Fieldwork #4
1) What is your own personal reaction to the Innocence Project, in general, and to at least one specific case? Are you surprised or shocked by anything on the site?Â
I feel that the Innocence Project is a great way to bring awareness to many individuals’ cases who have been wrongly accused of committing different crimes.
The case that shocked me was the case involving Jonathan Barr. He was 15 years old at the time and was accused along with two other minors of gang rape of Cateresa Matthews. Barr was interrogated outside the presence of his parents or counsel for over 5 hours straight. Even before Barr or the otherwere tried, Illinois State Police Department he found a DNA sperm sample from the rape victims body but the prosecution excluded testing the DNA source.
Throughout the years Barr and his accused counterparts requested that the DNA be tested several times but were denied by the police who claimed that they could not locate it. After that Cook County Judge Michele Simmons ordered the police to allow the defense counsel to view the evidence. The defense counsel viewed the evidence it came back the DNA belong to serial offender Willie Randolph.
2) Sociologists are often less concerned with rule violators than rule makers and enforcers. What does this statement mean, and how does it relate to the Innocence Project? Â
This means that sociologists are more interested in helping solve issues from the source of an problem. By fixing an issue you should change the rules to enforce an issue because it’s more effective than focusing on the rule violaters. When dealing with Innocence Project the purpose of this program is to bring awareness to rule makers whose rules lead to the false accusation of innocence individuals.
3) What about this exoneration project would interest a “labeling theorist”?
A labeling theorist would be interested in how individuals are treated because they are falsely accused of committing a crime that they did not. Since the accused are label they will have to go throughout the rest of their life with stigmas pertaining to the crimes they were charged with. People will treat the accused wrong even if they did not commit the crime because once a person is labeled as a “murderer” or “rapists” the name sticks with them. This is because people have a certain perception of other individuals and once the perception is impacted negatively it is very difficult for it to change into a positive one.
