Law, Justice and Society chapter 13

What is a band? To me at first I thought that a band was just a bunch of people playing music together and then I thought to myself why would that kind of band would be in my law book. So a band is like a tribe but in a band there is a fewer families living together and there is more of equality together. Sometimes bands and tribes solve their conflicts by revenge killings which are if someone from another tribe or band kill someone in their band or tribe then they go and kill someone in the other band or tribe. That goes back and forth until the entire band or tribe is killed off. The revenge killings are feared because there is a chance of killing everyone in the band or the tribe so they figure out different ways to deal with conflict. Tribes don't have written laws but they have a tribal council which decides how to deal with the crime that has been committed. Socialist law was originated in the Russian revolution and the establishment of the Union of Socialist Republic (USSR). The point of this law was to get rid of law. They believed that if everyone had the same opportunity to do things there would be no point to break the rules. In the socialist law they believed in believing that the criminal is guilty but they should have someone fight for them in court. Common law was originated in New English and it is common to everyone. The United states uses common law. Common law believed that the criminal should have someone fight for them in court. Civil law is the exact opposite of common law. In civil law the criminal is suspected to be guilty but everyone comes together to solve the problem and to find out if the criminal if guilty or not. The Islamic law cam from the Coran and its natural law. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82WCJ3DAh1g There is a lot of different laws in the world. Every country thinks that their law is best and that everyone else is wrong.

Law, Justice and Society chapter 12

Since the United States has became a country it had a problem with treating minorities poorly. First it started with the Native Americans who lived in the lands that we call the United States way before the white man moved here. At first everything was fine and the Natives tough the white man how to survive of the land and survive the harsh winters of the land. After a while the white man had the confederation period in which the articles of confederation were created and there was a national verses state conflict between the Native American affairs. Then the removal period happened that was the removal of Native Americans from the East to the West. The reservation period happened next, during this period all of the Native Americans were put in reservations and each reservation had their own government. After putting all of the Native Americans in reservations the white man tried to take away their customs and traditions and make the Native Americans in to more like white man. After trying to do that the Indian Reorganization period happened in which the Native Americans started to adapt the constitution and the white man started to give pack some of the traditions. Then the Termination period began in which there was a separation between the Native American reservations and the federal government so the reservations just started to fall under the state rule. The last period is Self determination period in which the federal government helped with cleaning of the Native American lands and helping the Native Americans. During this period the Native Americans had a choice if they wanted to be under the federal rule or not. The affects that all of thees periods had on the Native Americans was that Native Americans went from free people, to moved people, to restricted people, to people with rights and then to restored people. During some of those periods the African Americans were introduced to the United States as slaves. That is another minority that has been discriminated against for many years. Blacks were used as slaves and they were property and as property they had to do whatever their owner tells them to do. After being freed from slavery the Jim crow laws began which allowed the segregation of whites and blacks but not equal segregation. The segregation had a value in favor of the white man. The blacks had some rights like Civil rights that allowed them to sue and own property but the blacks could not sue because of all the legal fees. They had political rights like the right to vote but the pole tax and literacy tests stopped them from voting and blacks had social rights like mingling with the white man, it was a right for blacks not a choice. Things got better for minorities different acts were passed that allowed them to vote without having to take tests and not having to pay tax that was the voting rights act of 1965. Today there is still discrimination against minorities. The discrimination has gone down but it is still here like if there is a black man and a white man in trial for the same crime the odds are that the black man will get a more harsh punishment then the white man. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7VbzzfMAuc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_3mSW8XUZI Discrimination has always been here and everyone needs to work a little harder to stop it.

Law and Justice experience

On December 8, 2008 I went to the court house to talk to some police officers about scheduling a ride along with them. Then i found the list of all of the criminal and civil cases that were happening at the time that i was there. After debating for about five minutes. I picked a criminal and civil case that was happening to the same person. The parties in the case were getting divorced. The criminal part of the case was that the defendant broke the restraining order that his wife has placed on him. The defendants lawyer rescind the case right in the middle of the case so the defendant was left to defend himself. Wile that has been happening i was just thinking to myself that what would I do if this would happen to me? I was already nervous just from being in the court room and I didn't even have to do anything except take notes and listen. I was not involved but being in the court room still made me nervous. During the trial the defendant wanted the judge to remove the restraining order because he wanted to have the opportunity to see his son. The judge did not remove it and did not modify anything. The defendant got the short end of the stick on that part but the judge had made a way for the defendant to be able to see his son. So the defendant got a part of his claim. Toward the end of the trial the defendant was trying to prove his point to the judge but he was not prepared and wile speaking to the judge the defendant was thinking of what to say so it made his closing argument very lacking of facts. During the closing argument I thought to myself that the defendant should of stopped when he had his facts straight and did not have to look up information and did not have to think of what to say but knew what to say. I thought that he was just digging him self a hole that he could not get out of. After being in a court room for two hours and listening how a regular person was defending himself I thought that if this situation would happen to me I would hire a good lawyer and have the lawyer defend me. From this experience I learned that it is not impossible for a regular person to defend themselves but it is really hard to defend yourself against someone that knows laws much better then you. I never knew that there were so many different things involved in a divorce case, before I thought that the people who are getting divorced they sign some papers and agree on when each person gets the kid, who pays the child support and how they get to divide the property. I am glad that I went into a court room instead of going on a ride along with a police officer. I believe that I learned much more from this experience then I would from a ride along.

