Dear Zachary is a heart-wrenching documentary made by filmmaker Kurt Kuenne. Originally intended as a tribute for the deceased Andrew Bagby’s unborn son, Zachary, the purpose changes drastically when Shirley Turner, Andrew’s ex-girlfriend and killer (and Zachary’s mother), kills Zachary in a tragic murder-suicide. Believing that Shirley Turner should never have had custody of Zachary and that poorly made bail laws led to Zachary’s death, Kuenne alters his documentary to have a more argumentative message. Kurt Kuenne’s argument in his documentary Dear Zachary is that bail laws for those charged with a serious crime need to be reformed in order to protect people – especially any children – who may fall under the custody of the accused criminal. …show more content…
Midway through the film, Kuenne uses the visual of a calendar that shows the constant delays of Shirley’s murder trial. (These delays were made possible because Shirley was permitted to be released on bail while she was in the United States, allowing her to escape to Canada.) Later, Kuenne includes a visual of Judge Gale Welsh accompanied by a quote stating that even if Turner did murder Andrew, it is not necessary to detain her until she is tried for that crime because the crime was “specific in nature,” and she therefore does not present a danger to the public – a quote which justified allowing Shirley to be bailed out of jail a second time. In each of these instances, the use of graphics allows the viewer to both hear and visualize Kuenne’s words. Kuenne enhances this effect by using the same graphics repeatedly, drilling his message into the viewer’s minds even further. Thus, the viewer has a clear understanding of errors that Kuenne saw in the bail laws that led Shirley to have custody over Andrew. It is important that the viewer has such an understanding so that they can see the basis of Kuenne’s
He cares about people and believes that the safety of individuals is decreasing because criminals are not punished effectively by imprisonment and that some even receive a “sign of manhood” from going to prison (1977). Additionally, he is upset that the ineffective system is so expensive. His concern for his audience’s safety and his carefully argued grounds, which he uses to support his claim, create a persona of an intelligent person of goodwill. Jeff Jacoby does an excellent job informing his audience that the current criminal justice system is not any more humane than the physical forms of punishment used in the past.
The 6th amendement of the U.S. Constituion gurantees the acussed the right to a speedy trial. In New York more specifically, the prosecution must be ready for trial on all felonies except murder within six months, or the charges aginst a defendant can be dissmissed. However, an article written in The New Yorker by Jennifer Gonnerman about a young man named Kalief Browder, sheds light on a situation that is should have been handled more differently. Kalief browder spend three years on Rikers Island in what could only be described as horrible conditions, and suffered appalling violence, without ever being convicted of a crime. The failure of our Criminal Justice System not only deprived Kalief Browder the right to a speedy trial, but also robbed such a young man of an education, and most importantly his freedom. - Thesis Statement .
In James Patterson’s thriller novel, I, Alex Cross, Alex Cross and his family living in the nation’s capital must solve a beloved niece’s murder, and uncover the truth about the power players of the country -- all while nurturing the growing wound of the loss of a family member. The idea and importance of the connection between loss and familial support and love runs through the entire story, and one key lesson suggests that no matter how the loss of a family member affects the family, the results will often be similar, if not the same: the remaining members strive to support one another and often work together to find the true reason for the loss, always leading to a better and brighter future for everyone.
Allow me to start with a fair warning: whoever goes to the theater to watch Josh Mond’s “James White” assuredly won’t have a joyful experience. The film’s agonizing plot, mostly set in New York, was well imagined by the debutant Mr. Mond, whose hand-held camera closely follows the empty look of the title character (Christopher Abbott), a miserable slacker who, after another night soaked in alcohol and acid, arrives at his mother’s home in the morning to mourn the death of his estranged, long gone father. James’ fragile mother, Gail (Cynthia Nixon), soon finds out that her cancer has spread, turning into stage four, which anticipates that death might be on its way sooner than expected. This sad news comes when the jobless James and his best friend, Nick (the rapper Kid Cudi), regular presences in the wild nightlife, are in Mexico having fun. This trip was supposed to provide a relaxed time, which
"Fed Up (Soechtig, 2014)." narrated by Katie Couric, focuses on the growing link between sugar consumption and the obesity epidemic. The film aggressively attacks the food industry, advertising, and the government who, it claims, all contribute to the U.S. sugar-dependent, obesity problem. The film sets out to prove the government, and food industry is knowingly causing an increase in the amount of obese children. It reserves its most critical comments for government advisory panels who make and enforce food and health policy, and its failure to properly regulate the food industry. They claim lobbyists for the sugar board have been instrumental in the removal of negative statistics from research papers worldwide. Instead
Gender related issues within U.S. Prisons initially involve consideration of the family. Family bonds are often broken whenever a convicted parent is sentenced to jail, according to Nell Bernstein’s article “Relocation Blues.” However, as stated by Carol Fennelly, “There was an outcry about mothers being separated from their children, but nobody bothered to ask what would happen to the dads and their relationship with their kids,” (109). Due to overcrowding, Fennelly explains how convicted fathers are constantly being moved into prisons far from their families, mainly because they do not seem to share that special bond a mother shares with her children; however, this is not always the case. Fennelly’s contribution of using Microsoft Ne...
