Last Day, 3/29/12

Well it’s finally here, the last day.  Today was interesting because I went to felony court that took two hours more than expected because of a visiting judge that took a great deal of time to get through each case.  It wasn’t that he was a slow guy he just talked through every detail of the each case.  Which I would guess is great for the defendant but quite annoying for Christian and his fellow attorneys.  After that I met with Christian and went through my presentation with him and Nicolas’s case file.  He got a kick out of Nick’s case and really like the presentation board.  We talked a little about how it was great working there and that he was so proud of how well I worked over the course of the three weeks.  How I had such a great experience and it was immensely valuable.  I once again said thanks to both Christian and Todd Risberg.  I think I’ll miss working with all the great people at the DA’s.  I also never properly thanked the support staff so I thank all of you that helped me with my project.  Thank you all it has been great. 

One Day Left, 3/28/12

Today I worked on my project for the majority of the day and into the evening.  I got everything I had onto a display board and it looks great.  I have several flowcharts that depict data from my experiment including the total recidivism rate of both groups and then I split it into recidivism of those who were marijuana related or alcohol related.

I then worked on getting a fake case file finished with Nicolas Cage as a minor in possession.  I wrote a incident report and then took a real mug shot of Cage and put his info into an intake report and put all of that into a real case file folder.  I think that I’ll do great at exhibition tomorrow.

Two Days Left! 3/27/12

Today was a very productive day.  I worked on my project some more and got some great ideas to towards what else to add to my presentation for exhibition.  I will be presenting on a tri-fold board and will be displaying a lot of pie charts.  I also came up with the idea of creating a mock case file.  Since I can’t display any names of real people in the system I chose to do someone everyone should know: Nicolas Cage.  Through clever copying, white out and scanning I was able to start on a fake case file for all those going to my exhibition to rifle through.  I think this will be a great learning experience for anyone who reads the case file since I am constructing it exactly like a real one would be constructed.  I wrote an incident report written by my Sheriff persona depicting cage being charged with underage consumption of alcohol.  I will be placing it in a real file from the office, blank of course, and adding the, case summary, incident report, sentencing report, and some other items.  Since 75% of a case file is BS nonsense I am strictly adding what you need to know to understand the case.  

Day Eleven, 3/26/12

Today was another boring day.  I worked some more on my project and got quite far.  I finished both my spreadsheets and started working on the presentation aspect of it.  What Christian and I thought about was to look at what type of MIP (Minor in Possession) would have a lower or higher % of recidivism.  I noticed that in the non Community Conference group there was more of alcohol convictions compared to the Conference participants who had more marijuana related convictions.  We decided to break some pie charts into a flow chart, a pie-flow.  Sounds tasty.  Anyway I would split each group into marijuana related and alcohol related cases, then split those into first offence and repeat offence in order to determine who had a higher recidivism rate: alcohol or marijuana.  That was an interesting prospect and I am looking forward to creating my pie-flow.

Two Weeks Down, 2/23/12

Well I’ve kept you guys waiting long enough, today was an awesome day, and super valuable for both my personally and for my LINK internship.  Before I get to the good stuff I have to bore you with the not so fun stuff.  This morning I worked on my project some more and got started on the write-up of my experiment.  Thank you Steve for the practice at writing a scientific style lab report, I am using that as a base framework for my write-up.  I then plugged in some more of the criminal histories into my spreadsheet.  Since Christian was gone again today I was getting my orders from Mr. Risberg this morning, the elected DA, the big boss man.  I was at first a little nervous to meet and even talk to Todd because of his position.  I figured him for an up tight, strict, rules! kind of guy but once I got to know him, he’s just like any other one of the workers their… except he’s their boss.  I find that really cool that you can have an important boss man and at the same time have a good friend and co worker.  That’s what I like about the DAs Office is that everyone’s friendly to each other.  I’m already getting pestered by one of them. 

            Now to the good part!  At 1:30 I met with Joe Gabbard at the SO (Sheriff’s Office) and got a tour of the jail and surrounding facilities.  That is a massive building! i got to talking with Joe to see what he did and we got around to why I wanted to be in law enforcement.  Originally I had this huge interest in being a SWAT sniper and I still do.  I told Joe this and found out he is the head sniper for the Durango SWAT team! NO WAY!  Small world isn’t it.  That was extremely valuable talking to him about what was involved and what he does, how much training he does, etc.  He was telling me that for a sniper team it was 99% training, recon, observation and intelligence gathering, and 1% shooting, and a lot of their work is strictly looking and observing and gathering information.  It’s funny the shows you watch that portray the police as super hectic and shootouts every day, but in reality it’s a lot of paperwork and getting information.  One thing I will say is that they appear to have a blast though.  I overheard a conversation between Joe and a coworker about that coworker losing a game of poker with pocket kings!  Yah, sounds like a whole lot of no fun to me.  As we toured the facility we went into a interview room.  At first glance it looks like an ordinary room, but under closer inspection, what looks like a screw hole in the ceiling is actually a microphone.  And a busted corner of the ceiling is a camera.  We continued to the jail portion and as we traveled each door would unlock as we got to it, which is really cool when you get to the door and it buzzes and then you can open it.  As we traveled farther into (what I will point out feels a lot like a maze) the jail, we went down the drab cement hallway were we came to a door that unlocked as we got there.  As Joe opened the door I found myself in a tech paradise, just like the ones in the movies.  The ones with the three TV screens full of video camera feeds.  Yup just like that.  It was super surprising to see that tech room all of a sudden; it just didn’t fit amongst the cement walls of the jail.  Three TVs sat on a desk, the two outside ones full of video feeds from all over the jail, inmates walking here and there with there nice orange jumpsuits.  The middle TV, the biggest of the three, had the entire floor plan of the jail with a little camera icon at every location there was a camera.  The operator clicked on one and could see the door and could unlock it from there.  Those were the guys that let us in.  We continued to booking where they book in every inmate that enters the jail.  That’s where they go when the cop sais “book him.”  I got to see the giant sally port they have at the jail, as well as the giant steel doors that lead into the sally port.  They looked like they were form an aircraft carrier.  We then went into what Joe called the “fishbowl” which was similar to the first tech room but overlooked three cell blocks, or pods as they call them.  The glass was one way so the inmates couldn’t see us.  That concluded the tour and we went back to Joe’s office and talked a bit more until I left.

            On a personal note Joe runs a shooting class that is almost open to the public in a few weeks.  At the moment he trains military and law enforcement how to shoot effectively.  I am super excited because I may get to take the class and get shooting more accurately. 

            The tour of the SO was one of the most valuable experiences I have had during LINK, if not the most.

Day Nine, 3/22/12

Well I’m sorry this week has been so boring, same with today.  Christian was out today so I worked on my project all day which is looking great and is almost finished.  I showed up there this morning not knowing what I was going to be doing but luckily Christian was on top of it and I had a stack of cases ready to be plugged into my spreadsheet.  The cases were the MIP (Minors in Possession) that had not gone through the Community Conference.  I entered them into my spreadsheet, and thanks to the hard working helpers, I got to enter the criminal histories in as well.  Today was rather dull but I’m looking forward to tomorrow because I may tour the Sheriffs Office. 

My Interview with Christian