Monday, December 9, 2013

Tuesday, December 10. 2013

Today's schedule is C-AG-D-A-B

C Block Crime, Media and Society 12 - Today we'll examine the role that socioeconomic structures within a society affect criminality. Specifically, we'll examine the Social Structure view of criminoloy that examines the impact of poverty on an individual’s chance of committing crimes. There are three major branches of social structure theories that include social disorganization theory, strain theory, and cultural deviance theory and we'll look at the connection between social disorganization, strain and deviance. A great TV show to look at that would help in order to understand this is the Wire that ran on HBO from 2002-2008. In the show institutional dysfunction and the decay of social structures cause urban Baltimore to become "gritty" and crime is one result. Alas district rules preclude me from showing you this so we'll instead focus on the Bloods and Crips in South Central LA.

Scott Kody joined the Crips in South Central Los Angeles in 1975 when he was in grade 6. He was released from Folsom Prison on parole in 1988, at the age of 24. Kody was one of the most ruthless gang leaders in Los Angeles and the California prison system but in 1985 he decided to reform. He adopted the name of Sanyika Shakur, became a black nationalist, and began a crusade against gangs. In Kody’s heyday, about 30,000 gang members roamed Los Angeles County. Today there are more than 150,000. It is estimated that in 2002 there were 21,500 youth gangs in the United States with 731,500 members. So social disorganization and strain can combine to develop a culturally deviant subculture that can grow exponentially in size.

At the end of the video I have a big question for you... and the question I'll have you work on for me is: Have you ever perceived anomie if so what and why? What causes anomie? Is there more than one cause of strain?

D Block Law 12 - Today we will review the elements necessary for a negligence case to move forward. I'll remind you of Duty of Care; Standard of Care (including foreseeability and the reasonable person's test); Causation; and Actual Loss (real loss or injury). Included in this will be understanding the legal principle res ipsa loquitur (the facts speak for themselves). After we'll quickly take a look at negligence defenses, motor vehicle negligence, professional negligence, and occupiers' liability. After that you've got the rest of the block for your project (tomorrow I'll have the notebooks in the class for you again).

A Block Criminology 12 - Today we'll try to make sense of mass and serial murder. I'd like you to explain the types of serial and mass murderer along with the reasons why they commit these crimes. You can find the answers to this in the work of Jack Levin and James Alan Fox "Multiple Homicide: Patterns of Serial and Mass Murder". The summary of their work is on pages 209 and 210 of the textbook in the Criminological Enterprise section. For more info look at the work of John Douglas (former FBI profiler) on mindhunter.com (look in the article section and there is a great read entitled "So, you want to become a profiler..."). You will need to use this work to help with yesterday's blog entry. To better understand the people that commit heinous acts of murder, we'll also review what a "psychopath" is. Too often people throw the term psycho around without really understanding what it means so we'll look at Dr. Robert Hare's PCL-R (Psychopathy Checklist Revised). The diagnosis "Psychopath" is closely related to Antisocial Personality Disorder in the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4th Edition).
In order to understand mass murder and motives we will dedicate some time this week to the murders at Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado a decade ago. We'll examine the Department of Justice (FBI) Critical Incident Response Group report "The School Shooter: A Threat Assessment Perspective" and the Columbine Review Commission report of Governor Bill Owens. In essence we'll look at the background of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as well as the types of behavior, personality traits, and circumstances in the family, school, and community environment that should be regarded as warning signs of school shooters. After we finish our look at mass murder by focusing on Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (for more see school shooters) we'll look at the leader of the "People's Temple"- the Reverend James Warren "Jim" Jones and the mass suicide of over 900 people in Jonestown Guyana.

B Block Social Studies 10 - Today will be another work day for your Ole Bill Coot storyboarding assignment that is due this Friday. I have examples up in the classroom for you to view and I have paper for you to build your storyboards on. Please use your time wisely this week - today will be the last class where I will dedicate the entire block for you to work on the project. Tomorrow and Thursday I will give you time to work on the project, but I'll have other things for you to work on as well so that time is dedicated more for cut, colour and glue.
Storyboard Templates on Printable Paper

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