By Thursday of every week, you should have completed the activities associated with 1 project. You should blog about your experience as a comment to the blog posting of that particular project. Your blog comment can be largely experiential--tell us what it was like to do the project and what you learned. Products associated with the project and a more detailed analysis of the project will go in your portfolio (see the Portfolio blog post).
Project #5 - Interview a Professional
Choose a relevant profession or role in the legal system, law enforcement, or Psychology/Law related profession. Find a person who is willing to talk to you about their job. This person can be local, from your hometown or anywhere that your internet connection takes you. Please do not just rely on email; it is preferable that you speak to them over the phone or in person. This should be a conversation, not a Q&A. Then, construct a Day in the Life essay. If you have never seen one of these before, google it, and you'll find many. Your comment will be about how you found the person, who they are and your experiencing talking with them. You will put your essay (which will also include that information) in your portfolio.
I conducted a phone interview with Doug Reese, a Juvenile Court Officer-usually better known as a Juvenile Probation Officer-from Ottumwa, Iowa. It was especially easy for me to find Mr. Reese because he is my father. During our conversation, he told me what his job entails, daily tasks, and how he applies psychology in making decisions about which placement facility would benefit the juvenile offenders the most.
A Juvenile Court Officer's job includes checking up on current clients-how they're doing in their current detention center or placement facility, reviewing case notes, writing reports for the clients attorney, meeting with the clients and their parents/guardians, decide if cases need to be revoked or dismissed, if certain juveniles need to stay in probation or are ready to be released, and many other tasks.
Based on psychological evaluations, Mr. Reese decides which placement facility is best suited for each individual juvenile offender, and based on the programs offered at each detention center or rehabilitation center.
My conversation with him even included his opinions about biological vs. environmental factors in people becoming criminals.
I conducted a face to face interview with a UNI Lieutenant. I did this one day after I got off of work. I already know what a day in the life of a UNI police officer looked like, but I learned didn't things about their job that I didn't know while doing this interview. During our conversation the Lieutenant told me about what he does on a day to day basis, and some of the more exciting things that go on.
The Lieutenant told me that he does a lot of paper work (ex. writing up case reports) and goes to a lot of meetings on a day to day basis. But when he is not doing these things he is out giving tickets, looking into complaints and arresting people. He also stated that he works a lot with the Cedar Falls Police Department. During my interview i had the chance to ride around with him in this police car. He showed me how the camera works and what the other gadgets in his vehicle do. I found all the workings of a police car very interesting.
I found the project interesting, because I learned stuff that I didn't already know and I really got a feel for what happens on the weekends. I think it would be even more interesting interviewing someone in a line of work that you are interested in and know little or nothing about.
The person I chose is not someone typically found in the legal system. I chose a child advocate. I already knew this person from an organization I participated in and also volunteered at DSAOC ( Domestic Sexual Assault Outreach CCenter) They have different advocates but the ones adults have are more for support as to the ones for children that help ensure their rights. She also does crsis counseling and a little bit of play therapy with smaller children, but she is not considered a counselor since she only has a BA. She attends deposition and court precedings with the children and are one of the few people allowed into depositions, since parents are not. It requires a unique personality since the pay is low and deal with some outrageous things. She is a very positive person and works very well with children, some of the stuff they have to deal with though is worse than what you see in movies.She also has a very busy schedule, she gives presentations in schools, responds to sexual assault and rape cases at the hospital and assists children with reporting,and reciving help such as crime victim stoppers and many other sources. Job requires a strong personality too.
I conducted a phone interview with Ron Knight, who is a Magistrate Judge for Paige County. It was very easy to get a hold of him because he is my Uncle. Although Ron Knight is my Uncle, it wasn't until recently that I found out that he is a part-time Magistrate Judge. A day in his life can be busy.
As a Magistrate Judge, my Uncle works on Mondays and Tuesdays but is on call 24/7. When he first arrives in the mornings he has to look and see what kind of cases he has. He needs to see whether it is a hearing, motion, or appearance day. Another thing that he does right away in the morning is to find out if he needs to go and make an initial appearance at the jail if anyone was places there withing 24 hours without bond.
