As I suspected, I was unable to find a blog about released prisoners and their challenges with reentering society. Why did I assume this would be the case... because once prisoners have been released it seems as though not many people care about what happens to them next. I did however find an interesting blog by Michael Santos. http://michaelsantos.net/january-2012-values-and-goals/ He has been chronicling his prison sentence and is now down to his last year. He has set goals for himself and explains them in great detail, he is preparing for his releasing back into society. One benefit that he has over many other excarcerated is that he has a wife waiting for him at home.
Even if I were able to find a blog about the challenges of released prisoners, I would take it with a grain of salt. I wonder if I would be told the truth about everything, or if things might be embellished to make the prison system sound like it had prepared individuals for their release.
I was able to find a blog about the release of prisoners: http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/05/partial-ok-for-prisoner-release/ This blog talks about the release of many prisoners because of overcrowding which tells me that they aren't trying to prepare prisoners for their release challenges but are just getting them out of the way for new inmates. I do think that this blog is legitimate because of the source "Supreme Court of the United States" and the fact that it is ruling to be passed in California.
Denniston, L. (2011, May 23). Retrieved from http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/05/partial-ok-for-prisoner-release/.
(I'm not sure if this is the correct way to cite a blog since I found 3 different ways and RefWorks showed something that didn't make sense.)
Needless to say, I don't typically read blogs because I thought they all had a lot of opinion in them but I see that there are others that are valid.
About Me
- To Be Well-Diversified
- I'm 31 years old and have been married for 2 1/2 years. I was born in MN but call NJ home since I spent most of my life there. I like to think that I am a diversified individual but I'm thinking this blog may change some of my views.
Hi Amanda,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post about the blogs you have found.
On the OWL webpage under APA format, under Electronic Resources, there is an APA works cited listing for a blog.
Would you take a blog written by a former prisoner with a grain of salt, if they were writing about their experience? They would have nothing to gain by making the prison system sound wonderful.
I did find some blogs written by (and for) the formerly incarcerated. What are some of the terms I could have used in Google's Blog search to find those?
I look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Professor Wexelbaum
Hi Prof. Wexelbaum,
ReplyDeleteI definitely wouldn't take a blog written by a former prisoner with a grain of salt, I should have clarified that in my original post.
I did a search using "blog former inmate" and came up with some results. I could have also searched using "former inmate .blogspot".
Thank you for clarifying your post...
ReplyDeleteThe search string "former inmate .blogspot" is a creative one...keep in mind that .blogspot will limit you to those blogs that people created using Blogger (which is what we use in class).
Remember if you do a blog search through Google using their Blog Search feature (it's a hidden one, under the link "Even More"), depending on your search string, there will be a hyperlink above all of the search results which will say "Blog Homepages on [your topic]". If you click on that link, you will retrieve blogs written solely about your topic, as well as blogs written by people from the population that you are studying. It is a tough one, since there are many different ways to express "people released from prison"...I actually typed that exact phrase in and found some good ones...here is one that caught my attention:
http://unprison.com/
Keep me posted...
Professor Wexelbaum