Robert Peeler. Bringing my score in this class going into week three to 97%

Computer Applications

In this class my assignment was to create a flyer using MS Word, which I scored 95/100. I accidentally went over into two pages instead of one and didn't catch it before I submitted the paper. Discussion 100% and quiz 26/30 missing two out of nine questions. Bringing my total score to 96%.

A great week, see you next week!

My future ride someday I hope

2009-03-28T17:29:00.001-07:00

2009-03-28T04:18:00.000-07:00

2009-03-28T04:05:00.000-07:00

Week 2 Criminal Justice 03/28/09

2009-03-28T02:29:00.000-07:00

Intro to Criminal Justice 1
This week in Into to Criminal Justice 1 we looked at the five types of laws

Case law
Procedural law
Administrative law
Civil law
Criminal law

Case law,aka "precedent" is the practice of considering finding in previous court rulings and applying them to future cases. Sort of unwritten guidelines to follow to keep the courts consistent in their rulings.

Procedural law is the law that governs the way police and courts handle the gathering of evidence and processing of offenders in the criminal justice system.

Administrative law is the laws that govern individuals,business and industry. Tax laws, health codes and motor vehicle laws are common examples of administrative law.

Civil law is the law that deals with relationships between parties and is usually more focused on liability issues where people are seeking monetary damages rather than criminal.

Criminal law deals with people who have committed a crime against the state or society. These are usually the most severe crimes and carry a prison sentence. Victims of criminal law may also use civil law to receive monetary compensation resulting from an act against them of the criminal law.

In the class discussion we discussed the difference between "mala in se" and "mala in prohibita" offenses. "mala in se" refers to crimes that society generally excepts around the world as being wrong without having to have laws to tell them it's wrong. Things like rape and murder are common examples. "Mala in prohibita" refers to crimes that some people don't see as wrong other than the fact that the law says it is, drug use and prostitution are common examples. Some students wanted to draw the line between big crime/ little crime, but I don't think it's quite that simple. One person offered DUI as an example of what he though was "mala in prohibita" offense,but I disagreed, I think people should know that drinking and driving is going to put their lives and others in danger without the government telling them,which would make it a "mala in se" offense in my opinion.

In our text book we were given an example from Iraq where troops were at a hospital and detained a man who was beating his wife, after realizing how badly he beat her he decided to take her to the hospital for treatment,but while waiting he continued to beat her until the troops intervened. He demanded he was exercising his right under Islam law to beat his wife because she attempted to stop him from having sex with their 14 year old daughter. There was nothing the soldiers could do besides call the woman a taxi and send her to her mothers house because the man had not violated any law,it's not illegal to beat your wife or sleep with your daughter under Islam law.

The soldiers,having grown up in an American society, reacted instinctively when they saw a man beating a woman to protect the woman, why do you think nobody else tried to stop the man assaulting his wife in a public place? Because they did not see anything wrong with it most likely.

As hard as it may be for us to grasp here, domestic violence and incest are "mala in prohibita" offenses,due to the fact that other parts of the world practice them on a regular basis without knowing that there is anything wrong with it. However despite the lack of laws against it, the mother in case still felt it was wrong and tried to defend her daughter.

In the written assignments for this class I was given five examples of laws and had to classify each one by it's type and explain why I came to that conclusion.

Intro to Police 1
This week in our reading we went back to the very beginning of policing in the world beginning with Sheriff's dating back to 1066 in England. The office of Sheriff still exists in England today but has little police power since the 19th century. Believe it or not there are American Sheriff's offices today that have little police power. The Denver county sheriff in Colorado for instance has the responsibility of running the jail and all other common functions of a sheriff's office, serving papers and working the courts system, but has no patrol division at all. In some counties in America you will see agencies called "county police" which is essentially a patrol division that would handle what a sheriff's would normally,but the sheriff in that county does not have any police power therefore they can not have a patrol division.

Then came the constable,which began in England around the reign of Edward I until the creation of the office of Justice of the Peace(JOP) around 1200 which limited the constables to making warrant arrests issues by the JOP. Parliament eventually abolished the office of constable in 1856. In the US however the office still existed,although still without pay. By the 1930's twenty one state constitutions provided for the office of constable. The position fell into disfavor because they were seen as untrained and wholly inadequate officials in the law.

The office of coroner appeared in England by the end of the twelfth century. It was an elected official with duty of overseeing interests of the crown. Coroners were given the responsibility also of determining causes of death and the party responsible for it. Coroners were not compensated, but elected for life.Eventually they were allowed to charge fees for their work.
The office was introduced to America but was slow in gaining recognition because the duties were already being performed by Sheriff's and JOP. From the early twentieth century the duties of this position fell primarily into finding causes of death.

