No Choirboy Post 5

The next chapter in No Choirboy comes from an interesting perspective. This chapter deals with taking to Paul Jenkins, and Mary Jenkins who are the siblings of William Jenkins who was a teenager that was murdered at his fast food job. Paul and Mary explain how they feel and how their brother’s death had impacted their lives. Mary says, “ I never questioned my parents decision. No, never. Dad’s totally opposed to the death penalty. That’s his whole movement right now, all about victims’ rights.” Paul states, “ I’m pretty sure Dad’s primary focus is that because it hurt him so much that William died he did not want to inflict that on any other person, like the parents of the murderer. The murderer was also someone’s son.” Bill says, “ For religious and philosophical reasons, I don’t believe that the death penalty isa  viable way to stop crime. Never did. The prosecutor said that they were taking this case very seriously. This was a capital case. No one would have blamed me if I just said, “Yeah, go get him.”

I find this passage very interesting. A lot of people say they are against the death penalty but how would you feel if somebody that you love was murdered? Would killing the murderer bring justice? Bill then says, “ If you believe in something, you have to act on it or it’s not worth believing in.” This is a very important quote in this chapter and I find Bill to be a very strong person. He could have easily just said yeah, we want justice and then the murderer would have been killed too. But he was strong enough to stand up for his beliefs in an emotional time. 

No Choirboy Post 4

The next chapter in No Choirboy is an interview with the brother and mother of Napoleon Beazley, who was a seventeen-year-old boy that was executed for killing the father of a federal judge. This case sparked national debate whether sentencing kids under the age of 18 was right. Napoleon was known as a great kid in his town. He was the class president, captain of the football team, and a very popular guy. Everybody seemed to like him. Is it right to have a kid who is seventeen sentenced to death for one bad mistake he or she has made?

I know that minors can no longer be charged capital punishment but this scenario with Napoleon got me thinking. I am against the death penalty by all means but I tired to put myself in a position where I was for the death penalty. Then I thought about whether minors should be sentenced to death or not. I put a lot of thought into this and it was really hard to make a decision. I keep thinking that everybody, regardless of age, should be responsible for his or her decision. The other side of me kept saying that kids brains are not 100% developed and because of their immaturity, they can be at fault for making bad decisions.  That side of me definitely won. Teenagers make bad decisions, it is part of their nature, but no decision can be bad enough to have them sentenced to death. 

No Choirboy Post 3

Chapter three of No Choirboy takes a look in to Nanon Williams’ time in prison.  Here is a excerpt from what Nanon had to say. “ Few men survive here. Years ago, perhaps they did. Not anymore. The visitation area looks nice. When you enter this prison, it resembles a college campus. Never allow appearance to fool you- you are entering a killing camp. Back where I am, there is metal upon metal, concrete, and cage after cage lined up with less than the space animals are afforded at the zoon. They will never, not ever, allow you to see and hear the madness around me back in the cells. I have seen over 250 men executed. Men I knew. While most kids went to bars, clubs, school, I lived in a war zone. I have seen men raped, beaten to death, found hung in their cells, burned, cut. I have heard men scream so loud it feels like their voice is in your head. Death row is no place for a kid.” This passage really caught my attention. It shows the brutality of prisons and how horrible the conditions are. It really got me thinking about our prison system in general. I was wondering if this system actually punishes people. From all the information in the book, prison seems like an absolutely horrible place so is it in fact punishing people? Prison is supposed to be a place for rehabilitation and is supposed to change a person for the better. Personally, from what I have been reading, I don’t think prison does that. I think certain prisons, as well as death row, dehumanizes people. It goes to show how brutal our prison system is and it needs a change.

No Choirboy post 2

The second chapter in No Choirboy is about a boy named Mark. Mark was fourteen years old when he and his brother killed a man and his wife who were going to testify against them for stealing farm equipment. He was arrested about four months later. The first part of the chapter, Mark talks about how the crime went down, what he did, and how he was traumatized by what he did for so long. He talks about contemplating suicide and the feelings he had going through his body. Mark was going to be tried as an adult but didn’t go to trial. Instead he plea-bargained for life with parole.

Mark then talks about the high security prison that he was in. He says, “It was real scary. It was bad. It was like you see in the movies.” Mark really gets deep into the prison scene. A very important quote I found form this chapter was, “ Rape was my biggest fear in Donaldson. I mean, full-grown men who had no homosexual characteristics were raping men. They were like animals. I felt like I was living in a zoo and around a bunch of animals.” This really caught my attention. I kept reading and started to think about the prison system and its conditions. Mark talks about the prison gangs and how the prison is a racist environment Mark explains how everybody fought and people were beat up. The prisons system seemed way out of control.

Later in the chapter, Mark talks about after he was moved to Holman correctional facility; he got the change to work in the death chamber. One day he was talking to a guy who was supposed to die in two days. Mark asked him, “ Hey, man, how do you feel?” The guy responded by saying, “ Man, I’d rather do this than spend the rest of my life down the hall.” This is one reason that I am against the death penalty. Killing somebody is not punishing them. Yeah, it is a human instinct to protect yourself but in my opinion, the death penalty is an easy way out for most people on death row. This quote backs it up.  Earlier in the school year, we watched a video about a guy on death row, I forgot his name, but he said he was “ready to die” and how he couldn’t take prison anymore. It’s as simple as that the death penalty is giving them what they want. Keeping them in jail without parole is much more of a punishment for people like that.

