Monday, April 6, 2009

Unit 3 Exploration
The main thing that I wanted to learn more about and do more extensive library research on was go into more detail about the bad effects of illegal drugs. But I came across some obstacles that made it hard for me to defend my topic that actually changed my view on the drug Marijuana.
The main question I came up with was what exactly is bad about illegal drugs other than the high they give. Everyone knows that drugs give some kind of high or what not but I wanted to know why they became illegal, because most of the illegal drugs that I want to study like Marijuana, Cocaine, Heroin, and Meth have at one time been used medically over a hundred years ago.
The next question I thought about after deciding my topic is how can I explain this topic in a researchable way and make it flow. That I think is going to be the hard part for me because until I get back this paper I’m not going to really know if what I have done is even worth anything, because it really helps me when other people tell me what they think about my writing, and make suggestions.
The last question I thought about was what are some interesting things or twist; you could say that I could put in to my paper that would make it more appealing. I was thinking like maybe scary or horror stories about drug abuser; Like what types of horrible things that recovering addicts went through while on the drug. I met a recovering Meth addict and she went through some crazy events in her life, but is now on the right track. She goes from high school to high school and explains to kids how bad drugs are and describes her story to others. I want to add stories like that with every drug I want to talk about.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Source Annotations

1. Chuck Dederich, Grover Sales, John Maher of Delancey Street, W.W. Norton & Company Inc. New York, 1976
I like this book as it was writing by a man who went through a lot of rehabilitation because of his disease of alcohol and drug addiction. He turned his life around and became a very successful man. He has a lot of very well mad comments in his book and I have herd them over and over again. Like 10% of the offenders will take up 90% of the work, that they are never going make it.

2. "Drug court." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 29 Mar 2009, 17:56 UTC. 29 Mar 2009
This is a reference page that I found that gives some very good statistics to back up my argument that the drug court program is better that regular probation.

3. Listwan, Shelley Johnson Ph.D., Latessa, Edward J. Ph.D. The Kootenai and Ada County Drug Courts:Outcome Evaluation Findings, July 2005.
This article has a lot of information on the Idaho drug court and when they were started and also this gives a brief example of how successful they were over 6 years ago as compared to the statistics now days. It is written by the project director and principal investigator for the Center for Criminal Justice Research. They are both Ph.d’s.

4. National Association of Drug Court Professionals, web
This site has all the information I could want on drug court and there programs, from the training involved to the research on how and where they have been successful. To what they are currently doing that is new and other links that are related to this program.

5. Officer One. Personal interview March 10, 2009 and email responses March 22-28, 2009
I will be using this mans ideas and his quotes at they go hand in hand with the one previously mentioned and also he works with drug court and probation and parolee. So he has an insight on both sides of the fence so to speak. Also I find taat he seems to be kind of the leader in this group of men working the probation side of drug court.

6. Officer Two. Personal interview March 10, 2009 and email responses March 22-28, 2009
This man seems to have a very good insight to the workings of probation as far as who needs the most attention and who can be left alone and trusted to do the right thing so to speak. He seems to have the knack or experience of how to read people and trust or not to trust in what they are telling him. There seems to be a lot of reading peoples body language going on here.

7. Officer Three. Personal interview March 10, 2009 and email responses March 22-28, 2009
He has the most information on the use of tracking devices and how and when they are going to be used. It would be nice to be able to track everyone who is in trouble but there is a little more to it then just clamping it on to a person’s ankle and then sitting back and watching them. There seems to be a legal reason that they don’t do it to just anyone. There has to be a reason like hurting them selves or someone else. Then there has to be Judge’s order also. This will come with recommendations from all of the other people involved like counselors, probation officers, and fellow piers.

8. Patterson Smith, John Augustus, the first probation officer, Montclair, New Jersey, National Probation Association, 1939
This is a book about the man who started it all. I truly loved this book and the accountings of this man and what he spent the last ten years of his life doing. HE documented all his cases and checked up on the people whom he represented and most of them did very well for them selves after John helped them. He also interviewed all of them and used his best judgments to pick out people who had a very good chance of cleaning up there act and going straight. This is a practice that is still used very much in the drug court program. They call it an intake interview.

