Victimology

After reading chapter seven in your textbook and watching “The Central Park Five” film and the video clips posted under week 9, answer **ONE of the following questions by creating a new thread. Indicate to which question you are replying by including the question number and/or some words to indicate the question you chose in your subject line. (For example, you can change the subject line to read “RE: 1. Pull a crime story…” or “2 Write an analysis”)

I want you to choose 2 sources besides the film to substantiate your answer. The textbook would be a great source as well as an outside source from the Internet, say “the innocence project”, “wrongful convictions”, “The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office”, etc.

YOU MUST CITE IN YOUR DISCUSSION BOARD’S. Wherever your information comes from you need to state this in your writing. Using the Internet is always a great way to complete your answer. Make sure and add any outside sources. The best are website that end in .gov, .edu, .org

Wikipedia may not be used as a source. Always use examples in your answers and state where they originated from. RE: textbook, short film from blackboard, outside web source, newspaper article, etc.

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BEFORE YOU VIEW

You are about to watch a film that chronicles the arrest, conviction, and eventual exoneration of five New York City youths caught up in the swirling issues of race, tabloid media, and seemingly uncontrolled crime during the late 1980s. Do you remember the high crime problems in many American cities during this time? (Most of you are too young) Do you remember the circumstances surrounding the Central Park Five case? Have they heard of similar cases in the past or more recent times?

While you view this film consider issues such as how the backdrop of high crime, tense race relations, and sensational media coverage played a role in the arrest of the five youths, the actions of the police and prosecutors, the impact of a videotaped confession, and the difficulty in turning public sentiment even when a conviction is overturned.

SECTION 1: The City/The Crime

Video cue: Start of film through Raymond Santana: “don’t say nothing; it’s taken care of” (approximately 36:49).

Synopsis: New York City in the late 1980s is a city beset by violence and deepening rifts between races and classes on account of tense race relations, intense poverty, and high crime. On April 20, 1989, the body of a woman barely clinging to life is discovered in Central Park. Within days, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise, and Yusef Salaam confess to her rape and beating after many hours of aggressive interrogation at the hands of seasoned homicide detectives.

1. For what reason did members of the Central Park Five go to the park on the night of April 19, 1989? In their own words, how involved do they seem to be with the large group’s actions in the park? What is your feeling about their involvement in the larger group of teenagers who attacked the two joggers, the bicyclists, and the homeless man? What evidence gives you this impression?

SECTION 2: Public Reaction, Media Frenzy, and False Confessions

Video cue: Jim Dwyer: “In those days, there were probably six murders a day” (approximately 36:51) through Saul Kassin “…confessions are irresistibly persuasive and almost the effects can’t be reversed” (approximately 1:10:43).

Synopsis: The police announced to a press hungry for sensational crime stories that the young men have been part of a gang of teenagers who were out “wilding,” assaulting joggers and bicyclists in Central Park that evening. The ensuing media frenzy is met with a public outcry for justice.

2. Review the following terms used by the media in reporting about the case:

Characterizing the suspects: “Wilding,” “Rampaging in Wolf Packs,” “Wolf Pack’s Prey”

Characterizing the victim: “Lived a Dream Life,” “Golden Girl,” “Female Jogger near Death after Savage Attack by Roving Gang”

Characterizing the crime: “Central Park Horror,” “Nightmare in Central Park,” “Wolf Pack Ignored Her Cries, Called It Fun”

Discuss whether using such terms to refer to the suspects, the victim, and the crime itself represent objective news reporting or editorializing. Why do you think the media chose to use these terms? What kinds of conclusions does the public draw from such terms? Do you feel the media coverage further fueled the public’s anger over the crime?

SECTION 3: Trial and Conviction

Video cue: “Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Raymond Santana were tried first, in June of 1990” (approximately 1:10:45) through “In 1998, Raymond Santana was arrested for dealing drugs. As a prior felon, he was sent back to prison for 3 to 7 years, longer than if it had been his first offense” (approximately 1:37:41).

Synopsis: The young men are tried as adults and convicted of rape, despite inconsistent and inaccurate confessions, DNA evidence that excludes them, and no eyewitness accounts that connect any of them to the victim.

3. During the trial, different groups of protesters gathered outside the courthouse. Examine the motives of each group of protesters. What was the message each of these groups were trying to send? What was each side trying to accomplish? Were their messages similar in any way?

SECTION 4: Exoneration and Aftermath

Video cue: Jim Dwyer “All of the jogger defendants have gone home…” (approximately 1:37:43) through the end of the film.

Synopsis: In 2001, Matias Reyes admits to committing the rape, providing details that directly correlate to the evidence police had gathered during their initial investigation. DNA testing supports his confession. A subsequent examination by New York City District Attorney Robert Morgenthau’s office reveals that both the police investigation and prosecution were flawed. In 2002, a judge vacates the original convictions of the Central Park Five. A year later, the men file civil lawsuits against the City of New York, and the police officers and prosecutors who had worked toward their conviction. That lawsuit remains unresolved.

4. Carefully review historian Craig Steven Wilder’s statements toward the end of the film:

I felt ashamed, actually, for New York and I also felt extremely angry because their innocence never got the attention that their guilt did. The furor around prosecuting them still drowns out the good news of their innocence. These were five kids who we tormented, we falsely accused, we pilloried in the press, we attacked, we invented phrases for the imagined crimes that we’re accusing them of. And then we put them in jail. We falsely convicted them. And when the evidence turned out that they were innocent, and they were released, we gave a modest nod to fairness, and we walked away from our crime.

I want us to remember what happened that day and be horrified by ourselves because it really is a mirror on our society. And rather than tying it up in a bow and thinking that there was something that we can take away from it, and we’ll be better people, I think what we really need to realize is that we’re not very good people. And we’re often not.

Summarize the main points of both statements. Do you agree with his conclusions? Are outcomes like this an acceptable level of imperfection in the criminal justice system?