At Project REAL, we provide field trips to Nevada’s courthouses for our state’s students. Most of those students get to witness people in custody as they watch live criminal calendars where they also get to learn the consequences of being involved with criminal activity. On rare occasions like slower days where there’s no appropriate criminal calendars for the students to watch, a bailiff or marshal will explain their work by demonstrating on a student and putting them in handcuffs! While it’s fun, none of the students actually want to be arrested during their field trip (or any time after).
That wasn’t the case for one 99 year old woman from the Netherlands named Annie, who’d had ‘getting arrested’ on her bucket list (meaning it was one thing she really wanted to do during her lifetime, but hadn’t done yet). Annie was just very curious about what it was like to spend time in a jail cell. After hearing of her request, the local police department worked to make her dream come true: They decided to show up and arrest her (with her families support – she wasn’t surprised so that she wouldn’t be scared )! While Project REAL does not condone the desire to be arrested, we certainly support the work of local law enforcement agencies that find fun and engaging ways to interact with their local community.
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Questions:
1: Even though the lady was ‘arrested’ (they didn’t actually give her a criminal record), this was meant to be a good thing for the community – the police wanted to show they could help people have ‘fun’ by fulfilling this very weird wish. Why you think this was or was not a good thing for police to do?
2: Whether or not you think this was a good way for police offers to engage with the public (show who they are and just ‘talk’ to people instead of only speaking with them while enforcing the law), what are some things they could do that you would think are good ways to do that, and why would you suggest those actions / activities?
3: Why would you want or not want to be ‘play arrested’ for a day?
Be sure to provide full explanations for your answers. For more details, you can read the article this piece was sourced from here:
http://time.com/4686302/dutch-woman-arrested-bucket-list/
Thank you for letting us experience court for the first time. It was the best experience ever, thank you for everything. You really made me think about being a judge. Thank you
-Mina L [ Twitchell Elementary - Grade 5]
Thank you for letting us watch the civil case! It was cool because it was a real case and not one played out. I had a lot of fun watching the other kids act out a session. Thank you for your time.
- Kaylie [Hewetson Elementary - Grade 5]
My favorite part of the fieldtrip to the courthouse is when I got to play the part of Ron. I got to go on the witness chair and speaking. I helped Potter to be not guilty. Thank you for the great opportunity.