Once all of this is done, he begins his day. The Clerk of Court makes all of his time arrangements for the day and he just goes to the appointments or hearings that are scheduled.
Because he is a Magistrate Judge his days vary day to day with what he will be doing. He told me that one day he may be a slow day but the next day will be very busy. He can also be called at any hour of the day all days of the week for a search warrant or to commit a mental patient. When he commits a mental patient, he can only do so up to 48 hours, if the patient needs to be held after that the decision would be up to a District Judge.
A life in the day of my Uncle is very fascinating. He is the first experience that anyone will have in the Judicial System. He hears cases that range from an assault charge to capital crimes.
In order to become a Magistrate Judge he was required to go to school for a day and half. But now the Legislature has passed a law stating that in order to be a Magistrate Judge you have to be an attorney first.
This job requires a person to have a general sense of the law and have good common sense.
My experience talking with Ron Knight was very informative and very interesting. I never knew what he did day to day. I think it is very interesting in the life of my Uncle and his job. This interview and knowing about his job made it possible for me to go to Paige County and sit in on one of his busy days where he will be in court all day hearing cases. This should be able to happen this summer, and now knowing what the job entails, I cannot wait.
I chose to interview my uncle, Dan Sabers, who is a police officer in Dubuque, Iowa. I had him walk me through a normal day as a police officer and found out that there are several things I did not know. He told me the things he does everyday that are required and then some things that may not happen every day. He told me a lot of information about what he had to do in order to become a police officer and all the ranks available in the police department. My uncle has been a cop for 25 years and his highest rank was corporal but he took a voluntary demotion so that he would have the hours he wanted, even though the pay was less. Even though it seems easy to become a police officer and that their job doesn't require much, they actually have to go through a lot of important training before they can go out in the city to do their job. It was really interesting to find out all of this information.
For my project this week I have decided to interview a professional. A very close family friend who I consider my Uncle is a retired DCI agent and he has always told me stories about when he was in the field. He is very proud of what he did with his career and when I called him and told him I wanted to interview him he was thrilled. My "day in the life of" essay is going to include summaries of many local cases since he worked in the state of Iowa. His job as an investigator was to find and put together evidence. Even after he was retired they had to call him in on a case that was unsolved, but they found new evidence on the case.
The person I picked to interview with is Adam Pence. He is a police officer from my home town, and also a year older than I am, so it was very easy to get in contact with him since he is a good friend. One of the things I was most curious about was how Adam handled dealing with pulling over friends, since our home town is population 2,000. He said it depends on the nature of the crime and the severity. With this in mind, I hope that if I were to get pulled over by Mr. Pence, he takes discretion into account since we're friends :) I also found it interesting how quickly Adam was hired. He had interned for the police department in high school and did dispatching during college and was guaranteed a position as soon as he got his degree. I also asked him about some of his better excuses he's gotten which were usually the standard didn't realize I was doing it, but there were a few funny ones.
I talked with a family friend, Kate Wilson. Her parents and my parents have been friends for decades since our fathers both worked together. Kate's an attorney. She only just graduated from law school this past May, so she hasn't been working very long, but she's had a lot of experience in court. She really enjoys what she does and had been very helpful since I intend on going to law school after undergrad, which is what she did. She enjoys helping people, but admitted that often times as an attorney, you can't be sure if the person you're representing is being truthful with you about their motives/story and it's important to get to the bottom of that in order to represent your client to the best of your ability.
For this project, I chose to talk with Dr. Bartollas, a professor in the criminology department here at UNI. I took one of his classes this fall and remembered him saying how he often serves as an expert witness in cases related to murder; therefore I thought he would be an interesting person to interview for this project. Dr. Bartollas always serves as an expert witness for the defense, usually in cases with men on death row because he does not believe in the death penalty.
I contacted him through email and asked if I could meet with him to discuss his job as an expert witness. He agreed and we met this past week. For my essay, he told me about one of the cases he was previously involved with, from how he was contacted to actually talking with the defendant to the outcome of the trial.
