Posted: December 17th, 2022

Minorities and Crime Video

Minorities and Crime Video
Please watch a movie of your choice where minorities have a clash with the justice system, how were they impacted, was the crisis resolved and how did the resolution come about. Paper should be 2-3 pages minimum, double spaced Times Roman Font.

“When they see us” is a drama series based on the Central Park five incidents. The miniseries was written and produced by Ava DuVernay. The film depicts the story of five teenage boys who were arrested and falsely convicted for the rape and murder of a 28-year-old Trish Melli. Law enforcement utilized racial profiling and manipulative tactics to convict the four black and a Latino boy. The incident occurred at the central park as Trisha was jogging; thus, the case was known as the central park five. Research shows that the confessions from these boys were coerced, thus leading to presumed guilty before they could go to trial (Stratton,2015). The film punctuates the biases and injustice acts that occur in the justice system to this day. The narrative heightens they stereotype notion of young black and brown men being savages, thus increasing the incarceration rates.
In 2002, Matias Reyes came forward to confess that he did the heinous act to Trishia. After new DNA evidence and confession, it was proved that Reyes was the lone culprit. The charges against the five men were dropped, and they were compensated with a $41 million settlement. The central park five case clashed with the justice system y sparking racial tension in the city. The case illuminated the notions about the miscarriage of justice of the African American youth (Stratton,2015).
According to (Stratton,2015) the case was a Turing point of the African American law because it illustrated the racial disparities and inequities of the criminal justice systems. The miniseries writer and producer Ava DuVernay illustrated that the Central Park Five case changed the History of American law. The hysteria that surrounded the case in 1989 ushered the massive acts of children standing trial as adults. The wrongfully convicted teens were at the age of 14,15,16. The boys were convicted without any proof or evidence such as blood, semen, fingerprints or DNA evidence. Wrongful conviction caused the young defendants to grow up in prison by spending 6 to 13 years behind bars.
The series illuminates the effects of racist policing and logic. The systemic racism in the prison system robbed the defendants of their childhood. Also, the series primarily focuses on the limitation of the American criminal justice system that has become problematic to the African American communities. In the film, the innocent boys are described as animals. The film portrays the defendant’s families and communities fight for their children’s freedom in despair. Ultimately, the incident resulted in new laws that tried children as adults. The highlights trace back to the explosion of juvenile and adult prison convicts. Research shows that the United States portrays the largest incarceration system in the world (Stratton,2015).
The media coverage fueled the notions by describing the teens as people who reign from ignorance, guns, welfare and world of crack to attack white, rich people. In May 1989, Donald Trump took out full-page ads that further criminalized the innocent black boys (Stratton,2015). When they see us is a painful but necessary film to watch. The film depicts the outsets and accelerators of mass incarceration. The film shows racial profiling of black and brown people in the criminal justice system. The boys in the film were convicted for years without proof and evidence. That film raises awareness on the effects of systemic racism in the criminal justice system and how we can prevent such cases from reoccurring.

References
Stratton, G. (2015). Transforming the Central Park jogger into the Central Park Five: Shifting narratives of innocence and changing media discourse in the attack on the Central Park jogger, 1989–2014. Crime, Media, Culture, 11(3), 281-297.

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