Chan Woo Kim

Sabatino Mangini
ENG 100
The reason that I defend Vincent

Vincent who is an ex-convict and his nephew Woody are living in the same house.
Vincent just got released from jail. Woody has to live apart from his mother and live with
his uncle due to his mothers poor financial status. This movie shows how Vincent tries
hard to live his life, but also it shows the harsh reality that he has to confront as an exconvict. Vincent attempts everything that he can do before he returns to his life of crime,
and also, he puts his nephew Woody in danger. Many people might think that Vincent
deserves death because he returns to the life of crime. A bad person should be punished;
and a good person should be awarded; probably that is what people think. It is right that he
should have been punished. But, he should have to be punished as a different way such as
doing community service. However, he pays back his crime with his death which is
merciless to some extent. Therefore, before judging him, people have to focus on his bad
situation such as the prejudices against him, and the bad influences around him to return to
the life of crime.
First, everyone Vincent has known and situations that he has been in have changed
compared to the past. For example, Fish, who Vincent believed and followed like his older
brother, indirectly tries to kill him. After Vincent is discharged from the jail, he cannot find
the way to start his business, so he goes to his brother-like friend Fish to ask help.

However, Fish, rather puts Vincent in danger and tries to kill him and Woody by giving him
dangerous jobs like a drug dealing. Moreover, even when Vincent meets a person that he
used to love, she is very cold to him and marries other person. To Vincent, those might be
really harsh realities to confront and those cases indirectly force him to return to his old
life. According to the National Institute of Justice, the reincarceration rate of ex-convicts
released within five-year is 76 percent. This is because society has no tolerance to embrace
ex-convicts. For example, one article says that the formerly incarcerated hire rate dropped
from 30 percent to 15 percent, and it says unless ex-convicts have college diplomas, they
have to live as homeless. Probably, Vincent is in the same shoes, as well.
Second, the reason that ex-convicts cannot get positions in our society is because
people judge ex-convicts like that they will have bad influence. People think that every exconvict is bad whether they are reformed or not. Thus, ex-convicts have limitations in
getting jobs, so they have to go back to the life of crime again for their survival. So does
Vincent. He knows that he cannot borrow money from the bank, so he counterfeits the
identification. However, the unexpected happens which his fake identification has debt
which he does not even know, so he has to ask Fish to help him again. Moreover, the cops
also start to monitor him even before he commits crime again, and they warn him and
Woody. Vincent is not able to stand in our society. People have to know that this is
structural problem, and they have to stop branding ex-convicts. There are a lot of people
who try hard to live out their new life after being released from jail. For example, there is a
case that an ex-convict contributed to this society. Person named Uchendi Nwani
committed cocaine trafficking. However, after serving six and half months from in jail, he

became a hard worker in federal boot camp. Later, when he discharged from the boot camp,
he opened his own barber shop and became really successful. Now, he is traveling around
the world to demonstrate to people that anybody can be successful no matter how they
experience serious despair. Even though these cases illustrate that ex-convicts can be
successful, the reason that ex-convicts cannot reach out to society is due to social structure.
To reform ex-convicts, people have to perceive ex-convicts as a group that requires social
help, but in modern system, rather it makes ex-convicts to return to crime by perceiving exconvicts as a group that should not be released.
Lastly, Vincent has his nephew and mother to support. Vincent says that Woody is
all that he has. Even though Woody has a grandmother, her finances are not stable to
support him enough. Hence, Vincent has to be Woodys parents and support him instead.
However, Vincent had grown up with bad people, so he was influenced and learned bad
things such as drugs and guns from his juvenile era. Therefore, he tries to reform himself,
but he has to revert to crime for Woody and for himself to survive. This is more likely
educations structural problem. Countries which have low incarceration rates usually have
strong public education. For example, Canada which is famous for strong public education
has around 100 incarcerated people per among 100,000 of population, while America has
700. Strong public education stands for an equal opportunity to be given for every person.
However, the American society that Vincent grew up in does not offer an equal opportunity.
Also, society does not provide him a good education to succeed, and the influence that peer
group gives to one in puberty is significantly more than that family gives. He has grown up
with bad people like Fish and further his family is poor so he cannot get a good education,

as well. Therefore, before branding him as just a bad person, the audience of this movie has
to know his background. If society had given him a proper education, it would have been
possible to prevent this tragedy.
There is one scene that hits my mind hard. While Vincent is dying, he says his last
words to Woody, I tried my best. I interpret that he did his best to live his life in his own
way. However, society did not embrace him, so he had to choose to go back his crime of
life again. This situation connotes the critical message of this movie. Not only Vincent, but
also ex- convicts, no matter how they are reformed or try their best, there is always peoples
negative prejudices against them. Sociology explains this situation like this. Branding
people causes a self-fulling prophecy: a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to
become true. In other words, society by stigmatizing ex-convicts that they are going to
commit a crime again, they make that prejudice comes true. Therefore, before blaming
Vincent or ex-convicts for their bad decisions, as members of this society, people have to
consider whether they indirectly forced ex-convicts like Vincent to go back to a life of
crime by labeling them with the wrong yardstick.

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Durose, Matthew R., Alexia D. Cooper, and Howard N. Snyder, Recidivism of Prisoners
Released in 30 States in 2005: Patterns from 2005 to 2010 (pdf, 31 pages), Bureau of
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"Good One to Know!" BusinessDictionary.com. Business Dictionary, n.d. Web. 08 Dec.
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Loaded on Dec. 15, 2011 Published in Prison Legal News December, 2011, Page 20 Filed
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V., Marc. "10 Exemplary Tales Of Ex-Convicts Who Turned Their Lives Around Listverse." Listverse. N.p., 21 June 2014. Web. 29 Nov. 2016.