It was very interesting hearing about his background in this area. Stories and comments coming from a man who has looked vicious murderers in the eye is definitely very interesting. He had a lot of great stories and words of wisdom from all of his experience in the criminal justice system and involvement in the legal system.
I just did a face-to-face interview with Sergeant Greg Scott of the Mason City Police Department. Sergeant Scott was willing to speak with me about his job and I got in contact with him through my step-dad who used to work with him while they were still in college.
I asked him what he did on a day-to-day basis. Since he is a sergeant, he supervises the other police officers, gives assignments, makes arrangements for funerals, etc. and also reviews paperwork from his shift. He guessed that paperwork took up about 60% of his time, but he also goes out on calls as well.
I asked him why he chose to get involved in law enforcement, and he said that he just kind of fell into it. He has family in the field and decided his senior year in high school that he wanted to be a police officer.
We talked about his favorite/least favorite parts of his job. He said that he likes that every day is different. He likes only being one call away of doing something exciting and he never deals with the same thing every day. He mentioned that he is looking forward to telling tons of stories when he retires. He doesn't like investigating deaths, and especially dislikes notifying families that their loved ones have died.
As far as using psychology in his job, he said that he deals with a lot of people with mental illness. Mason City is about the same size as Cedar Falls and is surrounded by a handful of smaller towns. Therefore, Mason City is kind of the go-to place for people with mental illnesses. Sergeant Scott said that the department gets around 150 calls a day, with about half of them being from residents with mental illnesses. He said most of the time, the residents are not a harm to anybody else, but often times they are paranoid that people are in their basement or they "see" people lurching in their lawns. For example, he said that he had to go on a call recently where a couple, both who had mental illnesses, thought there were demons in their basement. He said he went to the basement, pounded on the walls, and went upstairs and told them that he scared the demons away. The couple told him they were relieved and they would not be able to sleep again.
It was really interesting to talk with Sergeant Scott...I learned that there is quite a bit that is going on in my town then I ever knew about!
My activity for this week I interviewed Bob Rudge, and FBI agent in the Pennsylvania area. When I was younger I moved around a lot and one of our neighbors who became close friends of my parents were was Bob Rudge and his family. When reading through the assignment about writing a day in the life essay I felt as though by interviewing Bob I would get a good sense of what the FBI does first hand. Criminal Minds is one of my favorite TV. shows. For those of you who have not seen this show it is a serial crime unit that works with cases by getting side the mind of criminals in order to predict and follow their moves. However, I think we all know that what we see on TV is not reality, therefore my fascination with this show increased my desire to interview a real FBI agent and grasp a better understanding of how and what they do.
Interviewing Bob was very interesting. Prior to talking with Bob over the phone I did some research on other day in the life essay on the internet to get a good representation of what questions I should start with that would lead into a good conversation about the FBI. After doing this research on the day in the life essays I decided I would ask Bob about am memorable case he worked on. Through this I would ask him to take me through that day and as much as he could remember of the step by step process that he took. Overall, it was very interesting talking to him about his experience. I gained a lot of knowledge about what the job entails and the tasks that they encounter everyday. THe experience was very educational and was enjoyable.
I will be visiting a court house and interviewing a lawyer this Thursday, which will count for 2 of my projects.
For this project I am currently in contact to do a phone interview later today with an Ames police officer, Cole Hippen. I got in contact with this police officer because he is one of my friends brothers. He is a recently new officer who just started earlier this year.
I am interested to see what it's like to do what he does especially as a new officer in a college town. It should be an interesting phone interview. I'm planning on doing the Day in the Life essay on his first day on the job. I think this will be an interesting day because it's his new job and I want to know if it was what he was thinking his first day would be like. What his thoughts on his first day as an active police officer was anything like he thought it would be, in comparison to what it was actually like.
