Juvenile Justice: Should Minors be charged as Adults? Essay

A movement has taken hold of our country to change the juvenile justice system, and erase any distinction between young offenders and adult criminals. Almost all fifty states have changed their juvenile justice laws, allowing more youths to be tried as adults and scrapping long-time efforts to help rehabilitate delinquent kids and prevent future crimes. It seems to be plain and simple, a minor in this country is defined as a person under the age of eighteen. How then can we single out certain minors and call them adults? Were they considered adults before they carried out an act of violence? No. How then, did a violent act cause them to cross over a line that is defined by age? The current debate over juvenile crime is being dominated by two voices: elected officials proposing quick-fix solutions, and a media more intent on reporting violent crimes than successful prevention efforts. Minors should not be tried as adults in our society today. This is obvious through looking at proposi tions by our government such as Proposition 21, which is statistics on juvenile crime from specific cases where minors were sentenced in adult courts. Politicians feel that best solution is to lock up youth offenders for long periods of time. Most studies demonstrate that putting young offenders in adult prisons leads to more crime, higher prison costs, and increased violence. Yet, our nation is spending more and more on prisons, and less on crime prevention efforts. Some states spend more on prisons than they do on education. The cost of keeping juveniles in prison as compared to putting them into rehabilitation programs is astronomically higher. It can cost five thousand dollars to keep a juvenile in prison, when all they need to do is go to high school. Also the effectiveness of prisons preventing juveniles from becoming repeat offenders is low. Kids, who have already spent time in adult prisons, are far more likely to commit more serious crimes when they are released. Crime prevention programs work and are affordable. They have also been shown to reduce crime substantially. There are many crime prevention programs around the country that have been very successful in helping to reduce juvenile crime. Many states use programs that are designed to help parents of troubled kids in raising their children. These programs  offer strategies and tactics for helping supervise and discipline troubled children. This is done, because it is believed that one of the causes of delinquency is that parents of kids with delinquent tendencies simply don’t know what to do with them. The parents just let their kids commit any crimes they want, because they do not have any idea how to prevent them. These programs as well as other similar ones have been shown to have quite an influence on crime prevention. Media reports on juvenile crime are greatly exaggerated. Crime level indicators show that the male â€Å"at risk† population will rise over the next decade, but the levels are far from the explosive level that the media says. In fact, the levels are not high at all. The public also holds greatly distorted views about the prevalence and severity of juvenile crime. Contrary to what the people think, the percentage of violent crimes committed by juveniles is low. Young people commit under ten percent of violent crimes. Also, most juvenile arrests have nothing to do with violence. Most kids only go through the juvenile justice system once, and that is for some minor crime such as drug posession. Most youths will simply out grow â€Å"delinquent† behavior once they mature. But the media thrives on these stories, so they make it appear that crime is everywhere in order to sell more newspapers, or have people watch their broadcast. This simply shows how the media exaggerates w hat they are saying about juveniles. History is known to repeat itself. This saying is no lie when you look at the history of juvenile justice. Until Chicago established the first juvenile court in the United States in 1899, children 14 and older were considered to be as responsible as adults for their actions. Minors as young as 13 were occasionally sentenced to death, and some were executed. Discomfort with the death penalty and with imprisoning children with adults led to the creation of a separate court. This court acted as the â€Å"parent or guardian† of young offenders. Solutions include therapy, education, and community service. So if we already felt that children should not be able to be tried as adults and we created a juvenile system to correct this, why turn our backs on it and go back to our cruel ways of more than 100 years ago? The answer is simple, we shouldn’t. We need to improve our juvenile system, a system that  has been working fine since 1899. The government has taken the initiative to come up with a plan of their own called Proposition 21, which would try offenders as adults rather than juvenile. Proposition 21 would require juvenile offenders 14 years or older to be charged as adults. It would limit