The JOP came to England as far back as 1195 and was nominated by the king to preside over criminal trials. Early JOPs were wealthy landowners and eventually removed power from sheriff's and constables.The office has been plagued with public disfavor and during the sixteenth century they were referred to as "boobies"(not to be confused with Bobbies,which we cover later) and "scum of the earth" due to the caliber of the people who held this office, who's only requirement was to be a wealthy landowner and be able to buy their ways into office.

England in the early twentieth century abolished the landowner requirement and the office was focused on extensive but strictly criminal jurisdiction. However in the American system JOP's were given jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters. As in England, many of the JOPs in America were not required to have any legal training or experience at all, and most did not. JOPs today are seen as lay and inexpert upholders of the law.

Until 1829 police were unpaid and often it was seen as a duty in which people were forced by the government to take their turns providing night watch in their communities. In the nineteenth century urbanization and industrialization brought new challenges to England and America as crime was on the rise and a lack of a willing and compensated police force gave little help in addressing the problem. Parliament finally came to Sir Robert Peel in 1829 willing to listen to ideas that had tried to be introduced in 1748 but with no success. He reformed the Metropolitan Police of London with what has come to be known as "Peel's principles of Policing" which is the foundation of modern day America policing. Early officers then became known as 'Peelers','Bobby' and 'Roberts'

The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.
The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions.
Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.
The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.
Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.
Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient.
Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence
Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.
The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.

The idea's were implemented in 1841 in New York City, and the NYPD and modern policing in America were born. However we somehow managed to screw up a good system by trying to tweak it in our own ways, and the system was not finally put into success until the 1980's and is still in use today nationwide by a campaign known as 'Community Policing'.

Thing's on the American frontier were quite different however during the nineteenth century, much wide open land fell into the hands of federal marshals, but their main goal was law enforcement of federal crimes on federal land, such as the railroads. Policing was left up to people
to take into their own hands. Once a state was granted statehood it could then elect county sheriff's.

In class discussion we talked about the effect of Sir Robert Peel on policing, and for the written assignment I wrote a report on how modern police and forensics could have captured the elusive 'Jack the Ripper' the world's first serial killer from nineteenth century London.

Week one grades 03/28/09

2009-03-28T01:28:00.000-07:00

Grades for week one of this term are in. Starting with Intro to Criminal Justice 1, there were no written assignments due to the short week, for my discussion thread I received 24/30. I was really sick all week long and the discussion was based on reading material from our textbook and first post was due by Wednesday night, I really had not even read the chapter by that time,so my answer was not very well detailed. I did meet my other requirements to respond to at least two other students by Sunday night and tried to be a little more detailed, the instructor just noted that he would have liked to see more detail in my posts, but they were still good.

In the quiz I got a score of 18/20 getting nine of ten questions correct, and also in a second quiz that was on the APA standards I scored 36/40 getting eighteen out of twenty questions correct.
Leaving me with 88% score after the first week.

Intro to Police I, nothing really happened in this course at all other than the discussion thread, which I scored 27/30 but the instructor noted that I did a very good job and it was exactly what he was looking for, so the deduction of three points sort of baffled me, not sure what it was for,however I will take it, not a bad start. Leaving me at 92% score.

Computer applications, I don't talk about this class much because it does not pertain to CJ, but I will in the grading posts. Had a very basic assignment of taking screen shots in MS Word and pasting them into a document, scored 100, discussion 100, and quiz 26/30 getting eleven out of thirteen questions correct, which is good considering I had not ordered the text book for this class when I ordered my books and software. I overlooked it and thought I only needed MS Office 2007, luckily the first two weeks reading are available online. I am home now and I have the textbook so I'm good to go from here. I'm at 97% in this class after week 1.

03-23-09 First week of CJ courses

2009-03-23T00:10:00.000-07:00

Well as I mentioned in my last blog I've started my second term here at Westwood College Online(WOL) and this is going to be my first full term (10 weeks). We started in the middle of the week so not much really happened. In Intro to Police I all the students posted their introductions and we participated in classroom discussion. The topic was whether or not there is true equality for all for everyone, particularly in the courts system. I think I only seen one student who said they believed there was equality for everyone, and this prompted question from the instructor for further explanation. They basically felt that all sentences were achieved in an equal manner regardless of whether we agreed upon them or not.

Everyone else pretty much disagreed. The main focus seemed to be on recent cases of celebrities in the court system. Many people feel that people do get special treatment and reduced sentences for the same crimes that would bear much harsher punishment on the normal citizens. It is a question of whether or not it's because of who they are or the lawyers that they can afford that seems to lead to this.

One question aside from that is how do normal people who commit the same crimes get different sentences? One answer is plea bargaining from the District Attorney's (DA) office. For instance in cases where multiple criminals may be involved, the DA can get valuable information from a person incarcerated for exchange of a lighter sentence that may lead to the arrests of many more criminals,who may unfortunately not get the reduced sentence because they were not arrested first.

Some of the students disagree with this practice, but it is my opinion that letting one person go with a lesser sentence in the effort of catching more criminals is a small price to pay, rather than lock one person up and have the others running the streets. I do not believe that it is reasonable to think the DA can gain this information from a suspect without some incentive.
Other than that nothing much going on in this class the first week.

Now in Intro to Criminal Justice I we read the first chapter in our textbook,which is quite thick.
The workload in this class will be substantially more than the Police course. This provides a good balance for me,since I'm a trucker working 70 hours a week.

This chapter basically lays down the fundamentals of the criminal justice "system" which we will use the term from here on only for description purpose,and in no way imply agreement to a consensus model of justice that the word system implies. The Police,Courts,and Corrections.

We briefly touched on each process a person will go through entering the system from arrest to preliminary hearing,indictment and trial and sentencing if necessary.There are two theories concerning the criminal justice system, consensus and conflict model. The consensus model is a belief that all branches of the system work together seamlessly as if in a CSI TV fantasyland someplace. The conflict model suggests that the each branch of the systems has it's own agendas and does not always work with other branches and their agendas.

The conflict model obviously describes the real world criminal justice system in the western world today. The basic theme of this textbook is described as showing the difference between two groups of people, the individual rights advocates and the public order advocates. Individual rights advocates such as American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) demand the right of people accused and convicted of crimes and will sacrifice no individual rights regardless of the situation or threat to society. The public order advocates want quick action by law enforcement in protecting the rights of society over the rights of criminals,and believe that some rights can be sacrificed if it is to protect the public from harm.

Each side wants it their way,but this is an unrealistic approach I believe. It is there for the job of the american criminal justice system to protect the public from harm while still maintaining the basic individual and human rights of those suspected and convicted of a crime. When you see lady justice holding the scale,this best represents the effort of the system to achieve this balance.

We also briefly touched on the history of crime in America, from the 1800's and early 20th century to the major changes that came in the 1960's and 70's to the drug war of the 80's.
I also was introduced to the American Pyscological Association (APA) format of report writing for social science college papers.

This kind of caught me off guard because it's all new to me,luckily we did not have any written papers this week, so I was able to spend a lot of time studying this new format which we will use from here on for all report work in the criminal justice program. Week 2 should be very exciting,we will have a lot to discuss I'm sure, thanks for reading.

Criminal Justice courses begin

2009-03-19T12:15:00.000-07:00

Alright the first term is done, a 5 week mid-term course. I came out with about a 96% grade in business class and 86% in Success Strategies. Now on to the fun stuff, the reason I am in this, Criminal Justice. After about a week and half break I began my new term on Weds. March 18th 2009 in the courses of Intro to Criminal Justice 1 , Intro to Police 1 and Computer Applications.

Intro to Criminal Justice, I'm very excited about taking this course as it is the gateway into all studies in my degree program. When I signed in and read the Syllabus for this course I was amazed at the introduction of our professor. A man with 40 years experience as a military and federal law enforcement officer. He has quite the resume and a very extensive background in criminal justice, working in cases around the world as a federal investigator. He also has a very extensive educational background and has been a criminal justice professor in many universities and online colleges. I feel that we are in good hands and can learn a lot from this professor. He offers us this photo of what he calls "at the office."

Intro to Police 1, this course is pretty self explanatory, it's an introduction to law enforcement agencies,including the history of police forces throughout world history. This course is taught by a professor who was a patrol officer with the Chicago PD during the 90's and also has an extensive educational background in criminal justice. One thing that he said that I really liked was that his bachelors degree in criminal justice was very useful to him on the streets, and he thought it made him a much better officer than if he had not got it before becoming a patrol officer. This makes me feel a lot better knowing that I'm not wasting my time and I really will be able to apply what I learn in this program.

Last we have Computer Applications, which is a course of mastering Microsoft Office 2007 software, and is taught by a professor with an educational background in computers.

One thing that is new to me this term is the APA standards for writing, which all my future reports must follow these guidelines. Hopefully after a few lessons I will be able to pick this up quickly and have no problems with it. Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks, the criminal justice blog should get much more interesting now.

2009-03-14T18:13:00.001-07:00

Finals week is here!