Law, Justice and Society chapter 11

Before this chapter I thought feminist were woman who all hatted men and thought that men are wrong in what they do. This chapter has changed my mind to me feminists are women who believe that women should be treated the same as men or just close the men, since men and women are built different and both men and women have different needs. Since Greek Mythology women have been treated as inferior to men and have been believed that they are the worst thing that has happened to the world. Homer believed that women were made to be controlled and that they were put on this earth just for mans pleasure. Plato and Aristotle believed that women are the body and the men are sole and that women are home and the men are society. That shows that they believed that women were not as good as men and that women are inferior to men. Athens believed that women are just for pleasure and that's all that they are good for. In Sparta women had some right but not as much as men. In Rome women were girls for their entire lives, that means that women were like property that when they got married their husband owned them. In Europe Federal System women were subordinate and home bound, if there was no male in the house hold then the women could have owned the property. Through out the entire history women are inferior to men and have been used as utensils of pleasure for men. Women were owned and if anyone hurt the wife or daughter of someone the husband or the father was compensated for the damage, it worked like property damage right now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YA13GNT8Mc (not only females can be a feminists males can be feminists too because they can believe that women are treated poorly in the past and now.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTLDb-flVNE (this video has some bad language). Today women still do not get paid the same as men at all jobs. Some jobs discriminate against women just because the people that run the jobs think that women can not handle the work load of the job. I believe that there are some jobs that women should not do but it is not for me to decide if women want to do the job or not. Women's law has been improving and has been giving the same rights to women as men have but there is still much work to be done in the world. So feminism is like a social movement that gives women more rights that men have and gives women more opportunities in life. We have came a long way from the olden days but to make everyone equal we still have to go even further. This chapter has been very interesting to me and now when i look into history i will know that women have been treated unfairly by men
for many years.

Just some pictures to get off such a heated subject. (click on the picture to see the entire thing)

Law, Justice and Society chapter 10

What is social change? It is a time when a social control has been broken so many times that social control cant control it any more and a the braking of the norm is okay and it is changed that social control does not control it and does not consider it as being broken norm. To relate this definition to our lives right now to me a social change is how open people are with their partners out in public. About ten years ago not a lot of people would be really open in public that they have a boyfriend or a girlfriend but in now times where ever anyone can look they can notice people at least holding hands. Law has a large impact on social change. Law lets change happen very slowly. When law is placed it is made to be concrete and not have to change but since everything is changing all around us laws need to change too. Like we would need more laws now days then we would need when the United States has been found. Social change can be a good thing but at the same time it can be a bad thing. When social change happens some of the norms are broken and when those norms are broken people can get offended on that side its a bad thing. On the good side when social change happens people can come together and new norms and standers can be made. When the new norms are made they will not stand for ever at one point they will change again and the circle of making new norms and standard will start all over again. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afJvvMGoe7I (this video show some of the people who had a large impact on social change). Social change is happening all of the time and people keep fighting for change into the better direction.

Law, Justice and Society Chapter 9

What is social control? Social control is any action that influences conduct toward conformity, whether or not the person being influenced are aware of the process. Law is more formalized social control. Social control is happening everywhere it starts with parents disciplining their children. Then it goes to police giving out warnings or tickets to people when the person has broken the law. Then the last social control is the values of people like cursing around little children or around someone who is a senior both of them are wrong. In the law and social control there are many different theories of punishment the first one is retributive theory which is like eye for an eye. The person which is in the wrong gets punished on the level of balance of what they did. The second theories is authoritarian theory is all about preventing the crime from happening again by the same person. In this theory the person who is in the wrong is punished to the extant that they will not want to do the crime again. The third theory is deterrence in this theory the person that is in the wrong is punished harsh for ultimate prevention. The fourth theory is incarceration this theory takes away the freedom of the person who did the crime. The fifth theory is rehabilitation in this theory the person gets treated for as long as it takes for them to get better. Then finally there is restorative justis in which the person who is responsible has to restore the victim to how they were before the crime, restore the society or community, and restore themselves to be a better person. The plea bargaining is a way for the prosecutor to get a guilty plea without working really hard on convincing the jury that the defendant is guilty. There are three different plea bargains. The first is charge bargaining in which the prosecutor lowers the charge if the defendant pleas guilty to it. The second is count bargaining in which the prosecutor lowers the amount of counts that they will be charging the dependent if they plea guilty. This bargaining usually is a trick because most of the time the prosecutor will drop those charges because they can not prove that the dependent actually did them. Then the last one is sentence bargaining the prosecutor will ask the judge to lower the sentence if the defendant pleas guilty to the charges. The plea bargaining is a good tool but it when the dependent pleas guilty to something in a plea bargain they give away some of their right. The social control and law chapter was interesting because i got to learn how we have came all this way in punishment and bargaining skill. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJP296CpCa4

Law, Justice and Society Chapter 8

Juvenile Justice was one of the most confusing chapter for me so far. It was confusing because of all of the different movements happening and the government trying to help the juveniles out. When the juvenile is found responsible there are a lot of different things the government can do to the juvenile. They can lock them up in a juvenile hall which they are doing now and they are giving them rehabilitation while the juvenile is in juvenile hall. Another option the state has is to send them to a house in which the juvenile learns how to work and how to be more responsible. Before 1966 juveniles did not have any rights in the court system. The system that the juvenile court follows is the civil system. There has been a long debate if the juvenile court should be mixed with adult court. There was a movement in which the adult court and the juvenile court almost mixed That movement was called just desserts movement. During that movement there were a lot of juveniles in adult court and there were a lot of people in jails. Right now the juvenile Justis is between the rehabilitation and crime control movements. Now we have a place where the juveniles can think about what they have done and where they can learn how to be better people for the community. To me this is the best option because if one part doesn't work then we still have the other one to try and see if it works. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePqFZCPBUdw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxLZ4IL59EI the boys and the girls clubs are a place where kids can go to learn how they can be better for the community. The boys and girls club keeps kids out of trouble and keeps them safe.