Answer D1 & D2 and respond to the 4 students responses
D1-Watch the film American Violet. This is the only film that I show in my classes that is not a documentary (though it is based on a true story). Why? Because it is a wonderful depiction of how the war on drugs impacts women and children, especially those targeted in the projects. After watching this film, explain how the gender neutral drug laws disproportionately impact poor women of color. Be sure to use materials from class to support your contentions.
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D2-After reading the article by Weiser (2002), explain why men and women may react differently to body searches. Is this gender neutral policy fair? Explain (refer to the article by Covington & Bloom to support your answer).
Respond to Student (Aaron)
American Violet was a good movie based on a true story in Melody TX, 2000 Dee Roberts a young working mother of 4 arrested while at her waitressing job while unbeknownst to her apartment complex was being raided the police. Dee initially believes she was arrested for her parking tickets. Finally inform of a judge she learns she is being charged with drug dealing a school zone. $70k bail is set and a public defender assigned. Dee had no clue what law enforcement is talking about. No drugs found in her home, on her person, and she has no criminal history. Dee is offered a plea bargain; she pleads guilty she can get a suspended sentence. She doesn’t plea she faces 16-20 years. She pleas she’s a felon, losing food stamps, her government housing, and welfare. Federal money goes to the counties with the most convictions, so plea bargains are pushed. Ultimately her charges are dropped. Standing her ground in the end thankfully paid off for Dee.
The raids like the one in Dee’s story are focused on the poor and people of color. We know based on the reading of Bloom & Covington that research has shown that women are less likely to commit violent crime and more likely to commit drug crimes or property. (Bloom et al) The end result of gender neutral drug laws s a dipropionate number of women committing drug crime over other types of crime and ultimately more women being incarcerated due to a drug offense.
Respond to Student (Jamaya)
There is a huge impact on poor women of color for drug laws. Dee Roberts was accused of selling drugs when there was no evidence found in her apartment. These laws are breaking families apart. Women who are put away for these drug laws are not able to have their normal lives if they take the plea bargain. These laws in a way force poor women to take a plea deal because they fear that they may have to spend the rest of their life in prison. Say the woman takes the plea deal, now they have a criminal recover and will not be able to vote, get a regular job, or many other things. Gladys from the film was thrown out of her apartment losing everything she had due to pleading guilty. This is what happens to many poor women that enter the system and plead guilty, they have no money to help them get out of the trouble that they are in.
American Violet was a great film to use for understanding these laws. Dee Roberts fought her case and won. We can only hope that for women in these predicaments in the future are able to do this very same thing. Pleading guilty to something that an individual did not do does no good because either way, they lose their rights or they end up somewhere else.
Respond to Student (Amber)
Women may react differently to body searches because they have very different needs compared to men. We learned that women react differently than men when it comes to being searched. Most female inmates suffer from mental health problems and have histories of physical or sexual abuse. Someone with a history of abuse is going to react way differently to a body search than someone who does not have a history of abuse. I do not think gender neutral policies are fair. Policies, such as the one we learned about last week, can add more trauma to female inmates and should have never been implemented in the first place. Weiser says that this policy was implemented to create an unpredictable element so that inamtes would always be on guard about transporting contraband. It seems as if there were no other thoughts in mind about how it would affect the female inmates. Covington and Bloom say that gendered justice is important because men and women are completely different. Understanding how women are different than men will help women in the criminal justice system tremendously.
Respond to Student(Jamaya)
First and foremost, girls are more highly sexually abused than boys. 31% of girls in the juvenile justice system are sexually abused and 7% of boys are sexually abused. This just gives evidence to why they may react differently to bodily searches than boys. In a way, this can mean that men may not feel the same way when being searched by female guards. “The male inmates were unable to establish a finding of pain under the eighth amendment because they could point to nothing more than “momentary discomfort caused by the search procedures” (Weiser 2002). From this quote, we can see that most men feel discomfort in the moment we here as for a female they may feel extremely uncomfortable due to their past or just by how they are being searched by the male guard. I believe this is because not a lot of these male inmates experience sexual abuse trauma like many female inmates. So no, I wouldn’t say that the gender neutral policy is fair. Covington and Bloom wanted to create an environment where there would be an equal system for women that talked about these issues. “If the criminal justice policies continue to ignore these realities, the system will remain ineffective in targeting the pathways to offending that both propel women into and return them to the criminal justice system” (Covington and Bloom). This is very much true, if the system continues to not do anything about these gender neutral policies, there will be more problems than solutions. We are in the 21st century, when will women be treated equally?
