An interesting piece of research

First and foremost, I am simply presenting a piece of information not a political opinion. This information is not new, but the author has presented in what I found was a fresh and riveting way.

My hope is that you will read this and see that there is not just a social problem, but a systemic education problem that threads itself through systems from beginning to end. I am a firm believer that educators have or can find the answer to this issue.

“The American Police State: A sociologist interrogates the criminal-justice system, and tries to stay out of the spotlight”

“ On a winter afternoon in 2004, a woman waits in the detective unit of a Philadelphia police station. Two officers, outfitted with combat boots and large guns, enter the room. The cops place their guns on the table, pointed at her. The woman is 22, tiny, and terrified”.

“The officers show her a series of photos of men from around her neighborhood. Two of the men are her roommates, Mike and Chuck, low-level drug dealers who keep crack and guns in the shared apartment. Some of the photos were taken in front of her home. Spewing obscenities about the woman's supposed appetite for casual sex, the cops press for information about her roommates and threaten criminal charges if she fails to cooperate”.

“In a book to be published this spring, Alice Goffman, a sociologist at the U. of Wisconsin at Madison, describes America’s prison boom through the story of a group of friends in a

Will Steacy

"If you can't work with us," one cop says, "then who will you call when he's sticking a gun to your head? ... He'll kill you over a couple of grams. You know that, right?"”

 

“Such scenes are nothing unusual in the lower-income black neighborhood where this woman spends most of her time. Girlfriends and relatives routinely face police pressure to inform on the men in their lives”.

“Unknown to the cops, though, there is one difference this time. The woman under interrogation, Alice Goffman, has been watching them”.

In a book coming out this spring, Goffman, now a 31-year-old assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, documents how the expansion of America's penal system is reshaping life for the poor black families who exist under the watch of its police, prison guards, and parole officers.

Read the whole article here: http://chronicle.com/article/The-American-Police-State/142965/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en

 Focus on the topic and not the irrelevant and titillating questions that might pop into your head, please do not miss the point!

Educators, we regularly find ways to help people with physical disabilities, mental blocks, ADHD, dyslexia, etc, etc. I am convinced that if we look at this revolving system of institutionalized damnation, we can come up with a workable solution for this as well.

 

No politics here just about people.

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam