Juveniles And The Death Penalty Essays (1498 words) -

Juveniles And The Death Penalty Children Doing Crimes That End up In The Chamber It was a warm summer evening in a small town in the state of Missouri. John Freshman, a white male gang member fourteen years of age, drives down a street that he knows his rival gang members are usually standing along. John pulls his 9 MM. automatic pistol out from underneath his seat and points it at the group of rival gang members. John opens fire and unloads his weapon at anybody standing along the street. As John pulls away from the area, he almost gets into an accident with a parked vehicle and drops his weapon. When John regains control of the vehicle he shouts blood killer coming down the road. When the ambulance and police arrive, they find five people dead two children and one grand mother in the house, and two gang members in the street dead. The police find the weapon and test for fingerprints. They come back to John Freshman AKA Lone G. John has been in juvenile hall nine times and has been on probation or in custody for the past five years. John is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The previous statement is not real but it portrays the life of our country. This statement can be read and seen all over the country in newspapers and watched on the five oclock news. Was Johns sentencing appropriate? Should have John been sentenced to the death penalty? Is John old enough to be put to death? This paper will try to answer these questions. Terms Juvenile - A young Person, one below the legally established age of adulthood. A person under the age of eighteen when the crime was committed. Death Penalty- Capital punishment, sentenced to death. What age is too young for the death penalty? A better question is what age is it too young to die for the murder of another human person. In the United States, the Supreme Court ruled that juvenile under the age of sixteen should not be sentenced to death because they are too young. This was upheld in the case of Thompson V. Oklahoma (487 U.S. 815,1988). Since juveniles are beginning to get more violent in their acts, should the age be lowered? For instance, the previous scenario states that it was a fourteen year old doing the crime. What if it was a twelve year old? When does a juvenile have to pay fully for the crime he or she committed? If you look at the juvenile criminal statistics today and compare them to twenty years ago, we see a dramatic decrease in violent crime and increase use of death penalty sentences. For example, Proffessor Victor Strieb From Claude W. Petit College of Law (Death Penalty for Juveniles) stated juveniles are one to two percent of all people on death r ow in the United States, although they commit more than fifty percent of all the murders in the United States. As we look at the history of juveniles sentenced to death, we see that the rate has been steady and has fluctuated by little more than five percent. The History of the death penalty for juveniles began around 1642 with the execution of Thomas Graunger. Thomas Graunger was executed in Plymouth Colony Massachusetts for a crime he committed when he was sixteen years old. He became the first recorded juvenile in what was to become the United States to be executed for an offense committed under the age of eighteen. There were 343 executions of juveniles before the Supreme Court repelled the death penalty. There have been 13 executions of convicted juveniles since the beginning of the new era. Just like adults, the state of Texas is the leader of juvenile executed with seven. There has been seven Caucasians, five African Americans and one Latino executed. Twelve of those executed were seventeen when they did the crime. (Strieb, Juveniles on death row) Before June 30, 1988, thirty people were on death row for crimes committed while under the age of eighteen. As of June 1999, there are seventy people on death row for crimes they committe d when they were juveniles. About one in fifty

