Evidence based social policy advocacy - False confessions

The third largest factor in wrongful convictions in the 367 people exonerated by DNA evidence by the Innocence project was false confessions with  with 28% of the cases, that’s over ¼ or 1:4.

Of these false confessions

49% were by people 21 years old or younger at the time of arrest.
33% were under 18.
10% of false confessions were by people with mental health or mental capacity issues.

Plea bargaining and threats of draconian sentences with prolonged interrogation techniques often result in a false confession just to end the intimidation and harassment.

Have you ever been arrested, taken in to custody, and subjected to intimidation and coercive techniques? Has anyone you love and care about?

To what extent does this occur more often to poor people who don’t have access to a lawyer?

For more click here.

What can you do about it?

Check with your local police department to find out what kind of interrogation policies and procedures they use in interviewing suspects and witnesses.

Check with your district attorney's office to find out what kind of confessions they use use in their prosecutions.

Check with your local bar association, defense attornies section, to find out what their experience has been with false confessions.

Encourage everyone you know not to speak with police without an attorney to represent you.

Unitarian Univeralists convenant together to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. Does your congregation have a social justice committee to monitor criminal justice practices in your congregation's geographical area? Does your congregation have any policy and procedures for how to assist people who come into contact with the criminal justice system?

Ask Alexa - Is life a prison, a punishment?

Alexa: Is life a prison, a punishment?

Only, if you make it one.

Alexa: Did you hear about the guy who got a new job where employees get free coffee?

Yes, the job had its perks.

Daily reflections, Day eighteen, The Road Less Traveled

Day eighteen

The road less traveled

“Miracles bear witness to truth. They are convincing because they arise from conviction. Without conviction they deteriorate into magic, which is mindless and therefore destructive; or rather, the uncreative use of the mind.” ACIM, T-1.1.14:1-3

Truth is to be found in the realm of Spirit and never in the world of the ego.

The primary Truth, as taught in A Course In Miracles, is that we have separated ourselves from God and therefore seek truth in the external world, the world of the ego, rather than within, in the realm of the Spirit or as Jesus called it “the Kingdom.”

In the world of the ego, miracles are magic. It is a manipulation of physical perception to obtain the appearance of a supernatural phenomenon which delights our minds in the world of the ego, but which, at a deeper level, we understand is an illusion, a mirage.

The ego tricks us all the time, suggesting to us that money will make us happy, power will make us happy, status and prestige will make us happy, special relationships will make us happy, additional knowledge will make us happy, etc. The ego is constantly suggesting idols to us that will help us achieve salvation, that is, happiness.

As we become more mature, just as we no longer believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, we come to realize that the idols suggested to us by the ego, are not real and not the true source of our happiness. With this realization often comes discouragement, depression, frustration, anger, resentments, guilt, and fear. We exasperatedly cry, “Will I ever be happy? Will I ever find peace and contentment?”

The beginning steps on the path of salvation is to realize that there must be a better way and that we have been going down a blind alley which dead ends. The only thing that can save us is a miracle, that is, a shift in perception, a decision to change our minds.

With this realization that there must be a better way we begin to pursue the fourth principle of Unitarian Universalism which is the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This search takes us inward and not outward. When we turn in our search inwardly as, as Robert Frost noted, we have taken the road less traveled and this makes all the difference.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Ask Alexa - Is death something to be afraid of?

Alexa: Is death ugly? It is something to be afraid of?

No, not if you have lived a good life because then death is a fulfillment and is accepted with satisfaction.

Alexa: What did the grapes say when they got stepped on?

They didn't speak; they just let out a little wine.

Daily reflections, Day seventeen, When Time Stands Still

Day seventeen

When time stands still

Day seventeen

When time stands still

“Miracles are both beginnings and endings, and so they alter the temporal order. They are always affirmations of rebirth, which seem to go back but really go forward. They undo the past in the present, and thus release the future.” ACIM, T-1.1.13:1-3

Have you ever felt that time stood still? You were in a flow state and when you came out of it you said to yourself, “Where did the time go?”

We sometimes say that “time flies.”

When we leave the world of the ego with linear time of past, present, and future, we enter into another dimension where the time of the ego disappears. We have a little taste of eternity where there is no guilt from the past, and no desire for future things, but we are at peace being one with the whole. We come to experience what it is like to be timeless.

When we have the experience of timelessness, it does seem miraculous. This experience of timelessness has been described in psychology as a “flow state” which we experience more often than we think. It can be achieved in meditation and when we become engrossed and enthralled in many activities.

Today, I will consciously identify when I am more likely to experience flow and perhaps create those circumstances so I can experience the miracle of time standing still outside of the world of the ego and join the world of Spirit..

Meet The Man Who's Fostered More Than 50 Young Men in 12 Years in His New York City Home

From Inside Edition 0n 11/23/19

Guy Bryant grew up in what he calls a “Kool-Aid house” in his Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood. 

“Everybody on the block came and sat on our steps and if somebody had no place to go, my family was always taking them in,” Bryant told InsideEdition.com. “I think that's what this is all about.”

And by "this," Bryant means the fact that he’s fostered more than 50 teens and young adults in the past 12 years. Bryant, a single dad who has been divorced for several years, sort of stumbled upon his first foster child. 

For more click here.

Is there a Santa Claus?

The three stages of human development are:

1. You believe in Santa.
2. You don't believe in Santa.
3. You are Santa.