Read the excerpt from Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. We have abolished parole in many states. We have invented slogans like "Three strikes and you’re out” to communicate our toughness. We’ve given up on rehabilitation, education, and services for the imprisoned because providing assistance to the incarcerated is apparently too kind and compassionate. Which sentence best states the excerpt’s main idea about abolishing parole?
Read the excerpt from Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. It is about how easily we condemn people in this country and the injustice we create when we allow fear, anger, and distance to shape the way we treat the most vulnerable among us. It’s also about a dramatic period in our recent history, a period that indelibly marked the lives of millions of Americans—of all races, ages, and sexes—and the American psyche as a whole. . . . Today we have the highest rate of incarceration in the world. The prison population has increased from 300,000 people in the early 1970s to 2.3 million people today. There are nearly six million people on probation or on parole. One in every fifteen people born in the United States in 2001 is expected to go to jail or prison; one in every three black male babies born in this century is expected to be incarcerated. Pauline is annotating this passage. She is looking for evidence to support the author’s claim that some groups of people are more likely to be imprisoned than others. Which sentence should she underline?
Read the excerpt from Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. The collateral consequences of mass incarceration have been equally profound. We ban poor women and, inevitably, their children from receiving food stamps and public housing if they have prior drug convictions. We have created a new caste system that forces thousands of people into homelessness, bans them from living with their families and in their communities, and renders them virtually unemployable. Some states permanently strip people with criminal convictions of the right to vote; as a result, in several Southern states disenfranchisement among African American men has reached levels unseen since before the Voting Rights Act of 1965. We also make terrible mistakes. Scores of innocent people have been exonerated [cleared] after being sentenced to death and nearly executed. Hundreds more have been released after being proved innocent of noncapital crimes through DNA testing. Presumptions of guilt, poverty, racial bias, and a host of other social, structural, and political dynamics have created a system that is defined by error, a system in which thousands of innocent people now suffer in prison. Which quotation from the excerpt most helps readers understand why innocent people are given prison sentences?
Read the excerpt from Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. Hundreds of thousands of nonviolent offenders have been forced to spend decades in prison. We’ve created laws that make writing a bad check or committing a petty theft or minor property crime an offense that can result in life imprisonment. We have declared a costly war on people with substance abuse problems. There are more than a half-million people in state or federal prisons for drug offenses today, up from just 41,000 in 1980. Which sentence best states the main idea in this excerpt?
Read the excerpt from Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. Hundreds of thousands of nonviolent offenders have been forced to spend decades in prison. We’ve created laws that make writing a bad check or committing a petty theft or minor property crime an offense that can result in life imprisonment. We have declared a costly war on people with substance abuse problems. There are more than a half-million people in state or federal prisons for drug offenses today, up from just 41,000 in 1980. We have abolished parole in many states. We have invented slogans like "Three strikes and you’re out” to communicate our toughness. We’ve given up on rehabilitation, education, and services for the imprisoned because providing assistance to the incarcerated is apparently too kind and compassionate. . . . The collateral consequences of mass incarceration have been equally profound. We ban poor women and, inevitably, their children from receiving food stamps and public housing if they have prior drug convictions. Which detail from the excerpt best supports the idea that prison sentences often do not match the severity of crimes?
Read the excerpts from Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson and "Wrongful Convictions” by John R. Firman. Just Mercy We also make terrible mistakes. Scores of innocent people have been exonerated after being sentenced to death and nearly executed. Hundreds more have been released after being proved innocent of noncapital crimes through DNA testing. Presumptions of guilt, poverty, racial bias, and a host of other social, structural, and political dynamics have created a system that is defined by error, a system in which thousands of innocent people now suffer in prison. "Wrongful Convictions” What were the broad themes of the summit? First of all, no surprise, everybody agreed it is a system problem. This isn’t one person’s problem, it’s not one group’s problem, it’s not somebody’s fault, it’s the problem and the fault of an entire system and a whole bunch of people. In the beginning of the summit, people also said that most things, most investigations, most cases, most witness ID, start with good intention, the good intention of getting the bad guy and putting them behind bars, the real criminal, the real person who did the crime. The problem is that that often turns, and we know, from Innocence Project data, that turns to, in many cases, in certainly some number of cases, massive damage. Which quotation from "Wrongful Convictions” confirms a detail from Just Mercy ?
Read the excerpts from "Wrongful Convictions” by Jon Gould and Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. "Wrongful Convictions” Today what I’d like to present to you are the results of a three-year project using empirical methods and a control group that really brought social science methods to the table to examine the causes of wrongful conviction. Just Mercy This book is about getting closer to mass incarceration and extreme punishment in America. It is about how easily we condemn people in this country and the injustice we create when we allow fear, anger, and distance to shape the way we treat the most vulnerable among us. It’s also about a dramatic period in our recent history, a period that indelibly marked the lives of millions of Americans—of all races, ages, and sexes—and the American psyche as a whole. Which statement best describes how the authors’ purposes are similar?
Read the excerpts from "Wrongful Convictions” by Jon Gould and Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. "Wrongful Convictions” Now, with DNA evidence available, it is essential that that testing be done earlier in a case because certain people can be weeded out from the beginning. And I recognize that that testing is expensive, but the testing is likely going to be used anyhow in these cases, so you might as well do it earlier. Just Mercy We also make terrible mistakes. Scores of innocent people have been exonerated [cleared] after being sentenced to death and nearly executed. Hundreds more have been released after being proved innocent of noncapital crimes through DNA testing. Presumptions of guilt, poverty, racial bias, and a host of other social, structural, and political dynamics have created a system that is defined by error, a system in which thousands of innocent people now suffer in prison. Which quotation from Just Mercy confirms a detail from "Wrongful Convictions”?
Read the excerpts from "Wrongful Convictions” by John R. Firman and Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. "Wrongful Convictions” [In addition, we need to look at] post-arrest case review. . . . The team will sit down and say, "Let us go back and look for any potential red flags, where we can say that even though we’ve hung our hat on this case and we think this is the right person, this is the right offender, then the bottom line is, let’s go back, let’s stop, let’s just stop everything, get the checklist out—just like pilots do, just like doctors do—and say, ‘What do we have here? What does this case really look like?’” Just Mercy An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation. Fear and anger can make us vindictive and abusive, unjust and unfair, until we all suffer from the absence of mercy and we condemn ourselves as much as we victimize others. How is tone related to both authors’ ideas in these excerpts?
Read the excerpts from "Wrongful Convictions” by Jon Gould and Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. "Wrongful Convictions” Being known to the police or having your photo in a mug shot book means that you are more likely—if you are innocent—to be wrongly convicted. Just Mercy We also make terrible mistakes. Scores of innocent people have been exonerated [cleared] after being sentenced to death and nearly executed. Hundreds more have been released after being proved innocent of noncapital crimes through DNA testing. Presumptions of guilt, poverty, racial bias, and a host of other social, structural, and political dynamics have created a system that is defined by error, a system in which thousands of innocent people now suffer in prison. Which statement best describes the relationship between the evidence in the two excerpts?
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