The History of Saran Wrap

The History of Saran Wrap Saran resins and films, often called polyvinylidene chloride or PVDC, have been used to wrap products for more than 50 years. Saran  works by polymerizing vinylide chloride with monomers such as acrylic esters and unsaturated carboxyl groups to form long chains of vinylide chloride. The copolymerization results in a film with molecules bound so tightly together that very little gas or water can get through. The result is an effective barrier against oxygen, moisture, chemicals and heat that protects food, consumer products and industrial products. PVDC is resistant to oxygen, water, acids, bases and solvents.  Similar brands of plastic wrap, such as Glad and Reynolds, do not contain PVDC. Saran  might be the first plastic wrap designed specifically for food products, but cellophane was the first material  used to wrap just about everything else. A Swiss chemist, Jacques Brandenberger, first conceived of cellophane in 1911. It didn’t do much to preserve and protect food, however. The Discovery of SaranWrap Dow Chemical lab worker Ralph Wiley  accidentally discovered polyvinylidene chloride in 1933. Wiley was a college student who at the time cleaned glassware in a Dow Chemical lab when he  came across a vial he couldnt scrub clean. He called the substance coating the vial eonite, naming it after an indestructible material in the Little Orphan Annie comic strip.   Dow researchers remade Ralphs eonite into a greasy, dark green film and renamed it Saran. The military sprayed it on fighter planes to guard against salty sea spray  and carmakers used it on  upholstery. Dow later got rid of Sarans green color and unpleasant odor. Saran resins can be used for molding and they melt adhesive bonding in non-food contact. In combination with polyolefins, polystyrene and other polymers, Saran can be coextruded into multilayer sheets, films and tubes. From Planes and Cars to Food Saran  Wrap was approved for food packaging after World War II and was prior-sanctioned by the Society of the Plastics Industry in 1956. PVDC is cleared for use as a food contact surface as a base polymer in food package gaskets, in direct contact with dry foods and for paperboard coating in contact with fatty and aqueous foods. It’s capable of capturing and containing aromas and vapors. When you place a Saran-wrapped peeled onion next to a slice of bread in your refrigerator, the bread will not pick up the taste or odor of the onion. The onion’s flavor and odor are trapped inside the wrap.   Saran  resins for food contact can be extruded, coextruded or coated by a processor to meet specific packaging needs. About 85 percent of PVDC is used as a thin layer between cellophane, paper and plastic packaging to improve barrier performance. SaranWrap Today The Saran  films introduced by the Dow Chemical Company are best known as Saran Wrap. In 1949, it became the first cling wrap designed for commercial use. It was sold for household use in 1953. SC Johnson acquired Saran  from Dow in 1998. SC Johnson had some concerns about the safety of PVDC and subsequently took steps to eliminate it from Sarans composition. The popularity of the product, as well as sales, suffered as a result. If you’ve noticed recently that Saran isnt much different than Glad or Reynolds products, that’s why.

