Come and get it while its HoT!

Grits for Breakfast posted on Monday the 24th an excerpt titled, Training too late, parsing crime data, and other stories centering around a case between a local police officer and a schizophrenic man. The post discusses whether local law enforcement made the correct judgment and whether there is enough training on the matter. It mentions whether DPS requirements implement any sort of training with mentally ill suspects as other police agencies have. Furthering into other major cities throughout texas and the different types of crime rates. Also touching on the use of surveillance cameras within the local police department.

C’mon you had to have click on this blog just by its catchy name! To my surprise that wasn’t the only beneficial part of this blog. At first glance I really enjoyed the organization and clarity of the blog. As I dove into the actual text I appreciated the separation and titling of the different topics within the post. There are also many links within the post that help you get an understanding of the topic at hand. This is where I was blown away! The writers for Grits are all highly educated and have decades of experience in the political field, criminal justice, law or other overlapping fields such as news. Grits talks about the use of surveillance cameras on police officers not being a main focus. I believe this is something that should be implemented in the budget and over time all the police officers should be equipt with them on their persons. He then talks about crime rates within the state of texas and gives us an overview of the specific types of crimes on the rise or decline. I am excited to continue to check back in with this blog and see other topics they discuss.

Texas Juvenile Justice?

In this article titled, To Help Rehabilitate Juveniles, Texas Keeping Them Closer to Home By Jonathan Silver of The Texas Tribune addresses different counties thought Texas, need for juveniles to be placed in reconstructive programs closer to home instead of in state lockups. The author stresses the importance of why these young offenders need to be closer to home. He states that a lot of the offender's parents being low income and are unable to go visit them while they are locked up due to a lack of public transportation. As some of these lockups are 100 plus miles away from their homes. As John says the juveniles friends and family are a crucial part of the support and recovery process for these juveniles. After all some of these juvenile offenders are between the ages of 10 and 12. This bill, if passed will concentrate on diverting few select groups throughout the counties in Texas, specifically to those with serious mental illnesses, developmental disabilities, non-violent histories and a "low to moderate" risk of offending again."

This particular article caught my eye because of the headline. Juvenile issues have always been an interest of mine. As I started skimming through the article I noticed how I really liked the layout of it. The author John was able to get straight to the point and write almost as if you were reading through bulleted facts. He pointed out all the facts of the story including a back story. He separated each statement as a paragraph making it easy to sift through or go back and read through a certain point. Overall I feel that this article is well written, and with the style of wording and layout you are able to come away with an understanding of the issue as a whole. I have taken the liberty of looking through some of the authors John Silver Texas Tribune other articles and it looks as if they are similar in their layout. I look forward to checking out some of the other articles he has written.