Outside reading blog 1

For outside reading, I am reading a book called No Choirboy by Susan Kuklin. This book takes a deep look into American prisons as well as teenagers and other inmates on death row. The first chapter is called “ I Was a Teenager on Death Row.” Right there that jumped out at me and I was hooked. The book starts out talking about a murder of a boy named Kevin Gardner, which took place in Alabama. On the first page we meet Roy who is in the courthouse waiting for the verdict for the murder of Kevin Kuklin. The judge says, “ By the power invested in me by the State of Alabama, I hereby sentence you to die by electrocution.” This happened back in August of 1993 when teenagers were still allowed to be sentenced to death.

This first chapter is narrated by Roy and he takes the reader through his emotions. We first hear from him the courthouse when he tells us how much he was crying and screaming when the judge announced that he was going to be put to death. He talks about how scared he was going to jail when he was 16 years old and being transferred to death row. He had no idea if he was going to die in a month and didn’t know how the appeal system worked. I find this very interesting because it is so easy to connect to. Being a teenager and putting myself in his shoes, I couldn’t even start to imagine what this kid must have been going through. Whether he committed the crime or not, not knowing when your supposed to die must be the worst thing ever.  Roy brings up a good point when he says, “ I wasn’t able to join the military. I wasn’t old enough to buy liquor. Hodo d you sentence somebody that young to death?” I couldn’t agree more with that quote. Putting people on death row that are under the age of 18 is just absurd. In my opinion, capital punishment is wrong itself but I will talk about that in later posts.

The rest of the chapter describes what happened at the murder scene and how the story played out. We learn that the people Roy was with were granted full immunity if they told the truth about what happened so they had no problem pointing the finger at Roy. Roy also describes what death row is like mentally and physically. In 2005, he was taken off death row and placed in a maximum-security prison. A law was passed that said a minor cannot be sentenced to death so therefore Roy got life without parole. His case can be re-opened now and he has lawyers trying to reduce his sentence.

Online Censorship

For my Marketplace of Ideas project, I have decided to take a deeper look into a right that Americans take for granted every day. This right deals with the use of the internet which millions and millions of Americans use daily. I started to research internet censorship and how it would affect us as Americans. Through my research, I have learned that there are many people and organizations that want the internet to be censored for certain reasons. Some want it censored for piracy reasons which could prevent illegal downloads of music, movies, and other illegal copyright. Some want to see materials on the internet not be accessible like certain violent games, websites with adult content, or other information that Americans youth should not be able to see.  Each side clearly has an argument in this issue but after looking into this topic, I know where I stand.

According to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” Our laws and principles of America give us the freedom of speech to post and seek what we want on the internet. The government should stay out of the internet and let it be free just like it has been. This doesn’t mean that I’m for piracy, but I am totally against bills such as SOPA and PIPA. Back in January, the internet was trending with talk about these two bills and what they could do to the Internet. Wikipedia had a blackout of a day where nobody could access content on their website to raise awareness to what these bills could do. Google put a black banner across the logo to protest. Twitter and Facebook had lots of trending posts about SOPA and PIPA. These bills were proposed to stop piracy but the vagueness in the bills could be a foot in the door for the government to keep going and block content that is user made. All three of those sights are user operated and without them, they could no longer be in operation. Not just these sights but many sights across the net would be taken down including Youtube. In today’s economy, many jobs are based online. What would happen if sights were taken down where people’s jobs were on the line? If SOPA and PIPA were passed, they could slowly destroy the internet as well as jobs across the country.

MTV Show

Yesterday we watched a reality show from MTV which focused on a gay teen, lesbian young adult, and a transgender man. I really liked the style in which this show was set up. Each segment was established with videos of people who are dealing or have dealt with being gay or transgender; I think MTV did a good job in getting their point across with that. Then the main part of the show focused on those three people and something that they were going through. The gay teen was having a hard time coming out to his parents so his part of the show was him trying to get enough courage and find the right time to tell his parents. We see him come out to his peers and it seemed to really help him come out to his parents. From seeing his experience, that must be really hard for any gay teenager to do. Another third of the show was dedicated to a lesbian young adult who’s mom hard a hard time accepting her as well as her partner. We see the struggle and fight about he she just wants her mom to accept her for who she is and be able to accept her partner. Last, and probably the most interesting part of the show, was the transgender, who changed from girl to boy, was trying to get married to another women. His drivers license said male, but his birth certificate said female. He looked like a male and really seemed to be in love with his fiancée.  To me, this was the biggest issue in this show because should a transgender person be allowed to get married? And if yeah, what sex? I believe in this persons case, marriage should be allowed. He has been a man for a lot of his life and he said “99% of my life is male, except for my birth certificate which is the 1%.” This guy showed how passionate he was towards being a male and really believed that he should be allowed to get married. Yet, he was nervous because of his birth certificate and his state doesn’t accept same sex marriages. He got his marriages license and I definitely think that is legal. One thing that this show did was all three stories had happy endings. This was done to show people who might feel like this, that in the end it will get better. This show was merely trying to help out people who fall under one of those three categories and I believe that the did a very good job with that.