Mini-Project: Street Law
Reflection
This project was done from many different angles, all of which provided one or more of the following: situations in which an officer was breaking the law, information about ‘probable cause’ and ‘reasonable suspicion’, the 4th Amendment and the rights to privacy, expectation of privacy for a vehicle, warrants, privacy in a school, stop and frisk, etc. Our main objective was to demonstrate what we learned and what we understood from the lesson and utilize it to inform others about rights and legal actions. My piece for the project focused on the meaning of probable cause and reasonable suspicion. There are no explicit definitions for these terms and so they can be understood through examples of situations that give some idea as to what they entail. I had never heard of reasonable suspicion before this class, and only a little about probable cause. It fascinated me that these concepts are necessary for obtaining a warrant or patting someone down |
or detaining someone when no one truly knows when they apply to a situation. Because of the significance these terms hold, I wanted whoever walks by to see a situation and be able to identify which approach would be taken in that scenario. It’s important to detect when one should be used and when it shouldn’t, I mean I would want to know when me or my things are being invaded if under reasonable suspicion so I could say that it isn’t legal.
If I could explore another aspect of this project it would be to dive into the Constitution and unravel the meaning of all that old English that still can’t be defined properly. Obviously knowing about our laws and what exactly they mean is crucial to our everyday lives. And the way that we do it, by breaking it down as a class and discussing it, really helps me to get a bigger perspective.
If I could explore another aspect of this project it would be to dive into the Constitution and unravel the meaning of all that old English that still can’t be defined properly. Obviously knowing about our laws and what exactly they mean is crucial to our everyday lives. And the way that we do it, by breaking it down as a class and discussing it, really helps me to get a bigger perspective.