The person that I interviewed is my friend, Nathan Efkamp. He works in the Central Iowa Juvenile Detection Center. He processes intakes, does room checks, interacts with the juveniles, processes drug test, and goes to different cities to do drug test screening. He also transports juveniles to different centers, court, and to their homes. On top of all this, he also cooks for the inmates:)
I interviewed a man named Pat Scallon, who is my hometown's, Ackley, police chief. On a day to day basis, he's a pretty busy guy. Being police chief holds a lot of responsibility, even though he lives in a small town. He oversees the entire police force in my town, and has to make sure everything is in order. I met up with him last weekend at the cop shop to interview him. My essay will be about what he does on a day to day basis, and how he manages all of his stress, because he says he has a lot!
The person I choose to talk to is Deputy Sherrif Casey Hinnah. I know Casey personally because he is marrying my best friends cousin. Not to mention it is small town and everyone knows everyone. It was a lot of fun to meet with Casey because he is just a very relaxed and fun guy. I once again asked him ways he handled discretion, especially since he knows about half the county and through his fiance has met even more people. I found the things he had to say very interesting and I give him credit, I would never want his position, especially in our small community.
I have a meeting to go down to the Waterloo Corrections Facility and interview a probation officer. This is what I am interested in doing as a career so I am excited to see first hand what it is really all about. This will be my topic for presentaion as well so I am excited for everyone to hear the day in the life.
I will be interviewing Robert Dieter who teaches law at UNI. He is also a lawyer and works for CFU. Mr. Dieter is from my hometown of Vail, IA and ironically enough, his mother and my mother attend church together.
For this project, I interviewed Rod Bradley, the police chief in my hometown of Denison, IA. He has been the chief for 18 years, but has been on the force for 29 years. He has seen many different things, even though Denison and the surrounding towns are pretty small. One of the questions I asked was how he deals with the increasing minority of Hispanics in town and how the times have changed in the time that he has been there.
For this project I interviewed Jeff Jacobson who is Special Agent in Charge of the Major Case Unit of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. He supervises 8 Special Agents that investigate major crime in a 29 county area of north central and northeastern Iowa. I have known Jeff personally throughout my entire life because my family and his have gone to the same church for years. I interviewed him because I assumed most people would interview police officers and I thought it would be interesting to me and the class to understand what his job all entails. I will be using his interview to create my presentation for class. I asked him questions like what his education and training entails and what things he likes and dislikes about his job. I also asked him what motivation led him to the position he holds now. I am aware with his years of experience that he is looking to retire soon and he stated that he is looking into becoming a teacher after he retires.
For my project I had a phone interview with my hometown cop. I come from a VERY small town (800 people) so I was shocked to find out that he is usually pretty busy. Because the town in so small, he is the only officer. He is Chief Arthur J. Sullivan, Jr. A lot of his duties include patrolling the streets and working with other town officials to make the town a safer place. He also works a lot with the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department. In my portfolio I will explain his duties in detail and explain what a normal day looks like for him.
The professional I chose to interview was my Mom. She is a licensed master social worker who has previously worked as a CASA volunteer, Hospice Worker, and now as a private consultant and councelor for several clients. Her role is unique in that she has previously had to act in a number of legal settings that are not as obvious as other legal professionals, e.g. lawyers, probation officers, police officers, etc.
In CASA you act as a Court Appointed Special Advocate for various subpopulations mainly children and those with mental handicaps. She has also counceled and advised clients on how to deal with trauma caused during the legal process from procedural injustice, to physical and emotional trauma as a result of various criminal activties. Similarly as a social worker she routinely helps clients move through "the system" to get fair treatment in a legal setting, or acquire funding, aid, health insurance, etc., from various legal and government organizations.
I recently interviewed my cousin Christi. She is an official court reporter assigned to a district judge. She is basically the person that types up everything that everyone says during cases. One interesting thing she told me was that she had to pass a test requiring her to type 225 words a minute, and with 97% accuracy. This I find to be very very impressive. Lighting fast typing!
I interviewed my roommate's father over the phone. He is a civil attorney in Cedar Rapids. He works on many cases at a time so his day and duties are always different.