confidentiality for juveniles who are charged with or convicted of specified felonies. The largest change under Proposition 21, is that it would require that certain juvenile crime offenders be held in a local or state correctional facilities rather than in juvenile facilities. It would designate certain crimes as violent and serious, thereby making offenders subject to longer sentences. Proposition 21 was proposed so that fourteen year olds and older would be tried as adults for serious crimes. If Proposition 21 passes it is going to send thousands of fourteen to sixteen year olds to state prison. Proposition 21 does nothing to protect our communities, and all it does is imprison children. Rather than decrease, if propositio n 21 passes, crime rates are going to increase. This will happen, because children will be involved in more prison crimes and there will be more crimes used to incriminate young children. If passed, it will imprison many juveniles with â€Å"top-notch† criminals. These children will not be given the opportunity for rehabilitation like in the juvenile system. Without treatment and education, the only thing a juvenile can learn while locked up with adult criminals, is how to become a better criminal. These teenagers will not be given the opportunity of rehabilitation and will come out of jail only worse then they were before. Our nation also has a tragic record of sexual and physical assaults on juveniles in prison with adult criminals. Adult criminals will then most likely take advantage of these teenagers. Proposition 21 is a horrible idea and is a step in the wrong direction that only further hurts our youth. Many people feel that juvenile crime is getting out of control. If you look at the statistics, you can see that this is not true. The arrest rate for violent juvenile crime has fallen for four years in a row; according to the Juvenile Justice Department report released this month. If this rate is declining is there a need to make harsher laws for minors? No. When looking  at statistics you must look for misleading notions in the reports. The public rarely hears the good news in the juvenile court systems. This alone tells us, they do deserve a second chance, and that we cannot give up on our youth. In conclusion, the topic of juvenile justice and sentencing minors with adult penalties is a heated debate. Many elected officials go for the quick-fix solutions. The media will always show the worst of juvenile crime, and not any positive which makes people feel that there is a huge problem. Minors should not be tried as adults in our society today, because it does not help keeping our country crime-free. Bad quick fixes such as Proposition 21 do not help, the just send our society a step back. Juvenile crime does exist and youths do commit violent acts. However, it is not on the scale that many people would like the public to believe. The statistics do not lie and juvenile crime is falling. The solution is to this problem is not a simple one and cannot be solved by simply putting kids in adult prisons or propositions. More effective solutions should be explored and put to use. We need to have faith in out juvenile system. The law created the defining line between minors and adults, but now everyone wants to ignore the definition because the crime got more ugly. The minor is still a minor, no matter how ugly the act.

Personal Ethnography

What is ethnicity? Ethnicities are the common characteristics of a group of people. As a large multi-national country, China is composed of 56 ethnic groups. My family is Han Chinese. Han people are majority people group in the China, account for 91. 59 of the overall Chinese population according to the Fifth National Population census of 2000. I was born and grew up in China so I would account myself, identify as the full-blooded Chinese. I don not have the complicated ethnic background. However Asian Americans have been in American for over 150 years.My ancestors never leave their homeland motivated by seeking political asylum or dreams of a money in my family history. Therefore, my roots allow me to be classified as Chinese. Mandarin is my mother tongue, all my families speak it and read it. All education is conducted in Mandarin. It does not mean there no problem among the Mandarin speakers all around the China because there are over 600 regional dialects except Mandarin. Older g eneration used to speak regional dialects, like my parents often speak Fukienese with my grandparents.Generally, China’s main religion are Buddhism, this was the only foreign religion to be absorbed into and changed by Chinese culture, contributing in many ways to the country’s cultural development. Buddhism is also my family’s beliefs, we will worship Budda in some festivals. No matter the language or the religion also help to identify me as full-blooded Chinese. Other identifying me as a Chinese by my skin color, hair, eyes, other appearance features, and ask me where I come from. I'm a little bit shy at school, and when I have questions or I need help on my subjects, I