My Exploration

The one thing that stood out to me while I was observing/participating this last Tuesday was that I didn’t realize how many different things the officer I went with was involved it. I had no idea that little old Boise, Idaho had its own SWAT team. That is crazy to me, because you never hear anything about them on the news or in the newspapers. They kind of keep to themselves about the careers. Also a lot of the police officers on the Boise SWAT Team are involved with narcotics and drug dogs. These police officers don’t usually pull people over for speeding and they usually don’t respond to small calls, like complaints against neighbors and what not. These officers handle the big stuff!
A lot of questions come to mind when I was on my observation. A few questions I actually asked him as I thought of them. A few were, How often do you let people ride along with you? And the answer to that was none, unless for favors. I was the first people that the officer had in a really long time. Which was kind of cool that they don’t do that a lot. Other questions that I have for a future interview are, What types of dogs do you look for when you chose them to teach. How often do you get called out? How often do you train? What is the most common thing you get called out for? What kinds of things do you do for fun, and so on.
Details that seem interesting to me is all of the training they have to go through. I don’t know yet how much but I know that they have to work out all the time to be about to stay fit. Most of their equipment weights 40 to 50 pounds on top of their body weight. Also I want to know how long it takes to train a dog to do what they do. I know dogs naturally have a great sense of smell but how do you teach them to look for certain scents. Another detail is I always wonder what there personal life is like? Do there family support them, is it a hard job to keep a family with a job like this?
There are a lot of things that I want to learn about this job field, mainly because I want to go into this job field eventually. I want to know what the qualifications are of doing what all of these people do. Another thing I want to learn is what other jobs are in this area, and do women get to work in these fields.
What surprises me about my observations was how much he shared with me and what all he let me see, like all of his drugs, he even let me smell some of the drugs. Also he showed me their department where they do all of there training. He also showed me all of the cool things his dog can do. He pulled people over (for a purpose not just for fun) I was able to see the dog search a car that could potentially have drugs in it. I almost saw some people get arrested.
I can’t wait till my next observation! It’s going to be a blast!

Artifact Sketch
The item I chose to use as an artifact for my Community is the GPS tracking bracelet.



The unit can be either a one-piece unit, looking much like an ankle bracelet, that transmits data to/from the GPS system; or it can be a two-piece electronically tethered bracelet and cell phone/GPS receiver. The ones tied to a home base that will alert authorities if the offender has left a particular area they have been assigned to typically their home. It will also monitor the offenders heart beat so the probation officers will be alerted if they cut the ankle bracelet it off. For the tracking bracelets the Officers will have a tracking monitor that will show the offenders location within a few feet and it will down load there location during the day so the probation officer can down load the travel information and see if they have been to there classes and meeting and also see if they were there the whole time that they were supposed to be there,
This monitoring system is very valuable to the officers as they don’t have to travel around to check on particular offenders that are high risk of non compliance. The PO’s can check on specific classes and meetings that the probationers have been assigned to, with a quick download off the internet.
This system right now is at about $9 dollars a day to monitor someone. It costs from $36.00 to $50,00 a day to incarcerate an offender per day. So this is a very cost effective and time affective tool that probation uses. It helps keep a leash so to speak on the high risk individuals that a few years ago would have to be watched on a constant biases where as now the officer can just look on the screen and see where they are or download there data and check it with the offenders schedule.

Gloosary

PO – Parole Officer……Helps people that have been arrested for breaking the law. Like help them make good healthy decisions on work, friends, relations, and where they hangout, and keeping them accountable to the laws that are set out in our society.

Parolee…..One who has broken the law and needs help and guidance to make better decisions to keep from breaking the law. They also Help the parolee in being responsible for their actions.

Staffing…..Meetings about clients to deicide future determinations about jail, release, no contact orders, relationships and other types of counseling that a client might need. These are held with counselors, PO’s, and the Judge or judges involved with the parolee.

Pick-up…..When an Officer is going to get a future or current client who has gotten arrested for another crime somewhere else or has been breaking the rules.

Back Ground……Checking anyone’s past out that might be in contact with a parolee. See if they are appropriate to be hanging out and making contact with them.

Home checks ……Going to a parolee’s home and surprising them with an inspection of their home and surroundings to see if they are staying out of trouble.

Case load…..The number of clients or parolee’s a Parole officer has to keep track of.

Paraphernalia…..Anything illegal typically found on or around a parolee, usually associated with drugs.

Program…..Referring to a parolee’s new life style and what they are doing different from their life prior to getting into trouble with the law.

Ankle bracelet…..This is what parolee’s get when they are not doing what they are supposed to be doing. So they get a tracking bracelet that the offices track the client on a GPS system. The GPS Keeps track of then down to the nearest inch.

GPS-Global Positioning System…..It is the computer driven system the interfaces with satellites to locate a signal coming from a ankle bracelet.

