Name:Senquetta Brittingham
Title: Mental illness and Race
Guiding Question: (Why is race present in determining whether or not you get arrested
Statement of Purpose: (To give a better understanding of why race is depicted in determining whether or not you get arrested or whether have a mental illness
Synopsis: (In this documentary you will see police officers operating in their day to day activity. You will see officers responding to, to different but similar situations. One situation is when one officer is responding to seeing an African American male who is in his early twenties attacking a women in her car. They immediately arrest him andthe male is taken to prison. Then there is a different scene where a Caucasian male is attacking an elderly women who is then evaluated an taken to a psychiatric center.
*The images of me driving in a cop car are entirely fictional , as well as any interaction that I displayed with any officer in this documentary .
*The images of me driving in a cop car are entirely fictional , as well as any interaction that I displayed with any officer in this documentary .
IMAGES
AUDIO
There is a row of men lined up waiting to get searched. Each of these men are all of different races.
Narrator: I watched a documentary film called “The new asylums. “This documentary focused on men who are imprisoned who suffer from a mental illness.
Music: none
Sound: clicking of the boot of the guard
A statistic of 61% of 3 or more criminal offenses struggle with a mental illness 56% does not struggle with this disorder.
Narrator: As I watched this film I noticed most of the depictions were of African Americans.
Music
SOUND: Snow fall and yelling
A prisoner crying in cop car
Narrator: This sparked my curiosity, why is that regardless of the situation or circumstances producers,film makers etc. Choose to depict African American’s in a negative light.
Inmates looking out of jail cell windows
Music: none
Sound: Ambient sound
Me talking to police officers
Narrator: In order to answer the question of why were African American males displayed so much throughout the documentary I formulated my own.
Statistics show that Black people were six times more likely than
white people to be stopped and searched under
section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. According to Black communities and the mental health and criminal justice systems.
A Caucasian man receiving treatment for being mentally ill
Music :ambient sound
Police officers stopping and searching African American.
Sound: none
Police officers and I sitting in a cop car
Narrator: I began this process by sitting with police officers and riding with them throughout their day to day activity.
Police officers talking.
Music: Ambient sound
Statistics show that African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population
African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites according to Criminal justice fact sheet of the Naacp
Sound: jail cells closing
Police officers pulling up next to a man who appears to be trying to attack a women.
Narrator: As I filmed this documentary I noticed how differently police officers responded to similar but different situations.
Officers trying to restrain man
Music: none
Officers placing man into car
Sound: yelling and screaming by arrested man
Police officers using excessive force on man
Narrator: Police officers stop and searched a African American male. For attacking a women’s car while she’s already parked and sitting in her vehicle.
Man attempting to comply
Music: none
Police officers shove man into vehicle
Sound: police sirens
Arrested man yelling
Narrator: As I sit in the police vehicle. The arrested man is yelling obscene remarks.
Man looking out of cop car windom
Music: none
Rain drops hitting the streets
Sound: Rain drops
Arrested man getting out of cop car and being escorted into prison
Narrator: After dropping the man off at City of Philadelphia prison system. The police officers then proceed in their usually daily routine. We happened to pass a Caucasian man who appears to trying to hurt and steal and elderly women’s cane.
Police officers trying to get man off of elderly women
Sound: elderly women screaming
Caucasian Man being put into cop car.
Narrator: Police officers retrain man puts him into a cop car. They then take him to a police station. At this police station the arrested man is yelling screaming. After restraining this man he is then evaluated and sent to a psychiatric center for further evaluation.
Man being taken into building.
Sound: cop car door closing
Senquetta (me) talking into a camera
Narrator: During the recording process I learned how different police officers react to Black males committing a crime. Opposed to White males committing a crime.I learned how they approach these situations and how much more violent they tendto be when the male is Black. Including this peace I learned that racism is still very prominent and that is replicated in our prison system
I think you did a good job visualizing your documentary and guiding me from scene to scene. If these things really had happened it would have supported your argument more, but overall I enjoyed the imagery and the narration you used to support it.
ReplyDeleteSenquetta, I really enjoyed reading your documentary script. I especially like how you added the extra element of the rain, which allowed me to picture the scene perfectly. I think that you made good use of the facts about incarceration rates, they helped to prove your point that African American people are treated differently by cops and by the justice system as a whole. Earlier in the documentary when you asked the question about why producers choose to depict people in this way. It reminded me about another form of non fiction media, news broadcasts. In a class that I took called Politics of Inequality we spent a lot of time talking about how the way that news depicts arrests of African American people contributes to a cycle that causes police to profile them as criminals, which only gives the news more arrests to report! I really liked that you used your documentary script to bring attention to this unfortunate fact of U.S. society.
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