Room 611: Wednesday, November 4. 2020

Today's classes are:

9:15 - 11:50 A Block Criminology

12:30 - 3:05 D Block Social and Environmental Sciences

A Block Criminology - Today we'll start with the questions from yesterday's Stranger Danger video. After, we'll look at Colton Harris-Moore the "Barefoot Bandit" who was raised on Camano Island just north of Everett Washington in the Puget Sound.

Harris-Moore was sentenced in December 2011 to seven years in state prison for dozens of crimes, including burglary and identity theft, stemming from his two-year run from the law in stolen boats, cars and airplanes. A self-taught pilot, he was finally apprehended in a hail of bullets in the Bahamas in 2010, after he crash-landed a plane stolen from an Indiana airport. He had a fan club and many many articles have been written on him including Time, and Outside Magazine...Twice (by Bob Friel) He also has agreed to sell his life story to 20th Century Fox movie studio for $1.3 million... So, take a watch of the True Crime Story below and if you can then the "Chasing the Barefoot Bandit" 48 Hours Mystery on him.

Consider strain and social reaction theory (labeling)...do you think Colton Harris Moore will ever be just that? Or will he always be known as Colton Harris Moore, The Barefoot Bandit?

Now, every society creates its own heroes and villains and has the option to frame them in a way that says something about it. So what does the "outlaw folk-hero" status that Colt Harris-Moore has gained say about who we hold up as heroes or villains in our modern crime-media saturated society? In an article by Paul Ibbetson he states:

Juan McCartney and Mike Melia of the Associated Press say that Harris-Moore has built his reputation as a 21st-century folk hero. Of course thieves don’t “build” as they have no time for such labors. They are too busy stealing what others have built. Even with the factual terminology in place, one cannot say that Harris-Moore even managed steal a reputation as a 21st-century folk hero. No, to be factual it must be said that this young man’s celebrity status was a gift from the media, paid for by modern society.

After watching the True Crime Story on Colton Harris Moore, take a read of this NPR article on Harris-Moore and take a read of this interview with Colton Harris-Moore then answer the following

Is Colton Harris-Moore an outlaw folk-hero or were his actions simply those of an amateur kid criminal? You will need to justify your position but when you do, seriously consider why it is that you think the way you do.

Ask yourself "Did Colton create an outlaw folk hero status/image on his own or did the media fabricate his new found identity"?
Ask yourself "Am I attracted to the Barefoot Bandit because he's rebellious and you as teenagers can identify with rebellion against parents, me, police, or authority in general"?
Ask yourself "What would it be like to be one of the victims of Colton Harris-Moore? Was he some mythical 'Robin Hood' who only took from wealthy families or was that the story he or the media presented to you"?
Ask yourself "did people become aware of Colton Harris-Moore because of the Internet? The internet sensationalized and glorified Moore through blogs, Facebook, a fan site and because the general public seemed either unaware or uninterested in Moore, the Internet became the means of his fame. So if there was no Internet would Colton Harris-Moore have been the Barefoot Bandit"?
Consider from the documentary: plot structure; themes (realistic, fantastical, farcical, superficial, complex, sensitive); technique (camera work, lighting, special effects); editing (pacing, long or short sequences); sound (effects, silence, music); values (what values were embedded within the documentary); mass appeal (choice of characters, choice of content, choice of issues addressed)

Remember, Colton Harris-Moore: Barefoot Bandit is ‘not who I am'

Remember what Paul Ciolino said in the 48 Hours Chasing the Barefoot Bandit,

Colton's journey does read like a movie plot, sprinkled with rich details - like the backpack he carried during his two years on the lam. Inside were keepsakes from a lost childhood: Sketches of airplanes, two photos from the fifth grade and a Boy Scouts of America certificate.
"This is an incredibly sad story," Ciolino said. "I mean, he's been failed at every step of the way. Where does this kid go to reclaim his childhood? We created this criminal and he survived the only way he knew how."

I'll be interested to hear your take on both the documentary and on Colton. Consider the role that socioeconomic structures within a society affect criminality. Specifically the Social Structure view of criminology that examines the impact of poverty on an individual’s chance of committing crimes.

I also want you to think about celebrity/fame (or infamy) and how the television and social media channels contributed to "the barefoot Bandit" mythos. From Crime and the media in America

In the 1960s a term was popularized to describe our society’s fascination with violence and crime as a public spectacle called “wound culture.” It is this odd pull towards the abject that has been at the heart of American media. As the future of media looks to integrate social media and news information more and more, there are serious questions to consider. Will algorithms designed to feed us content we “like” lead to even more consumption of crime news? How will that skew our perception of crime in America? Will an illusion of a crime infested America affect our politics?

And from ShoutoutUK How the media controls our perceptions of crime

Despite the fact that most crime is fairly routine, trivial and non-dramatic, TV programmes such as Crimewatch often pick up on the more serious and violent offences like sexual assault, murder or armed robbery – with reconstructions giving quite a frightening insight into the crime. This focus on the dramatic side of crime is a routine feature on TV programmes or film as well as news reports, and gives a false and misleading impression of the real extent of such crimes.

You could read an interesting scholarly article Consuming Television Crime Drama: A Uses
and Gratifications Approach

There is also a really good Canadian on line piece titled Understanding how the media reports crime

So, please make sure you think about about celebrity, fame, and how they fit into the social order and structure theories when you're looking at Colton Harris Moore.

D Block Social and Environmental Sciences - You're with Young today and we'll begin a look at Borneo and the palm oil industry. Here's the question I will start with...

Is a plantation a forest?

So what is a plantation? Plantation agriculture can generally be defined as the growing and processing of a single cash crop (mono-culture) on a very large scale for the purpose of export sale. So, planting a forest of palm oil trees so that palm oil (an edible vegetable oil derived from the reddish pulp of the fruit of the oil palms) can be harvested is a Palm Oil plantation...Is that a forest? What are the impacts of clearing rainforests to make way for palm oil production? From the Global Oneness Project

Some palm oil producers put profit before social and ethical responsibilities. As corporations create oil palm plantations, huge swaths of primary forests are decimated, including rainforests that help mitigate global CO2 emissions. Habitat for the Sumatran tiger and orangutan in Southeast Asia are being destroyed, threatening the survival of these and other species. Palm oil production has also had significant human costs. The clear-cutting of forests for plantations have displaced indigenous residents. Human rights abuses against migrant farmers are not uncommon, as men, women, and children have been trafficked—coerced against their will—into low paying jobs with no rights due to their immigrant status. Amnesty International, an international human rights organization, claims some of palm oil's top producers engage in child labor, forced labor, gender discrimination, and do not protect their workers from exposure to toxic chemicals.