When I was introduced to this dichotomy between the two sections, the readings for that week included Donziger’s “Women in the Criminal Justice System.” This article shed more light on why the women in the jail might be hostile toward my classmates by suggesting that a high portion of the women might be incarcerated because of non-violent offenses, and odds are that the majority of them are mothers who have been separated from their children. Donziger states that “78 percent of the women in prison have children”...
Much of the article consists of the dialogue of Alan Kazdin, a child psychologist who presents the no punishment theory written about in the text. Right away, the article introduces him as the “director of the Yale Parenting Center” (Khazan), therefore establishing himself as a trustworthy source considering the prestige of the position and the university he affiliates himself with. In this way, Khazan uses the appeal to ethos first in the article in order to persuade the readers that the information presented in the following interview comes from truthful and trustworthy sources. Khazan also uses pathos as a rhetorical appeal in
“When my mother was sentenced, I felt I was sentenced. She was sentenced to prison, away from her kids and family. I was sentenced as a child-to be without my mother.” This quotation is part of a story of a young woman’s struggle with her mother being in prison. Separation from children is an issue that many female prisoners face. However, it’s not just the mothers who will suffer; we must also consider the children of these women. The children are often left to deal with many emotions ranging from anxiety to feelings of abandonment. If part of the sentence is no communication with the children, who is really being punished, the mother or the child?
Maternal incarceration makes up just ten percent of all parental incarceration in America (Wright and Seymour 9). Although they are smaller in number, studies have shown that children whose mothers are serving time in jail or prison are more severely affected than children whose fathers are incarcerated (Parke and Clarke-Stewart 2). Mothers were most likely their children’s primary guardian and caregiver before their sentence, while many fathers in prison were not present in their children’s lives even before they were arrested(Parke and Clarke-Stewart 2). The loss of a father that they never knew does not seem to disrupt a child’s life as much as the loss of a mother does.
The Web. 28 Feb 2014 Christopher, Liam. “Mother ‘vindicated’ after girl’s murder suspect held.” Daily Post. 18 Aug. 2006: 19:. Proquest Newsstand.
...olent incidences contrast in specific details and their fathers personas, both children lose their innocence and gain the experience and knowledge to question life and make logical decisions.
“The child wailed as its thin skin pulsed from the lethal injection “This is something that happened in the dystopian novel, The giver. The Giver is a wonderful dystopian novel, but what makes it so great? What turns it from a seemingly wonderful society to a dead wrong mess? The answers lay inside the community that withheld all the memories.
Crampton, Caroline. "Why Crime Dramas Are Hooked On Rape." New Statesman (2014): 19. Galenet. Web. 13 Feb 2014.
The movie is set in San Francisco in 1981, where Chris Gardner sells portable bone density scanner for living. Even if he is able to sell most of them, the period of time between the sales is very long and causes financial instability which slowly erodes Chris and Linda marriage. One day, while Gardner is in downtown trying to sell one of the scanners, he meets Jay Twistle, a manager for Dean Witter Reynolds, and during a taxi ride with him, successfully impresses him by solving a Rubik’s cube. By doing so he manages to obtain an interview two days later. After the fact Jay leaves, leaving Chris with the fare to pay but he has no money so decides to flee. He manages to escape but in the process he loses a scanner. The following day he agrees to paint the apartment in order to postpone being evicted due to his difficulties in paying the rent. While he’s painting the police arrives and arrest