2009-03-03T19:16:00.000-08:00

I have reached the end of my first term at Westwood Online. It was a mid-term course, 9 week course shortened to 5 weeks. The workload has been pretty heavy, but nothing I could not keep up with. I've really enjoyed the Business class and have scored 100% on all my written assignments and weekly class discussions. My grade at the end of week 4 is 94.99%. I have missed a few questions off the quizzes each week which has knocked my score down a few points.

Last week I was at home Tuesday - Friday and found it a lot more difficult to get my school work done, even though I had a lot more time to do it than if I was on the truck, It was much easier to get distracted by other things rather than do my school work. When I went back on the truck Friday I found I had a lot of work left to do, and only 2 days left. I completed all my assignments but was left 'skimming' on my reading assignments, which resulted in missing 6 out of 18 questions on the quiz last week. I was not happy with myself with that result, that is the most I had missed in this course on a quiz.

Basically what we have covered in business class is economics, e-business,management,marketing and unions. Week 2 - 4 we had to find a business article off the web and write a report relating to that weeks studies. Last week I found a story about how a woman used market research studies to increase sales of her pubic hair coloring product line,and since we were studying marketing I figured it was the best match! Very interesting article from Forbes.com.

Maybe being on the truck is a good thing. When you have really nothing else to do but study, you can get a lot more done. I was wandering why the instructors were complaining about people not getting their work in on time, and my student adviser told me I was one of the quickest. I thought for people at home they should have plenty of time to do there school work, unlike me working 14 hours a day. Now I understand, more free time is not always a good thing unless you learn how to self discipline.

I am having a bit more trouble in success strategies, I went into the class thinking it was going to be a real easy course. I was wrong, it is a lot tougher than it sounds. It took me three weeks to get a 100% on a written assignment. The first few weeks I failed to do spelling and grammar checks and the instructor is very hard on those things in this class. Last week I turned in an assignment where I was supposed to write 5 sentences per paragraph on the assignment, but came up a little short because I was just stumped; did not know what to say. Also I turned in an assignment but did not properly attach the document, so I got a 0 for no submission. It's a good thing the assignment was only worth 20 points. I have re-submitted the assignment and hope that I can at least get a 10 for it. Overall I'm at 82.91% after 4 weeks, so that's still is not to bad.

During the mid-term test 2 weeks ago I scored 126/150, and the final assessment test is this week. For my final project in business class I did a "job shadowing" report of my patrol ride along with Denver PD, and I interviewed my buddy about his job there. I suspect I should get a high grade on that report, I completed that today and submitted it.

Next week is a break and then we begin our new term of 9 weeks and 3 classes, and should begin having Criminal Justice courses.

First 2 weeks of College

2009-02-15T11:52:00.000-08:00

The first 2 weeks of college are over with. I have started out in a midterm,which is a 9 week course in 5 weeks. It's pretty fast paced but I have been able to keep up and still drive my truck. I have started in Introduction to Business,and Success Strategies. In the Business class we have studied economics,e-business,management,ethics,small business etc. Success strategies is a class designed to teach what kind of a learner you are and how to improve on areas where your not as strong. Grades for week 1 are in, I'm at about 90% of total points available so far in both classes.
We are getting ready to go into week 3 now, this will be the midterm test week.

Going to college at Westwood Online

2009-01-21T19:57:00.000-08:00

I am currently an over the road truck driver, I've been driving for since 2002.
I love my career as an over a trucker,and I've got to see the entire country,and enjoy the freedom
of being my own boss on the open road.

I got married to my beautiful wife Amanda in 2003.

It's very difficult being on the road 3 - 4 weeks at a time and being away from home.

As a teenager I was a Law Enforcement Explorer with the Arapahoe Co,Colo. Sheriffs Office
and wanted to be a State Trooper. I applied for the Colorado State Patrol in 2004,but was
really unprepared for the written examination and was dropped from the process at this stage.

We then moved back to my hometown in Ohio where I've continued my career as a truck driver since that time. Recently I've been thinking about making a career change so I do not have to be a trucker for the rest of my life.

A few weeks ago I signed into my Myspace and seen ad that read "Do you want to be a cop?"
I thought,Yes I do! So I clicked on the link and filled out the form,and ended up selecting Westwood Online College to pursue my criminal justice degree. Although it's not required to apply for a position with the Ohio Highway Patrol,I want to give myself the best education
in the career field before applying.

I feel that Westwood Online will best prepare me for my career in Law Enforcement,and even if I don't get hired into the highway patrol,I will have many other options available to me for a career in the law field with my bachelor degree. I will graduate from Westwood Online in 2012.

The reason why it only takes 3 years is because going to school online is year round. I will take classes for 9 weeks and take 1 week off,making a 10 week term.