Reflection for “Part 2”

For my part 2, “Genre of Choice with Audience of Choice”, I did not really know who

my audience would be to inform them on the topic of juvenile prison. I knew that the best

audience would be for former juvenile prisoners or actual juvenile prisoners. After having known

that this was going to be something difficult to do, and with the help of my professor, Dr. Custer,

we figured it would just be easier to talk to a professor that was on campus and that knew more

about this topic. After contacting Dr. Catherine D. Marcum, an associate’s professor of criminal

justice at Appalachian State University, about whom I should talk to about the topic of juvenile

prison, she mentions to me that Dr. Kristin Morgan would be a good audience for my topic. Dr.

Kristin Morgan is an assistant professor of criminal justice at Appalachian State University. One

of her area of expertise is juvenile justice.

I believe this was a good audience of choice because she was an expert in the topic, and it

would be a great experience to not only talk about my research but to know more about it as

well. When I started to plan the conversation, I made clear the key points that I wanted to talk

about. Some of the key points that I included were; the statistics of juveniles in prison, why

juveniles end up in prison, solitary confinement in juvenile prison, rehabilitation for juveniles,

life after prison, and changes being done to help juveniles with rehabilitation. There was a lot

more that I wanted to talk about, but these were the main points that I was anxious to learn more

about or talk about with Dr. Morgan.

On Monday, April 15, 2019 at 9 am I met up with Dr. Morgan in her office. I introduced

myself and we started our conversation. From the conversation I was able to tell her what I have

learned, and she was able to tell me more about it. There were three main things that really

surprised me and made me feel bad and sad about the topic. The first thing that stood out to me
was that when police officers are asked to search for crime around neighborhoods, they always

end up going to neighborhoods where these is poverty, gangs, and minority people. Therefore,

more African American and Hispanic/Latino are locked up in jail because they are always the

ones that police target the most. Dr. Morgan calls it a cycle that police officers use. Police

officers do not target the white, rich neighborhoods knowing that they can find crimes there, they

go for the poor minority neighborhoods.

The second thing that was a surprise for me was to know that not everyone gets equal

rehabilitation when they are in prison. Only the rich ones can afford a good rehabilitation

program. This means that the people that are put in prison and that are poor have no chance in

rehabilitating. Not only will the poor, and minority group be targeted for crimes, but they will

also have no chance in having a better a life since the only way to be in a good rehabilitation

program is to pay more money. The only rehabilitation they get is the one offered in prison

which is not the best.

The third thing that was also impacting in this conversation was to know that even the

smallest mistake can ruin a juvenile’s life. Dr. Morgan gave me an example in which if by

accident they mistaken you for someone else that is being accused of a crime and you get

arrested, your arrest will go on your record. When you apply for college or a job, they can be

able to see that on your record not knowing that it was a mistake and then all your future goals

can fall apart.

These were only three of so many other key points that really impacted me about the

topic on juvenile prison that I learned from the conversation that I had with Dr. Morgan. Overall

the conversation between Dr. Morgan and I went well. Even though I only got to talk to her for

an hour she seems like a cool and nice professor. I was able to share with her my personal
experience of having a cousin that was in juvenile prison and she was able to talk me through

about why juveniles like him make the kinds of mistakes my cousin committed. Dr. Morgan also

let me borrow one of her books about juvenile prison called No Matter How Loud I Shout by

Edward Humes. I plan on reading this book over the summer to add on to the things I know

about juvenile prison.

Having this conversation with Dr. Morgan was great. For the first time I felt like I was an

expert on a topic especially if I was discussing it with a professor that is an expert in the topic. It

was an incredible experience to sit down with someone and talk about a topic that is very

controversial. If I could change something it would be to have more time talking with Dr.

Morgan because I think, there’s a lot more to know about juvenile prison in America and she

explains them with detail.

As a future elementary teacher, I think this topic has really taught me a lot about kids and

their behavior. I think that as a teacher I will try to be looking for cues about my students that

might be having trouble at home or at school. That is one of the reasons of why I chose this

topic. I wanted to know about why kids are put in jail and how we can help them to prevent them

from falling into this path. With the research that I have done I have a better understanding of

children’s behavior and hopefully this knowledge of it will help me guide my students into the

right path.