First Time Character Analysis

In the movie First Time Felon Omar Epps played the character of Greg Yance. In this movie Epps character Yance a black male in his mid 20’s who is a drug dealer and a gang member Chicago. One day while in the neighborhood of Chicago Yance is picked up by the local police department. He is eventually arrested because of the number of drugs in his possessions at the time of arrest. He has two options 5 years in the state jail or four months in a military style boot camp. This relates to corrections because it shows the Shock incarceration side of sentencing. According to the book, Shock incarceration is a sentencing option that makes use of “boot camp” type prisons to impress on convicted offenders the realities of prison life (Schmalleger,

When Yance returns back to his neighbor in Chicago he is place on house arrest for four months. This is the chance to see if shock incarceration really does help Yance. Four months has passed and Yance is off of house arrest he is seen in a scene writing a resume for a job interview and getting dressed in slacks and shirt. Some of the jodies he learned while in boot camp he sings while getting ready to give him confidence for the job interviews. Yance see someone he use to work for on the streets also offers him and old job back selling drugs. In this moment I felt maybe the boot camp style incarceration indeed helped when he declines to go back to his old job in spite of not getting a job call back for three months. Towards the end of the movie Yance is seen standing outside of a local convent store with an old friend when his friend sudden is approach and shot and killed in front of him. Sometime after Yance purchases a gun starts drinking and has suicidal thoughts. Yance does go through and seems to have an epiphany and started to reminisce over his graduate certificate and pictures from his incarceration. In the last displayed Yance never quit looking for a job and five months later he finally found one as an inner city youth