Summary Writing Reflection

Writing the documentary paper was difficult in the beginning because its something I'm not used to yet, writing word for word what I saw and heard on the film felt different, almost wrong. After I got the concept of writing the summary, I realized how simple it really was, I was making it difficult by over thinking it. I learned the purpose of this summary was to prepare us for our future careers, because we will be using the same style of writing when reporting certain situations we might encounter. I also understand why our opinion doesn't matter in this type of paper, because when reporting a crime for example our opinion won't matter either. 

Reflection on Documentary

http://1xrun.com/runs/In_The_Chamber

Movies are so entertaining to watch, the idea of watching a story makes me feel like I'm apart of the story sometimes. I find myself arguing with the characters inside the screen as if they could hear me. Documentaries happened to be one of my top favorite kind of stories to watch. The fact that documentaries are based strictly on historical events and topics that are real is very intriguing to me. I scrolled down on my watched list on Netflix and realized that I watch nothing but crime and action related movies. This assignment was definitely pleasurable for me I think the hardest thing was finding something to write about, I couldn't decide on a film they all interest me. However I had to make a choice and I decided to go with Cocaine Cowboys, I think the war on drugs is an issue we have had for such a long time that I wanted to refresh my memory on that topic. Cocaine Cowboys is given the title for the extreme violence against the Colombian Cartel and there rivals due to the competition of sales on cocaine. It was said to be the most violent time in history in America comparable to the prohibition era in Chicago and the wild wild west in Dodge city. Cocaine Cowboys explains the ups and downs of the economy in Miami due to the high impact of cocaine, it talks about the violence between the cartel leader and anyone that got in her way. The violence between the community caused by the cuban immigrants and the cocaine users in the city. There is no doubt that Miami suffered from many loses of money, jobs, and lives but the fact is that Miami turned out to be a succesful place. The city couldn't have made it without the drug wars, drug money, and the story it left. Documentaries like this one are very resourceful for law enforcement students I think it gives us the right kind of knowledge on different topics that we will deal with on a day to day basis. It allows us to view situations and analyze the story to make a conclusion on what is right and wrong. That is something we will be facing everyday, in our careers by working with the same kind of stories.

Prison Neighborhood Arts Project Event

http://www.bostonfed.org/commdev/c&b/2012/fall/incarceration-and-community-health.htm

Personally, I was very excited to attend this event because Iv'e learned many things about Cook County Jail. The most important fact I learned is that Cook County is one of the most populated County jails in the United States. I think this movement that 96 acres is doing is great, I think everyone that is interested in making there communities a better place should be involved in this type of event. Especially those like myself who pursuit a career in law enforcement. The main purpose of being in the field is to help the community be safe, to minimize the incarceration of the people in the community. To be able to sit on the other side of the wall of the jail and hear the story of an inmate that was previously incarcerated on the other side of that wall was fascinating. 96 acres had a brilliant vision on how to present the art animation and I was glad to be able to attend the presentation. The first project showed the letters between the previous inmate Jose at cook county and his daughter Melissa. The animation shared the thoughts and feelings of Melissa ,what she was going through during these letters. It explains how not only the incarcerated suffers but how much the families, and community is affected. Whenever we hear a story we always want it to end in a nice way, in this case it was disapointing to hear that Melissa had to bury her mother from overdose caused by her depression that her father caused from doing time in prison. It was heartbreaking to know that even though her father was released he only wrote to her why'll incarcerated but after he was released he was deported and she never heard back from him again. I realized that the person that was mostly affected by the jail was Melissa, the importance of this movement is to prevent stories like this from happening and to instead create happy endings for the community.

Human Memory

http://www.featherofme.com/david-szauder-failed-memories/

The article on memory made me question a lot of things like why we dream what we dream, or why we remember some things and not others. How some people can remember so much and others forget what happened yesterday. Sacks talks about how our thoughts and ideas may not be entirely ours, but they are the ideas and thoughts of others. I found that very interesting because I am inspired by the things I learn everyday, whether it comes from a movie, fashion, a book. I can say I've felt that I experienced something I haven't actually experienced like Sacks mentions in the article. This experience is one many refer to as "deja vu" I often feel as if what I am currently living already happened in the past, and sometimes I question if it was a dream I had why'll sleeping or a thought.

The video on Joshua Foer talked about ways to train our brain to memorize more information, and it's  interesting because I find myself doing that when studying for an exam. I relate the boring information I have to remember for a class with fun and familiar information. It is something I began doing after being taught at an early age, like the order of operations method we probably all learned at one point P.E.M.D.A.S. The video also explained how even though technology is very significant in our society today, it made us lazy because we don't need to remember a lot of information anymore. Also how today people forget the importance of memorizing information, and it made me understand how much it matters to be able to identify a face for the law enforcement field. Training our brain is significantly important because other peoples lives depend on it.