Name: Julian Martos

Social Justice Group: War and Violence: How race affects conviction rates in NYC (B)

Date of Fieldwork: January 6, 2025

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Pauline Ross

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork:

For our first fieldwork, we decided to interview Pauline Ross. Pauline Ross was the Attorney State of New York for many years and was a prosecutor at the Department of Justice. With her having experienced many cases, she saw patterns in the judicial system. We asked questions ranging from how she has seen the justice system in her eyes, to cases that she covered.

During the interview with her, we got to learn many things about how prisons are made up of people who are lower class and talked about how she has seen how high prison bail is for prisoners and because of this, they might not be able to pay it. This can lead to people spending a high amount of money to be free or to stay in prison or Rikers which has terrible conditions.