I will get my exploration in a soon as I get and observation done.
-Sorry

Exploration #1

With my most recent observation I went and met with Tony of “A Minds Eye Tattoo”. From the first day that I met with Tony I knew that my previous perceptions of tattoo artists were very off and miss guided. Tony was very laid back and mellow guy. One thing that surprised me right off the bat was how soft his hands were. They were as soft as any girls hands I had ever felt. For the image that he portrays does not go along with how soft his hand were. That was a total shocker to me. The question that came from that was why they were so soft but that was soon answered a day later when I went back for my first observation.
In my resent observations I have notice that my previous ideas and thought of a tattoo parlor have been drastically wrong and have been misguided by T.V. and the movies. My ideas going into this project have been that these places would be a bit more run down, dark rooms, they would have pictures and drawings all over every inch of the walls, the rooms would be filled with smoke and hard heavy metal music would be blaring over the speakers. In very contrast what I found was the shop was very clean, with the entrance seeming to be like entering an office building with a front waiting room and a desk. As you enter the back room there was two soft padded leather chairs that were up right but could be also reclined depending on the tattoo that was to be was given. The walls had a nice read paint that went well with the Asian theme of art and statues that were placed all around the room with a few Volcom stars around the room as well. The room was also very lightly lit so that Tony could see what he was doing without the assistance of a lap or light. The music playing over the speaker was some rock music but not too heavy and over bearing that one could not have a conversation in the room. What it added was some back ground music to the constant noise from the tattoo gun.
As I sat there watching Tony give a man a tattoo I was just flooded with questions that I would like to ask Toney in an interview later on in the process. A question that has come to mind is why has Tony chosen to give the parlor an Asian them? Is there any significance to the Asian statues and if so what kind? Is there a reason why he picked to be in the particular location the he is in right now? After seeing him do some work on the man that Tony was giving the tattoo to the thought came to my mind was who was it that gave him his tattoos? I would have been too difficult for him to give them to himself. The man that was getting the tattoo seemed to be very relaxed and enjoying the process which brought up the question; Do people fall asleep while getting tattoo and if so do you continues and are there any rules on what kind of condition a person must be in to receive a tattoo? Some of my best question came when I observed Tony’s apprentice prepare to give a lady a tattoo in the shoulder. These ranged from what kind of training does it take to allow someone to give a tattoo to another person? Then towards the end a whole load of question came surround the ink that is used to give tattoos. Like what makes it different form ink in a pen? Where do they get it and is it expensive and many more questions.

Exp. 1

So the first observation that I did was at the POST academy out in Meridian. This is the academy that the officers to be are trained. The instructor that was teaching the cadets was very helpful and actually thought it was a pretty cool thing for me to be doing. For the fact that it was explained to him that I has a student at Boise State, getting my degree into Criminal Justice, and wanted to learn and obverse the community of police officers. So he was very helpful. One thing I didn’t anticipate was that he was going to have be participate in the class. By this I mean, before the class started he had me get up in front of the cadets and introduce myself and let them know what I was doing. After doing so, I noticed that several of the cadets straightened up in their seats, as if I were doing an evaluation of them as cadets and that it was going to affect their graduating from the academy. SO right off the bat I figured that they weren’t going to act in a normal manner and the observation was going to be slightly watered down because they were going to be acting in a normal manner. After about 15 minutes this was not the case. They seemed to have forgotten that I was there and were much more focused. The course that they were going over was proper procedure in common scenarios that they were going to come across on a regular basis such as, domestic dispute, disturbance, etc…
During one of the breaks I was able to talk to a couple of the cadets and got some really good info on their back grounds, what made them enter into law enforcement, were they wanted it to take them, and if they wanted to go federal or even thought about it. SO I got little interviews with some of them. The answers to most of the question really surprised me because it wasn’t the answers that I expected, or maybe they weren’t the answers that I would have given to the same questions. The Instructor also said that he would be more than willing to set a time for an interview.
As I was talking to the instructor, another instructor approached and joined the conversation. He turned out to be the Sergeant in charge of operations. He too was very intrigued about my assignment and wanted to help also. With that being said, and long story short, he offered to allow me to observe some instructional videos that the DEA had sent them about drug bust. Which has actual footage from a camera crew that fallowed the team. It was a good day of observation. Next time I get to observe field course work.

Exploration 1

I did my observations with this group and find it hard to just watch them as they had lots of questions and really wanted me to know a lot about their job and what it entails as they told me what their days mainly consisted of right from the start like they really wanted me to know. Not like they were complaining but maybe because of who I am I’m thinking.

The thing that stands out the most about my observations is that the PO’s do a lot of work on the computer. Mainly in the form of doing paper work on everything that they do, from just talking to a client to even talking to me in there office. Everything has to be documented in their job as I observed in the hour I was there and from what they told me.

