Blog Assignment #4

Ira Glass starts out on the human interest angle and never really abandons it. The first five minutes of the podcast tell us who Lindsey Dills is, including that she is currently in prison, but don't tell us why. This humanizes her; she talks about all the things she did well in school, talks about her rebellious teenage phase, but there is nothing going on that sounds different from anyone else. My response to the intro was, "Hey, she sounds like me."

When Ira does start talking about Amanda Williams and the Glenn Country Drug Court, he is very careful about his language. In past shows, he's always tried to stay neutral about topics, not telling the audience whether the person or program he is profiling is right or wrong. Ira mostly does the same thing in this story; he says things about how the program "violates the basic philosophy of all drug courts" and "no other drug court judge in the country is running a program like Judge Amanda Williams." The connotations are that Ira disapproves of William's methods, but he never openly condemns them. In fact, by titling the story "Very Tough Love," the overall implication is that Williams is doing what she thinks is best for Lindsey and the other Drug Court participants, and that she very much wants them to succeed.  Ira uses interview segments with other legal professionals in Georgia, who are not as worried about appearing neutral.  Phrases such as "complete insanity" and "kafkaesque" are clearly intended to sway the audiences' sympathy in Ms. Dills' favor.

Personally, I wanted very much to completely side with Judge Williams, based on my own perceptions of the legal proceedings that take place in rural South Georgia court circuits.  When I shared the summary of the story with my mother, her response was "sounds like she ended up leaning on the wrong person in court".  I would venture a guess that anyone who has been brought up on charges in front of Judge Williams, or is related to someone, or even acquaintances with someone who had faced down the judge, has a story to tell of how Judge Williams was mean and abused her power.  But that's how authority figures work; they can punish you if they think you have done wrong, and they don't care if that hurts your feelings.  And, despite being in a position of authority, Judge Williams is still human, and can make mistakes sometimes.  My mother offered up a story of a Judge who once awarded custody of a young girl to her biological mother, because the mother had successfully completed all the state mandated programs, and seemed so sincerely to want a second chance that it just melted everyone's hearts, and really, shouldn't a little girl be with her mother?  Fortunately, about a week later, when the police had to come shut down the meth lab that the mother was running in her back room, they were able to call that child's father to come pick her up right away.

I was particularly struck by this passage from a related news story*:

A 2006 study by the Glynn drug court says 5.5 percent of its graduates had been rearrested on felony charges within three years of leaving the program. A 2003 National Institute of Justice study of 17,000 drug court graduates nationwide showed that 25 percent of those participants had been rearrested on felony charges within two years of graduation.

While Williams' success rate may be "below the national average," results like this suggest that the program has been very successful for some people.

If any one else is actually reading this, and is curious, here's the open letter that Judge Williams' attorney sent to Ira Glass in response to the airing of the story, and here is Ira's reply.


*Rankin, Bill. "Glynn Judge's Bench Now a Hot Seat." Jacksonville.com. The Florida Times-Union, 30 Apr. 2011. Web. 23 Feb. 2012. <http://jacksonville.com/news/georgia/2011-04-30/story/glynn-judges-bench-now-hot-seat>.