After Innocence - Reflection

          

    After Innocence is a documentary centered around bringing awareness to the many people that were wrongfully convicted due to the mistakes of our justice system. Many of these people in the documentary were fathers, husbands, as well as sons, whose lives were forced to be put on hold because of the lack of evidence given to provide these men their freedom.  

Guided Reflection:

1. There were many scenes in this documentary that got to me but one that particularly stood out to me was a scene about an inmate who even though there was evidence that proved this man's innocence the justice attorneys that put this man in jail were committed to keep this man in jail because they didn't want to apologize. This scene not only reached for my heart but it kept me interested all the way to the end because I wanted to see justice for this man who was locked up for the 20+ years of his life.                                                                                                                        
2. The whole documentary was extremely surprising to me because the amount of people that were wrongfully convicted that was brought to my attention. This inmate's story of being on death row for 23 years is one that had my attention the moment I heard about it. There was an inmate who was on  death row for 23 years for a crime that was never committed. Due to the state making a mistake instead of releasing this man with the benefits that was taken from him, when he was released he was only given $5.37 and nothing more. I was surprised to learn that someone on parole could be given entitlements such as: Health Care, Job Training, and Housing), but for the ones that were wrongfully convicted they get nothing and not even having their records expunged.                                                                                                                                             
3. The questions that I kept thinking about after watching this documentary is how many more men, even women are still in jail due to being wrongfully convicted. Another question that sticks with me is, is it harder for the men or the women that are wrongfully convicted to get justice or is it around the same. My last question would be how much evidence was swept under the rug or destroyed because the system and these lawyers egos. These feelings that stayed with me were a mixture of happiness as well as sadness mixed anger. Happiness because these people are finally getting the justice that was long overdue giving them their freedom and sadness and anger because these men missed out on so many opportunities as well as being forced to give up their goals and dreams because of the mistake of the state.                                                                          
4. We  might want to avoid including research in our summaries because this summary is focused on the documentary itself and the background of those that were affected, and not so the stats of those in jail. With research it can take you not only deeper into the subject but it can take so many twists and turns and you don't want to risk confusing or losing interest of your audience.