Goal Setting Exercises to Help Dreams Become Reality

Goal Setting Exercises to Help Dreams Become Reality Goal setting is a topic that transcends the traditional curriculum. It is a key life skill that if learned and used daily can truly make a difference in your students lives. Goal setting materials are abundant, yet many students fail to receive adequate instruction in goal setting for two reasons. First, most teachers cannot afford to neglect their subject matter for several weeks, and second, purchasing textbooks with the intention of using only a single chapter on goal setting is hardly a justifiable use of limited educational funds.   Many teens need be taught to dream for themselves, for, if they are not, they are apt to accept goals foisted upon them by adults and thus miss the joy of seeing personal dreams fulfilled. Introducing Goal Setting Since visualizing the future is often difficult for teens, it is helpful to begin the unit with daydreaming. To integrate goal writing into your course, introduce the unit with material related to your content that refers to dreams or goals. This might be a poem, a story, a biographical sketch or a news article. Be sure to distinguish between dreams as sleep experiences and dreams as aspirations. Defining Goal Areas Explain to your students that it is easier to think about our lives in categories than it is to think of all aspects at once. Then ask them how they might categorize the various aspects of their lives. If they have difficulty getting started, prod them by asking them to list people and activities that are important to them and to see if they fit them into from five to eight categories. It is more important that students devise their own categories than that they create perfect classification systems. Allowing them to share ideas will help students realize that a variety of categorization schemes would work. Sample Life Categories Mental Families Physical Friends Spiritual Hobbies Sports School Dating Jobs Finding Meaning in Daydreams Once students are satisfied with their categories, ask them to select one that they would like to focus on first. (The length of this unit can easily be adjusted by the number of categories you guide students through. Care should be taken, however, that students dont work on too many categories at once.) Distribute goal dreaming worksheets. Explain to students that their goals must be only for themselves; they cannot set a goal that involves anyones behavior but their own. They are, however, to spend at least five minutes daydreaming about themselves related to this category, imagining themselves in the most wonderful ways - successful, glorious, and as perfect as imaginable. A three to five minute period of silence may be helpful for this activity. Next, ask students to describe how they imagined themselves in this daydream on the goal dreaming worksheet. Although this writing could alternatively be assigned as a journal entry, keeping this sheet with later, related goal activities may be more helpful. Students should repeat the process with one or two additional life categories. Students should then determine what part of their dream seems to call to them. They should complete, the sentences, The part of this daydream that most appeals to me is __________ because__________. Encourage students to explore their feelings fully, writing as much detail as possible because they may use some of these ideas later when they write their personal goals. When two or three goal dreaming sheets are complete, students should select the category they want to write goals for first. Getting Real The next step is to help students identify a desire from which to form a goal. To do this, they should look at the reasons certain aspects of their daydreams appeal to them as well as the daydreams themselves. For example, if a student dreamed of being a lifeguard, and decided it appealed to him because he would work outdoors, working outdoors may be more important to him than actually being a lifeguard. Thus, students should spend some time reflecting on what seems truly important. It may help to have students highlight ideas that seem really important.Then they should also examine which aspects of their daydreams seem far fetched and which seem within the realm of possibility. While it is popular wisdom that we should teach youth that they can achieve anything if they want it badly enough, badly enough is rarely translated by teens into years of dedicated work and dogged determination. Instead, youth interpret this popular wisdom as meaning that if their desire is strong enough, mi nimal effort will is all that is needed. Thus, when we present as role models, individuals who achieve unexpected accomplishments such as Christopher Reeves directing movies after nearly complete paralysis, we should always describe the grueling work that came between the goal and its fulfillment. Directing the Dream without Damaging the Dreamer Another problem created by people espousing you can do anything is the tendency to ignore the requirement for superior intelligence, which cannot be created by will power or diligence. Tackle this issue delicately so as not to discourage students from having dreams while keeping in mind that if you encourage students to set goals they have little chance of meeting you deprive them of the joys of achieving personal goals. You can help students make realistic self-assessments without hurting their feelings if you point out that people are happiest when they work and play in areas of their interests and relative strengths. Discuss the concept of multiple intelligences, letting students read the short descriptions of each type of intelligence, marking those they think are their areas of strength. This allows students with low intellectual ability to focus on an area of potential success without having to announce he is incapable of being something requiring superior intelligence. If you have time and resources for personality and interest inventories, these should be given at this time point in the unit.   Remember, although most of us would love to teach a unit on goal setting that includes a variety of assessments, career exploration, goal writing, scheduling, and self-reinforcement is ideal, most of us also have packed curriculums. Nevertheless, if students spend a few hours practicing goal writing in many different classes together, perhaps, we can teach students how to make their dreams come true. Once students have summarized results of various assessments  on a summary sheet or have simply decided which is their area of strength on a list of multiple intelligences, and they have chosen one of the goals they want to work on first, they are ready to learn to write a specific, personal goal. General goals are just the first step in making dreams come true. Once students have established general goals and have identified what appeals to them, they should be taught to write specific goals the way winners do. Suggestions for Teaching Students to Write Specific Goals Students will have to be coaxed to state their goals positively and are likely to argue that they cant say they will accomplish a particular goal because they are not sure that they can. Tell them that, despite their reservations, it is essential that they use the words, I will... since the wording will affect their belief in their ability to meet the goal. Be insistent on this, even to the point of saying they will not get credit for the assignment unless they follow your directions.At first, some students will have difficulty translating a general goal to one that is specific and measurable. Class discussion is very helpful both for learning how to be specific and seeing a variety of possible goals. Have students suggest ways that that various goal could be measured for students who are having difficulty. This might also be done in cooperative learning teams.Estimating completion dates troubles many students. Tell them just to estimate a reasonable time that it should take to accom plish their goal and to be honest with themselves about when they plan to actually begin working on it. Since estimating the completion of big goals involves completion of steps or sub-goals, have students list the steps and the length of time they estimate is needed for each. This list will be used later to make a Gantt chart. Have students hold off on beginning to work on the goal for a week to give you time to teach scheduling and reward techniques. After listing the many steps required to reach a goal, some students may decide it is too much bother. It is helpful at this point to have them write the benefits they expect to derive from completing their goal. These usually involve feelings about themselves. Be sure students are still enthusiastic about their goal. If they cant regain their original enthusiasm, have them start over with a new goal.If the goal involves various steps, creating a Gantt chart is helpful and fun for students whether they use project software or fill in a chart by hand. Some students have trouble with the concept of putting time units across the top, so be sure to walk around and check each students column headings. You may want to check your software to see if you have any project management programs since they probably can be used to make Gantt charts. The examples of Gantt charts found on the Internet are not clearly marked, so you may want to show students a simpler one done by hand or with software that makes grids such as Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel. Better yet, if you could use a project management software since it is likely to be a strong motivator. Once students have learned to write specific goals and to schedule sub goals on a Gantt chart, they should be ready for a lesson on self-motivation and maintaining momentum. Focusing on Whats Next Once students have made goals, sub-goals and a schedule for completion, they are ready for the real work: Changing their own behavior. Since telling students that they are beginning a difficult task can be discouraging, you will have to use your professional judgment to decide when to discuss the difficulties people encounter when they attempt to develop new patterns of behavior. Helping them to see this opportunity as a challenge that successful people master may help. Focusing on people who have overcome major challenges in their lives could also lead nicely into a unit on heroes. Begin the lesson this third goal lesson by asking students to review their goal dreaming worksheet for the goal area they are working on and their goal writing worksheet. Then lead students through the steps on the worksheet Maintaining Motivation and Momentum.

