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The Shawshank Redemption - Why Andy Dufresne did kill his wife
Somewhere in the middle of the Shawshank Redemption, Andy’s friend Tommy tells a story about an old cell-mate of his, who was bragging about murdering the wife of a banker, who was having an affair with a golf pro. And then pinning the crime on her banker husband. Most people claim this is evidence Andy is innocent, and this is also, arguably, the message the film is trying to convey. At least at a superficial level. But watching the movie again recently I realised it is very superficial evidence, and the movie is actually leaving Andy’s guilt/innocence open. Let’s look at the evidence against Andy 1: Seen at his wife’s home, drunk with a loaded weapon. 2: Seen getting out of his car and walking towards her home with the weapon 3: Court evidence that he threatened his wife with death if she tried to divorce him 4: Documented alcohol/anger problems 5: Very cold, and unemotional about her death 6: He claims he threw his own gun in the river, but the police could not find it desp...
Crime + Punishment
One of the many important details we learn in Stephen Maing’s essential documentary “Crime + Punishment” is that the New York City Police Department has become a model for many other police departments across the United States. The NYPD is the largest police organization in America, so the precedents it sets are seen by other municipalities as expertise that should be followed. Perhaps the more controversial item on the NYPD agenda is a “broken windows” policy that allows officers to stop and frisk people that “fit the description” of a suspect under investigation. Several studies indicated that most of the people who were stopped were disproportionately Black or Latinx. This appeared to be the rule rather than the exception, or rather, “a feature, not a bug” in a system that relied on a specific number of summonses and arrests every month. Considering this particular environment is being replicated by other law enforcement departments, Maing’s film becomes crucial to the discussion o...
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