Reflection Paper

 
Please provide a brief (1-2 page, double-spaced) summary of your reflections on how positionality is relevant to your interactions with the American criminal justice system, submitted as a Word document to this Isidore site.  That is, reflect on some of the cases and issues we’ve covered this semester, then apply them to your own situation.  Perhaps you’ve had interactions with the criminal justice/legal system already.  If not, think about how your demographics and other extra-evidentiary factors might affect such interactions.  More specifically, how might your race, national origin, age, sex/gender, sexual orientation, physical appearance, mental health/developmental status, socio-economic status (SES), etc.  influence such interactions?  When considering SES, reflect on the various ways this could be relevant, e.g., funds for legal representation; life opportunities, including attending college generally (and taking this class specifically!)  How might your experiences with the criminal justice system be different if you were of a different race, sex, or SES?
Although this assignment won’t be *graded* per se, it’s an essential (and required) part of this course, and will be factored into the Attendance/Participation portion of your overall score.  Now that you’ve been exposed to the various elements of our criminal justice system, you should have a much better idea of how the system can work and also how it can sometimes fail.  Part of the challenge of any system is the potential for human error and bias.  Given this, reflect on the probable nature of your experiences in the event of your involvement with the criminal justice system.
Submission