Children's Communicable Diseases Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Children's Communicable Diseases - Assignment Example Most parents dread vaccinating their children because they believe that the vaccines used are not safe for their children. They strongly believe that the vaccines used cause autism as well as other neurological disorders, thus exposing their children to health risk in the future. In order to reconcile parents rights to make health decisions for their children with the states responsibility to protect its citizens, the state and federal governments should enact a law that compels parents to vaccinate all their children. The state is charged with the responsibility of making sure that all its citizens are safe. As such, federal government should make childhood vaccination a mandatory process for all children (Bradley, Bradley & Burls, 2012). The safety of children and all other citizens overrides parent’s right to make health decisions for their children, particularly when it is in the wrong way. Besides, states and federal government should promote public awareness through massive and robust public education about vaccines and the importance of vaccination. This can help dispel misguided belief that vaccines skeptics propagate through media and other social platforms. Public health professionals also argue that childhood vaccination is a life-and-death issue that needs to be made

Autism and inclusive practice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Autism and inclusive practice - Essay Example The observation is based on a nine years and four months old child whose code name in this case, for confidentiality reasons, is RA. Child RA suffers from autism and is eligible for a personal or one-on-one support service because he needs assistance with his learning needs. The observations aims at identifying and assessing the child’s behaviour when in a group setting. During the first day of the observation process, the class teacher instructs the pupils to bring out their numeracy writing books. However, RA picks up a pencil then flicks hit and consequently hitting another child. When the teacher calls RA, he replies, â€Å"what?† The reply is rude and as the assistant, I took the initiative to ask him to apologize but he does this without maintaining eye contact with the teacher. When told to apologize in an appropriate manner, he responds properly and says, â€Å"I am sorry miss.† After the apology, RA sits down and a fellow pupil volunteers to give him a numeracy book but he snatches it without eye contact. Upon pointing out the unruly behaviour, RA apologizes. After sitting for a while, RA gets up from his table and when asked what he wants, he says he would like to work in a group with other pupils. The class teacher grants his request by placing him in one of the groups and he promises to work hard while respecting the other members. He then seems contented with the group.