hesitate to raise my hand.Since my freshman year I have been like this. I attend every class and turn in every homework or project on time, for this reason, they identified me as an Asian, because of the stereotypes placed on Asians my behavior and attitude contributed to people's reasoning. Ch ina is the oldest civilization in the world and Chinese civilization was built on agriculture. The collective (group-oriented) nature of Chinese values is largely the product of thousands of years of living and working together on the land (Hu, Grove 1) Today, China is a communist government with a socialist ideology and a capitalist economy.Traditional festivals are celebrated in many countries all around the world. China with its long history and predominantly agricultural society has large number of traditional festivals. As Eberhard states â€Å"Few nations have such a multitude of romantic and colorful celebrations as do the Chinese† (Eberhard 31). Also, the family not the individual, is the basic unit in China, all festivals are family festivals rather than church or state festivals. The Chinese New Year was and still the most widely celebrated festival throughout the whole China.It is the time for family reunions, a time for visits with friends, a rest for the hard wor k and all sorts of entertainment. That is so true that The Chinese New year is a big event and it should be my favorite festival. The Chinese New year officially lasts one month, but in that very day everyone tries to be at home, families sit all together at a big table to share a delicious dinner. Kids wear new cloths and wait for pocket money from parents, then we have firecrackers to welcome the New year. Usually, the first day of the New Year is devoted to feasting and visiting relatives.On the second or third day friend visit and exchange good wishes. Food is one of the most significant resources in life. All cultures differentiate themselves through their development and attitude toward food. Therefore, there is a wide variation of food, which often has a lengthy developmental history, that symbolizes diverse cultural attitudes; specific foods, such as pasta for Italians, curry for Southeastern Asians, and pierogi for Poles, serve as a focus for ethnic identity (Hirschberg 57) . As a Chinese, I respect all food, and do care about it.Maybe I could say it is the most distinguished cuisine in this world. Americans like pastas, pizza or meat as entrees, however rice is a basic and important food to us. People in western countries like to use butter, cheese as ingredients, but we use soy sauce and bean curd. We have so many different techniques for cooking food, such as boiling, deep-frying and pickling, but they are not always done in the totally same ways. Take an example of boiling, one is cooking in water makes it continues to boil, and the other one is put the stuff in boiled water and then reducing the temperature.However, although Chinese people share the same culture, some food items a re available in only particular regions. I lived in south China, there are many basins and plains, which help the various harvests of food because of the warm and moist growth environment; rice, green vegetables, and animals are produced. Do not like northern China, most likely are grown for wheat. As the globalization, Chinese and Americans are interacting with each other more. The western traveler must be aware of the different greeting styles that exist in China.The most common greeting among the Chinese is Nihao, which means greetings or good day. We do use direct greetings like â€Å"Good morning†, â€Å"Good afternoon†, or â€Å"Good night†. You may use Nihao either on virtually any occasion regardless of the time of day or the social status of the person you are greeting. And the most conventional way to greet a Chinese is simply to say his or her name, perhaps adding a term of respect. For examples, a girl just back from school may call out â€Å"Baba† (Daddy) when greeting her father.I think you should not greet Chinese with kiss, hug or other physical contact beyond handshaking, these nonverbal forms will not be appreciated. given name while in the United States the reverse is true. Prepare for this paper I sea rched for several materials and look up so many book about the Chinese culture. As a Chinese I still learn lots of new acknowledge that I never know before. For instant, like Chinese New year, I did not know the origin of this festival. I would like to share information with others but I don’t want to make a label with racism or others.Racism will never end unless the word race is not used any more. We must stop separating Chinese, American, and Mexican groups. Works Cited Hirschberg, Stuart, and Terry Hirschberg. Every Day, Everywhere: Global Perspectives on Popular Culture. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2002. Print. Eberhard, Wolfram. Chinese Festivals. New York: H. Schuman, 1952. Print. Hu, Wenzhong, and Cornelius Lee. Grove. Encountering the Chinese: a Guide for Americans. Yarmouth, Me. : Intercultural, 1999. Print.

