Ten Must-See Criminal Justice YouTube Videos

Published October 06, 2008 @ 12:40PM PT

You can use YouTube to see inside our courtrooms and our prisons. Here are a few short videos on prisons, crime and courts - and one rockin' Michael Jackson dance performance.

Incarcerex

"In clinical trials, Incarcerex has been shown effective at reducing election-related anxieties by making voters think you're doing something about the drug problem." This hilarious and effective animated short from the Drug Policy Alliance makes brutally clear the ulterior motives of the War on Drugs.

The Wrongfully Convicted

The Innocence Project works to free the innocent from American prisons with the help of DNA testing. In this moving video, 16 of the exonerated tear up their prisoner ID numbers onstage at an Innocence Project event. (Full disclosure, I'm the group's Online Communications Manager)

Sex in prison

T.J. Parsell, the author of "Fish: A Boy in a Man's Prison," talks about the sexual assaults he suffered as an inmate in Michigan state prison and the gender dynamics in prison. Today, he is a leading voice in the effort to eliminate prison rape around the world.

Have you ever had the cops in your face?

Watch the high-pressure interrogation of Chuck Erickson by Missouri police. Erickson's co-defendant, Ryan Ferguson, says police pressured Erickson to incriminate Ferguson in a murder in which neither man was involved, leading to the wrongful convictions of both men.

The War over the War on Drugs

Is the War on Drugs succeeding in reducing the supply and demand of illegal drugs in the U.S. while preventing violent crime? Or does it lock up millions of non-violent Americans, creating a cycle of poverty for their families and communities? Leaders from both sides of this argument make their arguments in this video from Foreign Policy Magazine. Featuring David Murray, chief scientist at the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, and Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

Thriller

Hundreds of inmates in the Philippines perform a choreographed dance to Michael Jackson's Thriller. With 17 million views, this is one of YouTube's greatest hits of all time. Is it prison arts programming or a human rights violation? You decide.

The Attica Rebellion

A six-minute documentary short about one of the most infamous prison uprisings in American history. In 1971, inmates controlled Attica prison in New York for four days, bringing national attention to the violence in prisons and the inhumane conditions in which inmates lived.

John Grisham with Charlie Rose

How does a wrongful conviction happen? How do prosecutors and judges ignore repeated appeals over a decade from two innocent inmates, presenting increasingly convincing evidence that they didn't commit the murder that sent them to prison? John Grisham explored every detail of the wrongful convictions - and eventual exonerations - of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz in his excellent 2006 book "The Innocent Man." Here he discusses these cases and the broader causes of wrongful convictions with Charlie Rose on PBS.

In Prison My Whole Life

Mumia Abu-Jamal was arrested in Philadelphia for a murder he says he didn't commit on the night documentarian William Francone was born. This trailer for a new documentary by Francone explores Mumia's case and injustice in America through the lens of his 25 years on Earth.

Paradise Lost

The first section of an intriguing documentary on the case of the West Memphis Three - three men who say they were wrongfully convicted of killing three eight-year-old boys in Arkansas in 1994. This case has become a cause célèbre and continues to spark activism and headlines. The full documentary is available on YouTube in more than 30 sections

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Hey man -

Have you seen this one?

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=47628701

.a.

Posted by Alex Steed on 12/04/2008 @ 01:24PM PT
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This is powerful. Few people realize what an enormous BUSINESS the prison system has become.

Posted by patricia w on 05/24/2009 @ 02:54PM PT
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Thank you for your concern for our brothers and sisters who are being brutalized by parents, policemen, our courts, drug dealers, gangs, and our Presidents of good ol' USA. Hopefully, after 12/21/2012 we will eventually have a beautiful world of love and understanding. Sylvia Merrill

Posted by Sylvia Merrill on 12/07/2008 @ 09:51PM PT
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I'm loving this collection of videos. Everyone should see these.

Posted by Matt Harden on 12/11/2008 @ 09:14AM PT
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Yes Everyone SHOULD see these videos !!!!

Posted by Yoke Jaken on 01/30/2009 @ 05:47AM PT
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It's been a while since I posted these - seen anything good on YouTube recently that I should add?

Posted by Matt Kelley on 01/30/2009 @ 05:58AM PT
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What about "Don't Smoke the Marijuana"? It's already posted in the videos section.