Managing Cultural Diversity Essay Example for Free

Managing Cultural Diversity Essay The following paper brie y debates the rhetoric of managing diversity and considers whether managing diversity is a distinct approach to managing people or a means of diluting equal opportunities in UK organizations. With respect to the realities of the concepts in UK organizations, empirical data from a survey of sixty UK human resource professionals and general line managers is presented. We pose a number of cautionary questions, including what does it matter and to whom? By doing so we intend to encourage further critique and challenges in respect to the concept of managing diversity in organizations. Keywords: Managing diversity, equal opportunities, HRM/D, rhetoric, reality Introduction Today the workforce does not look, think, or act like any workforce of the past, nor does it hold the same values, have the same experiences, or pursue the same needs and desires (Jamieson and O’ Mara 1991). The composition of today’ s workforce has changed signi cantly in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, culture, education, disabilities, and values. Running parallel to these changes is the shift in thinking by human resource theorists and practitioners with regard to addressing equality in the workplace (Cooper and White 1995; Liff and Wacjman 1996). This shift is underpinned by the emergence of the business case argument for equal opportunities, as opposed to the persuasive debate for social justice or equal opportunities as ‘ correcting an imbalance, an injustice or a mistake’ (Thomas 1990). There is now a view that, after twenty years of the ‘ stick’ of legal compliance (which has achieved little), the ‘ carrot’ of underpinning the business case for equal opportunities will perhaps achieve more (Dickens 1994). The business case argument for equal opportunities in organizations is often termed ‘ managing or valuing diversity’ , but, as with most contemporary Human Resource Development International ISSN 1367-8868 print/ISSN 1469–8374 online  © 2000 Taylor Francis Ltd http://www. tandf. co. uk/journals 420 Peer-Reviewed Articles anagement issues, the underlying principles and interpretation of this concept are open to mass interpretation, criticism, and indeed misunderstanding. D. Miller (1996) argues that the significant widening of the meaning of equal opportunities has brought with it more complex and confusing messages for employers and practitioners. By drawing on literature and empirical data, we consider whether mana ging diversity is a distinct approach to managing people or a means of diluting equal opportunities in UK organizations and pose a number of cautionary questions, including: what does it matter and to whom? By doing so, we intend to encourage further critique and challenges in respect to the concept of managing diversity in organizations. What is managing diversity? Thomas (2000) argues that, with the growing number of mergers and acquisitions, workforce diversity will become more of a priority for organizations and, therefore, in the future, people will become clearer on what diversity is and how to manage it. As with the debates surrounding de nitions of human resource management and development (HRM/D), managing diversity as a concept means different things to different people. It can relate to the issue of national cultures inside a multinational organization (Hofstede 1984); it can relate to the further development of equal opportunities or to a distinct method of integrating different parts of an organization and/or managing people strategically. Much of the literature regarding managing diversity relates to the US experience, where the concept is particularly popular; a re ection perhaps of the more pronounced diversity of workforce composition (Cassell 1996). In a recent report 1999), a Department of Education in America described managing and valuing diversity as a key component of effective people management, arguing that it focuses on improving the performance of the organization and promotes practices that enhance the productivity of all staff. Their dimensions of diversity include gender, race, culture, age, family/carer status, religion, and disability. The de nition provided also embraces a range of individual skills, educational quali cations, work experience and background, languages, and other relevant attributes and experiences which differentiate individuals.

The Characters of For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls Essay -- For Whom

The Characters of For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls  Ã‚     Ã‚   For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls is Christopher Durang's hilarious 1994 parody of The Glass Menagerie, a 1945 play by Tennessee Williams. In both plays, the main characters must deal with several serious problems, including isolation, fear of the outside world, and the need for understanding. Whereas the characters in The Glass Menagerie handle their problems in a relatively serious manner, those in For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls take a more farcical approach. For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls offers an alternate view of the situations in The Glass Menagerie, and it comments on how the American society has changed since the 1940s. Durang's parody accomplishes its humor by developing extreme versions of the characters in The Glass Menagerie through magnification of their faults and idiosyncrasies: Laura's shyness toward the world, Amanda's lack of understanding for her children, Tom's anger with his family, and Jim's partial deafness (however minor in Williams' play). It is more difficult to sympathize with Lawrence in For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls than with Laura in The Glass Menagerie because he is so much more irritating and pathetic than his female counterpart. Laura is a young woman who suffers from extreme shyness and self-consciousness because she has a slightly malformed leg and needs to wear a leg brace; consequently, she is afraid to talk to new people and enter new situations. Laura's psychological problems are amplified in Lawrence, who fakes several ailments, including asthma, eczema, and a crippled leg. He never leaves the safety of his house, and his only friends are his glass swizzle sticks, which he gives such names as "Q-tip" (1942), "Ther... ...children's; in addition, Durang adds two homosexual characters: Tom and Ginny. This is evidence that For Whom the Belle Tolls does more than just provide a humorous approach to the situations in The Glass Menagerie: it shows how the American society and family have changed since Williams wrote his play. According to Durang, people have become more open with their personal feelings and sexuality, but they have also become more self-centered. Works Cited Durang, Christopher. For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls. Literature and Its Writers: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Eds. Ann Charters and Samuel Charters. Boston: Bedford Books, 1997. 1937-1948. Williams, Tennessee. "The Glass Menagerie." Literature and Its Writers: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Eds. Ann Charters and Samuel Charters. Boston: Bedford Books, 1997. 1704-1750.