Carl Jung: The Undiscovered Self Essay

?The book of C. G Jung â€Å"The Undiscovered Self† was written during the cold war concerning communism. He saw during this time the trend toward collectivism as the utmost threat to the individual self. He expresses grief over the adoption of mass mindedness, and encourages its psychic depreciation. Witnessing the physical and psychological destruction of war, Jung provides the reader his analytic interpretation of the incomparable loss of self in the intrusion of secular religion and social collectivism. Jung shows that although science tries to impose order on the world, the unique thing about real facts, conversely, is their individuality. However, the psyche remains irresolvable puzzle. An individual have to understand not the humanity as a whole but rather than the self. Whenever individual is pressured by a group an effect will occur just like part of the individual self will be deprived in order to fit-in to the benchmark of the group. The individual stops thinking of itself as a result the group becomes the personality of the individual. The dilemma of a human being in the world he lives is losing his self in the process of balancing the factors that can affect him as an individual. We have to get ourselves in order before we can get the rest of the world in order. Yes, man as a social being cannot continue life in the long run without the link to the community. But it doesn’t mean that the community will define us. We are necessitated to have always the sense of balance between the state, religions, and of course our individual psyche. Seeing in the model these three are demonstrated by the two forces, the conscious and unconscious. Later on this paper, it will be further discuss more. Going back, if we have a propensity to maintain the balance between the three, we can attain the self-knowledge that will characterize us, as a real individual. The model shows that there are factors that can affect one’s self knowledge. In the book, Jung tries to point out that the self-knowledge of a human being is a very limited knowledge since it only depends on the social factors that can affect it. There are many blind spots in self-knowledge, and these blind spots can have negative consequences for the self and for others. For example, one who overestimates the positivity of his or her personality or status is often disliked by others, whereas having insight into how others perceive the self and acknowledging one’s flaws seems to attenuate the negativity of others’ impressions. Poor self-knowledge is also associated with negative intrapersonal consequences, such as weak academic achievement and emotional problems. Likewise, lack of insight into how one will feel or behave in the future tends to result in poor decision making, disappointment with unpredicted outcomes, and ultimately lower life satisfaction. What we primarily know about our self is the conscious state. We are not acquainted that there is an inner state that is within us that can help to shape more our own self-knowledge. What I am talking about here is the unconscious psychic. We could have known that this unconscious psychic can outweigh the conscious psychic. In short, one cannot exist without the other. These two psychic forces should team up to promote a more apparent understanding of the self-knowledge. In reality there are conscious and unconscious agendas in the brain and both are important. It does not help to play the unconscious off against the conscious. In the brain at any time most of the agendas are unconscious, much of it is, however, consciousness-prone. The conscious and the unconscious always work together, not only in dreams but also in wakefulness. Our conscience for instance can admonish us out of the unconscious core from our memory, but by doing so it becomes conscious, and it is then the task of the reasoned will to draw the consequences out of it. The unconscious is not the â€Å"bad something† Freud had conceived, a something that plays tricks on us. It is rather the ground worker for consciousness, the staff that supports the leader. And the leader is: The conscious, reasoned free will. Why the unconscious is termed as the â€Å"evil† inside us? As a normal individual whenever we don’t like something about ourselves, or whenever we refuse to admit something about ourselves, we push those energies deep within the recesses of our psyche, creating cut off versions of who we really are. And to make matters even more difficult, we give those energies, bad names like â€Å"shadows† â€Å"demons† and â€Å"negative vibes. † As stated on the book, â€Å"Since it universally believed that man is merely what his consciousness knows of itself, he regards himself as harmless and so adds stupidity to iniquity. He does not deny that terrible things have happened and still go on happening, but it is always â€Å"the others† who do them. † Man has the fear of recognizing the shadow that is in the very first place was there. This fear of the unconscious psyche to be divulged slows down the understanding of self-knowledge. Since mentioned before, the conscious and unconscious must maintain equilibrium to achieve self-knowledge to the real extent. Human must not fear the shadow that dwells inside us. Where in reality, this shadow can help us to mold the individualism we want to resolve. If a general had no idea regarding what constitutes a favorable battle outcome, there would be no utility in simulating battle formations. Evaluating potential actions is challenging because it depends on taking diverse considerations into account (e. g. , physical or social consequences). Most knowledge regarding what is favorable is already embodied in the very agentic systems that, before the advent of suppression, controlled behavior directly. Unconscious conflict resolution processes thus furnish valuable information to conscious processes of planning for the future. Given sufficiently strong motivations and commitment to the planned course of action, specific plans such as â€Å"when X happens, I will do Y† themselves operate automatically when the future opportunity arises, as in the implementation