Posted by Kalani Foster on 02/05/2009 @ 03:32AM PT
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Free Courtney Bisbee, falsely accused, wrongly convicted and wrongfully imprisoned for an alleged crime that never happened. Scottsdale police Swat team arrest with no arrest warrant on February 11, 2004. No search warrant. No Miranda Rights. No medical physical exam which would have impeached the accuser's lying statements. No investigation of the alleged crime scene in Phoenix, not Scottsdale. False allegation of child molest (touching) by one 13 year old. A scam by his mother and him to sue the wealthiest school district in Arizona. Copycat case of the mother / son grifter in the Michael Jackson case.Established protocol for investigation of child abuse was ignored by the Scottsdale detective (SPD fed lies to the media), the County Attorney and government agencies which signed the Maricopa County Multidisciplinary Protocol for Investigation of Child Abuse signed by then, Governor Napolitano. This miscarriage of justice is the tip of the iceberg in Maricopa County and the state of Arizona. We need outside independent investigation of those responsible for the scam that resulted in the conviction of Courtney Bisbee, the loss of her 4 1/2 year old daughter to an ex-husband whose friend was the caregiver of the teen accuser and his brother.
www.justice4courtney.com

Posted by camille tilley on 04/17/2009 @ 11:36PM PT
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"Witch Hunt" belongs on this list of most important films to see. Watch MSNBC’s clip narrated by Sean Penn and produced by two courageous filmmakers. http://www.cinemablend.com/new/MSNBC-Joins-Sean-Penn-s-Witch-Hunt-10743.html

Many people think the number of people falsely accused of sex offense on a child are minimal. They are wrong. My son was falsely accused years ago by a child of 8. She finally recanted. Every one listened when she lied. Few care now but my son had no record at all when this happened. And the reasons she lied were astonishing, except for the fact that two women encouraged her to because they didn't like my son's looks. They said the same thing as the prosecutor about my mentally ill son, i.e. he looked "wierd". Yes, he didn't take care of himself (teeth, bad skin and he was too nice, too open, too trusting)...so that made him "wierd". Now he lives in a self-imposed paranoid exile from family and friends. I worry every day some vigilante or cop wil harm him.

MEN WHO ARE NOT DANGEROUS DO NOT EVEN BELONG ON THE SEX-OFFENDER REGISTRY

People on the registry(far too many innocent or not dangerous) have been murdered, committed suicide, had their homes set on fire, been evicted, lost their jobs,etc.etc. Stephen Marshall killed two men who were on the sex-offender registry in Maine. Immediately after, he took his own life. One of the men Marshall killed, Joseph Gray, was on the registry for raping a child. The other, William Elliott, was listed because he'd slept with his girlfriend before she turned 16.

Eighty-seven percent of people who were arrested for sex crimes had not previously been convicted of such an offense, according to a 1997 study. Just 14 percent of all sexual assault cases involved strangers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.

These are examples of who is on the dreaded registry:

1. Romeo and Juliet liasons, false accusations of vindictive teens against an older teen (18 or 19)

2.False accusation by vindictive parents in child custody cases and/or family feuds- There are more of these than most people would believe. There are many reports of people who admit to having lied about being molested when they were younger. Now they would like to have the person wrongly convicted on their testimony set free.

3.mutual consensual sex- but being 3 yrs. and 1 day older than the willing teen (can bring and has brought multiple felony indictments)

4. Sex between consenting teen prostitute (who looks older and even may have lied about her age) with an adult male

5. Criminal charges that later are dropped for insufficient proof but not appealed in time, so still on registry

From all I have read, the number of true pedaphiles who are actually dangerous is relatively small. But check out the registry. Under the Bush Dept. of Justice, which was so extremely politicized, you are liable to see people who look like your mailman, grocery clerk,etc.etc. And ones who look like they fit the profile could be the least guilty and vice versa. But the numbers on the registry are growing exponentially. And as long as politicians and the media can make hay (or reputations) out of this issue, it will breed fear and hysteria and ruin men (mostly) and their families lives who do not deserve to have this happen ! Where are the churches on this issue? Where are people who say they care about justice? Watch MSNBC’s Witch Hunt.

If you are someone who does care and want to be better educated about this subject:

http://www.reformsexoffenderlaws.org/index.php

Posted by patricia w on 05/24/2009 @ 02:47PM PT
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Must see new award winning documentary "Witch Hunt", true story of John Stoll and innocent man falsely imprisoned for 20 years for an alleged crime that never happened. Exonerated when the Northern California Innocence Project under Professor Kathleen (Cookie) Ridolfi and Linda Starr stepped in and saw this manifest injustice.
Also new film, "America Violet" about a mother and her four children swept into the drug war in eastern Texas. Texas known for the Tulia corruption of false allegations.
Then there's the wrongful conviction and exoneration of Senator Stevens. Prosecutorial Misconduct at the highest level in our nation, which set the tone for those at the lowest levels of our nation's counties.
And the recent PA Corrupt judges who jailed kids for money, and profited from the privatization of prisons / detension centers which have contributed to America being the #1 jailer in the world - a disgraceful statistic.

Posted by camille tilley on 04/17/2009 @ 11:55PM PT
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Has anybody seen this link?

http://www.fulldisclosure.net/Programs/539.php

Posted by Mary Acosta on 06/09/2009 @ 11:34AM PT
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Matt has worked and volunteered in various capacities in criminal justice reform for several years. When he's not blogging, he works as the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project. Views expressed here are Matt's, and don't represent the positions of the Innocence Project.