I find that I want to know what it feels like to walk into a house that my or my not have any illegal activities going on inside. I would think it would be very exciting to say the least. I also would like to know more about their personal lives and what they do when they are not at work. This is kind of a personal thing for me. Other details I liked were the GPS tracking systems. How they have evolved and where they think that they are going to go in the future.

I need to learn more about how their case loads effect how much time they get to spend on each client. What do they do with each client? How they split up the work between themselves. What kind of things they find on home checks. I think it would also be kind of cool to hear some of the funnies things that they have run into while working there at drug court

The things that they talked about the most after they got over me being there and wanting to tell me everything I wanted to know was about client’s information. Like one PO was making calls to inform clients that they needed to call back and check in. Seems that nobody answered the re phone to him but some of them would call back after the listened to the message. Guess they don’t answer to unavailable numbers. So he would say stuff about different peoples answering messages. Another PO was very quiet and was watching a GPS tracking device and then doing paperwork, back and forth. The PO I thought was the leader of the three was doing phone calls to California tracking someone down. So he would give an update on every step closer he came. Up until he found out the guy was in town again.

What surprises me the most about these guys was how slow they worked and how hard it is for them to get information about people. When you have to do back ground checks on people it seems that they were getting more info by just talking to people on the phone rather than internet searches or what was on the system to begin with.

Identify an artifact Pleasant

An artifact that could be used is the flyers that he talks about on page 139. This would give and idea of the styles and ideas that punk rockers use.

I think on would be the leather jacket which would have been adorn by multiple patches of things like the DK Dead kennedys, Anarchy, Butt hoole surfers, and spikes. From the first page of the reading 137.
The significants of this artifact was that everyone had them back then and they really ook lots of time to make them and personalize them.

Question #1. The artifact that I thoughthe could have collected from his research was a potition sign that they used on election day. Pg. 104.

Question #2. This is significant because it is a big part in his story. talking about elections etc... 

Question out of the book. #3. Kiddler's perspective shapes his writing because he cares alot about what other people think, so he was trying to be sympethetic in all areas, I thought. For my communtiy, I know there is a big ethnic difference around where I live and my attitude shapes the way I think about it fanominaly, because of all the illegal imigration going on. I just don't like it, and I could go on about it forever but i'm leaving it to that. 

Punk artifact

I thought a good artifact would be one of the sleeves from the albums that they talked about listoning to and learning the lyrics, from pg 142. They said it was a major source of thier learning of the punk world.

A moral Place

I liked the reading and thought all the changes that took place in it were very intersting especially considering the picture that is initially painted by the author for the reader. when I was reading I thought that the writer presented a very unbiased picture of the town and the evolution of the demographics of the town and what was socially and morally acceptable by the town as time changed

question 3

I thought that the writing was not very interesting to me. I had a hard time reading it. It seemed to be all over to me from the rich and poor and then to the gay and homosexuals. To how everyone was concerned about the way everyone else voted. But I guess it does paint a very big picture of the whole event and leading up to it. Some history about the area and the changes that have come about over the years. then it also had some after math with the consequences from the vote. It seems to cover a lot of information and you can see that they were very thoughtful and observant of the subject they were writing about.
When it come to my community that I have chosen I have some ideas of how they treat people and especially how they treat probationers. Like with little to no respect and also the people around the probationers that get affected by the way they treat them. There is also the fact that they have big case loads and see many people that are doing bad and some that are doing good and seem to judge a lot on that information.

Q 3 from reading

SO I felt that the writer didn't take to one side or the other. I felt like he was the commentator of the vote telling both sides of the tale. As for my own community, my wife considers me to be an introvert and I stay to myself. She on the other hand is very outgoing and likes to talk to and help everyone in our neighborhood. So for me I describe it as nice and quiet but she would take up your whole day explain how and why it's nice and quiet.

potential insiders:
Jim Jones(idaho supreme court justice, as a lawyer specialized in hotel law)
Derrick O'neill (tax and business attorney)

My bro in law is my big contact he is a highway patrol man in montana

I don't like Blogging! 

People that I know that are within the community that I chose are my Criminal Justice professor, and two police officers that help out with the athletic department here at Boise State. That is pretty much who all I know right now at the moment. But I'm sure talking to the people that I know right now, I will have no problem finding more people to talk to about my community! 

Insiders

The insiders that know are few but the connections that I have are a bit more. My good friend Jeff has told me that he would put me in contact with the person that does his tattoos. I also have another buddy that said he would do the same. I have also talked over the phone with Dave Stone the owner and tattoo artist of Broadway Tattoo and Body. There are also a few others people that said they could get me in contact with others artists.

Starting our blog

My first contacts are Janet day who is the head counselor at Drug Court and who I have all ready talked to about this and the other is Marrien Baker Who it head of the whole Ada County Drug Court.