Vlog 6 Final for London Stories

In today’s tour, we were able to see another side of London, a side which not most people would walk through, but if one is into art and its history, one is able to see its beauty. Street art may be considered to be the lowest type of art within its department, yet it still can inspire someone and it still can be a powerful symbol. London street art was very different from L.A. street art or San Francisco’s murals, the street art in London represents respect for your name and the development of one’s art, acceptance, someone’s territory. It also represented the anger of young adults that they’ve had. One is able to see their evolution through their art, it’s amazing to see that those angry teens now have the permission to continue to do street art and are able to show the people their work and their evolution. While the community itself lets street grow, they tend to turn the other way, the street art becomes part of what London is, it represents their history. While many of the art itself is hard to understand, your eyes will open when you can relate or understand what it means, many of them represent sadness, anger, happiness, almost everything has a meaning, and why they have decided to put it where they put it. In my opinion, coming to London and visiting this side of town can be sketchy but it’s worth seeing the street art, it helps one understand how people see their side and beauty it carries. The street may not always be pleasant to see but they symbolize who the person is and what they are feeling.

The following pictures have a meaning of how people feel, weather is certain laws or how they feel about guns, to creepy pictures of a telly-tuby. One of my favorites paintings were of the women they drew, in black and white with the words “beauty” in red, it was a picture of a woman with frizzy hair, dark lips and hoop earrings. And while society may not see this woman as beautiful because she doesn’t represent class her dark features really expand her beauty. Overall this trip has had to be one of the best tours.

Vlog 6

In many ways, the U.K. and U.S. have improved their ways of punishing, yet there is still a lot of discrimination against people of color which makes it bias. One of the things that most shocked me and am really interested and wished that the U.S. did better is the sentencing of young adults. In the U.K. while there are prisons for the underage there are also for young adults, ages from 18-25, which in my perspective is an effective way to separate young adults from adults of high-security levels. In the U.S. we tend to send teenagers to adult prisons, all depending on what the judge assigns and for cases of kids under 25, they are still able to be around people to the same age as them.

 

While the U.K. has a long history of punishment and torcher, they have come a long way, in the reading of the “Underworld London” chapter two is written based on the execution of royals, and horrifying deaths that people with high position or advisors to the king and their crucial deaths. The U.S. is the only country in the world where solitary confinement (New York) became an everyday sentencing, while the U.S. is one of the only countries where we send people to die in prison without parole it becomes impossible for inmates to gain a second look or even pose bail.

 

Norway is known to have one of the best prisons in the world in where they focus more in rehabilitation instead of punishment, it is why many of the officers on duty don’t even carry a gun. Their idea is to help the prisoner to let go of the anger and start a healing process where there are shown that people around them care about them and they want them to get better for when they are realized they are healthy to back to the community. Norway itself has done an amazing job when it comes to really care for the people who are incarcerated and while the U.K. is really trying to better their system is incorrect of them to look up the U.S. and see how we punish our people instead of looking at Norway way on rehabilitation.

 

Vlog 5

Vlog 5

In my perspective, the goal of criminal courts should be about rehabilitation for the offenders, to help prevent other crimes and the moral support for the victims. Criminal courts should have more opportunities where criminals are able to rehabilitate and become a valuable member of the general population, once they have served time in prison (in my perspective). For the victims, respecting their grievances for their lost ones can play a role of the amount of time a prisoner can obtain, but by helping them understand how rehabilitation is the best way to help prisoners from their struggle is the one of the most challenging things we face, considering that we are the ones who vote for the laws.

 

A good example of a country where their prisons are over exceeding everyone else is the Netherlands, where they believe that rehabilitation will help prepare prisoners to face the challenges they were one facing and failing. In the video from today class a quote that stood out to me said “If we treat prisoners like animals they will behave like animals”, there are many challenges that prisoners face when being sentenced to life in prison and whether they are in good behavior many prisoners need help physically and mentally. This is the part where we need to remember that they (prisoners) might spend a long time in prison but they will soon be realized and may potentially become a threat to the community.  While Netherlands prisons are one of the best in the world, I don’t see this program happening any time soon in the U.S., we tend to see prisons more of a punishment instead of a rehabilitation. And while money has a large influence on how much funding should prisons have, the number of prisoners in the U.S. makes it challenging.

 

One of the things I learn in the courtroom was how the jury has more power than the judge, while the jury were the ones who decided on the sentencing the judge had no saying besides letting the defendant go based on the jury final answer. The court system has developed new ways on how to prosecute yet I do not believe is better, while it is better than the U.S. in certain areas, the U.K. system has had its challenges where they have failed to protect the people.

Week 2

The tower of London is a significant palace that holds twenty towers, during our walk through the tower of London we were able to apply part of our reading of chapter two. We were taken to the place where the King had sent the princes to die, after the death of their father and remarrying their mother, their sad story lives on through the heart of the English people. While walking through the Tower of London one might see the beauty of buildings of the outside, yet the inside we were able to see history it holds and the traditions, we were also able to see the people who lived inside the tower of London and the place where the prisoners were held before their execution. The tower of executions was one of the places I was most looking forward too, we had just finished watching a small play about Anne Boleyn that explores the tragic final days of her imprisonment and interrogation, that follows her through the execution, where she was beheaded. Through her greed for marrying the King, and not being able to bear any sons and the promise she had made to her king, she was beheaded in a public execution. Her story was made of an example to the people in her time of what would happen if people deceived their King.

Regarding crown jewels, it was an exciting museum, where we were able to see the largest diamond in the world. And the beautiful crowns the monarchy wears on their coronation, we were also able to see part of the history of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. As we explored more of the Tower of London we tried following a group tour, but from the overcrowded of people in the group tours, it was hard to hear and understand what the Beefeater was saying, so we continue on our own.

While the book of the Underworld of London gives out the history of London crime and punishment it is more exciting to go out and seeing everything we read and applying it.

 

The History of crime and punishment in London has a long history of cruelty and unfairness, while their ‘solutions’ weren’t always the best way, they believed in their system for religious purposes. The way the U.K. learned how to punish people were from people lacking the rules that were implemented (do as your told) and the best way to make sure that people continue to follow the rules or “to get in line” were to show them the consequences of what would happen if someone broke the rules. The execution was a public way to let everyone know of what consequences and on occasions, they had the community deal with them.

I believe that crime has evolved and from the evolution, new laws have had to be implemented, yet I do not believe that their solution has become better. Is just that we have learned that if we commit a crime, the court system will not have mercy on us and we will have to serve a sentence affair to the crime.