9. State List of all Drug Courts. BJA Drug Court Clearinghouse. American University. Feburary 11th 2009
This has a listing of all the drug court programs up to date and how many of them are being planned too. There are 23 counties that have drug courts in Idaho and 37 branches off them. Like juvenile and mental health courts. There using the same ideas that they started with from drug court and branching them off from there.

10. Todd R. Clear, Places not Cases?: Re-thinking the Probation Focus1, The Howard Journal Vol 44 No 2. May 2005 ISSN 0265-5527, pp. 172–184.
This makes reference to John Augustus as being the first probation officer and tell a little about his story. This is where I got the idea of looking him up here at the library. Also this article has a lot of good information on the case work that is involved with any one probation officer and how his or her case work load can have a specific relationship to how mush attention can be given to any one client of offender. That this can have a big effect on the success rates for those offenders too. Goes on to give some good statistics form other sources.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

reading questions

1. showed the writer had spent alot of time doing research in the library but had very little first hand research it seemed like. the writer did find the problems witht the system offer solutions and ideas to fix it.
2. the headings gave the reader a heads up that the reading was going to be changing directions so the reader didn't get lost
3.the writer talked about how great the head start program is and all of it's shortcomings and how it was underserving those who needed it but it really seemed like his only solution to the problem was to just throw money at the problem until it goes away rather than maybe looking at the effiency of how the money was being handled and seeing if maybe there was more accountability as to how money was spent and things were run that the problem could be solved with out needing so much money

questions for unit 3

after thinking about some of the ideas that my group brought up during our writing workshop. i thought up a few questions for my next paper but i'm still having a hard time deciding what i want to do and what is researchable. one thing that i really keep thinking about is why do people think of lawyers the way that they do? theyre perfectly nice and very intelligent people and i think maybe the point to argue is against the perception that people have about lawyers and show that they're aren't what they are often portrayed as in popular culture

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

response to questions

3. Some of the evidence that is presented in this is based off of personal observations and other evidence is from research that the person has done. The evidence from the actual person that has experienced the event is a little more convincing then the other that is just stating the facts that some researcher has preformed.

4. The section headings provide a good separation of information and allows the reader to associate the information being stated with a specific meanings. These section headings also allow the the reader to look at specific information and if they want to know about just one area then the reader can read just that specific area and not have to read the entire paper.

1. In the essay "Who Deserves a Head Start" the write presents some interesting fact that are supported with great statistics. But of me the whole idea of the paper got lost in the amount of time it too the write to make its point clear. I also liked the graph that was added to the paper to break it up and to add to the validity of the papers point.
In the Essay "Pursuing an Educated Mind" the paper is shorter and to the point. This essay could have used some visual aides to support the information, but compared to the other essay this one was a lot easier to follow and it did not seem like the too much information was being presented.

Exp. 1 Unit 3

I actually got a lot of info from the groups we got in to discuss our papers and what maybe to focus on more. The group gave me a lot of impute as to where I needed improvement and maybe needed to put a little more focus. There were several questions that arouse in my head as to what I can do to gain more knowledge of my community. One big question that I kept going over was that of the use of force. It’s been something that has bothered me and is misunderstood by almost everyone. When an officer uses force there is always going to be someone that is going to complain about it being too much. So what do they do, they go and tell all their friends that they saw a “pig” tackle down a kid and chuff him. Now don’t get me wrong I do feel that there should be a good check and balance system with everything. There are times that they do need us force and times when there shouldn’t be as much force used. So I guess the question that I want to really look into and talk about is, what is the use of force and when does it become excessive? I feel there is a lot to learn about it. I feel there is going to be a good amount of information to find with it. It’s an issue that, at times, can become very heated. Most people feel officers use way too much force. Think about it like this. If your mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, or even friends life is on the line would you rather the officers sit back and hope they are going to be ok, or would you rather the officer’s use a little bit of force to ensure that they are going to be able to hug you again.