Criminal Justice Engagement Portfolio

Criminal Justice Engagement Portfolio Paper

Throughout this semester I have participated in a few criminal justice community engagement events outside of class. These events include two panels and one presentation. The first panel involved many criminal justice related field employees who described who they are and what their role in the field is. The second engagement was called the “Offender panel.” During this presentation; offenders who served a prison sentence or still currently are serving their sentence were brought in to talk about what they did, how they feel about it, and what the future looks like for them. The final engagement I participated in was a presentation with a few representatives such as the districts DA and the DA’s

She started off by taking about what cases she 's worked on and giving us a brief background on the crime that was committed. That wasn 't really the point of the panel though, the point of the panel was to explain everything the victim or victims of a violent crime go through. The DA explained that sometimes the victims like to take the investigation into their own hands if they don 't feel the criminal justice system is doing enough. She told us about one case where the father of the victim started his own investigation because he was not getting the answers he wanted. Next, the assistant DA discussed how they prepare a victim for the criminal trial. This process ties directly hand in hand with the court process lectures we’ve had in class. The criminal trial can be a very difficult process to have to go through, but understanding what’s going on can greatly ease the stress thats put on the victim. In class, we learned what happened to the perpetrator but we did not really discuss how the victim feels throughout this