intention research of Gollwitzer and colleagues (e. g. , Gollwitzer, 1999). In this way, unconscious processes not only adapt us to the present situation, but they also influence the tracks we lay to guide our future behavior. As mention earlier in this paper, the state and religion including the individual psyche should maintain a sense of stability in an individual. Man should not let neither the state nor religion, take away his individuality. One chapter of the book was entitled â€Å"Religion as the Counterbalance to Mass-mindedness†. Religion is defined as an, â€Å"organized belief system that includes shared and institutionalized moral values, beliefs about God, and involvement in religious community,† Individuals may be spiritual not religious, religious not spiritual, religious and spiritual, or neither spiritual nor religious. Often times the spiritual not religious individual is seeking meaning, connection with others, and completeness. The religious not spiritual person typically participates in religious institutions, holds theistic beliefs, and institutionalized moral values. The spiritual and religious person holds characteristics of both while the neither spiritual nor religious person holds few if any of these characteristics. In the book, Jung distinguishes between religion and creed, labeling religion as the relationship of an individual to God and a creed as a confession of faith in a collective belief. Creeds have codified their views, customs and beliefs and externalized themselves to such an extent that the external point of reference has become of minor importance. Jung tries to point out that, religion like the state yearn for the individual to sacrifice himself. The state and the religion have the same objective towards an individual but they have different line of attack to grasp it. Neither the state nor the religion is unscrupulous. In fact, we do need them, but they must be at the same rank in one’s self. One should not override the other, for it must be keep upright. Examine the spirits that speak in you. Become critical. –Carl Jung References: Carlson, E. N. (2013). Overcoming the Barriers to Self-Knowledge : Mindfulness as a Path to Seeing Yourself as You Really Are. Perspectives on Psychological Sciences , 2. Deecke, L. (2012). There Are Conscious and Unconscious Agendas in the Brain. 4. Morsella, J. A. (2008). The Unconscious Mind. 7-8. Nickles, T. (2011). THE ROLE OF RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY IN COUNSELING. 3-4.

Politics in the Middle East Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Politics in the Middle East - Assignment Example The assignment "Politics in the Middle East" addresses such issues as Arab nationalism and particularly Zionism and the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Arab nationalism refers to an ideology that channeled for the union of Arab countries based on their common language and religion. It was an advocacy for socialism and Arab ideologies to create unity among Arab countries. Since the end of European imperialism from the Middle East, several nationalistic movements emerged. Countries such as Iran, Israel, and Turkey experienced several Arab nationalism movements. Several political events were responsible for the development of Arab nationalism in different countries. Israel is very fundamental in the history of Arab nationalism. Zionism was a renowned movement that united Jews and informed the ideologies that channeled for their independence. According to Jews, Zionism was a movement that focused on the restoration of their cultural and religious beliefs. It culminated into the ideas of new Jew. Jews occupy most of Israel that campaigned for the Zionist movements. After 1967, during the six-day conflict, Arab nationalism and considerations turned to be a factor of political marginality. After Egypt’s defeat by Israel, there was a call for the Arab Union by President Nasser. The modernization of Turkey was a key event in the development of Arab nationalism. The last Ottoman left Turkey in 1923. Under Kemal, Turkey eliminated all Arabic elements and reformed the country’s language to the Turkish language.

Generator Protection Measures Thesis Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Generator Protection Measures - Thesis Example One of the primary function of a generator is to provide power to a given number of appliances. Generally, generators are used in almost all parts of the world others serving as standby generators in case of power outages. Generators therefore do not operate in an ideal condition but are subjected to failure and other problems. It is therefore necessary to wear protective clothing and take other necessary measures to curb such problems. This problem is also taken care of by the manufacturers by ensuring that they produce machines with high load factor to guarantee the safety of the civilians or the people who operates it in case of failure or during maintenance. Furthermore, after taking care of all the precautions that might occur faults associated with electrical or even mechanical persists. Most manufacturers globally have embraced the use of relays. Fundamentally, relays are electric devices which acts as circuit breakers in case of a problem. It is always standby and when a prob lem of overvoltage occurs it immediately disconnects the power line to the appliances or even disengages and shutdown the generator in order to ensure that machines or other devices do not get damage as a result of power disruption. Digisilent software is principally one of the most applicable software in generators. It is the most convenient software to use owing to its several advantages like general functioning incorporation, wide range of modelling in terms of distribution and transmission which produce the best analysis. In order to eradicate some outages in the generator, it is recommended to use Digisilent software to achieve maximum protection as far as electrical or mechanical faults are concerned. Thermal protection is one of the most fundamental aspect of safety that must be undertaken. It is carried out to reduce the impact of overheating.