Juvenile justice system Essay Example for Free

Juvenile justice system Essay Researchers and psychologists have list of typical behaviors that are exhibited by juvenile delinquents. The list also includes traits that experts referred to as indicators or predictors of delinquency. Typically, violent school children are engaged in unhealthy activities such as smoking, drinking, and drug use and of early sexual activities. They also have very poor academic performance. Researches say that violent school children are typically irresponsible in the sense that they lack the sense of accountability as they tend to blame others for their behaviors. They are often resort to vandalism, uncooperative, no sense of loyalty and are poor team players (Case, Travis). Violent children also develop anti-social behavior which makes him feared by other children as his tendency of hurting others is at high rate. There are however been several measures adapted and implemented by both schools and the government to attend to this problem in cooperation with the parents. One famous experiment made was the Linking the Interests of Families and Teachers (LIFT) Program which have actually been recognized by the American Psychological Association (APA) (Stoolmiller, Mike et. al. ) Researchers conducted the experiment in 12 elementary schools in a metropolitan area with about 200,000 student population. Participants totaled 671 students in 32 classrooms. The researchers concluded that the implementation of such intervention program had greatly reduced the aggressive behaviors of the participants but the long-term effects are still under follow-up studies. In the research made by another group, 800 Seattle school children were exposed to similar intervention program. Hawkins Social Development Research Group gave parents special training course in interactive teaching, classroom monitoring, cooperative learning, and proactive disciplinary skills to prevent problems from arising. Their training also included positive reinforcement and risk reduction of alcohol and drug use. On the other hand, children were taught impulse control, how to get what they want without aggressive behavior, and how to recognize the feelings of other people. The program was however concluded as a failure since it did not have significant effect in altering negative behaviors. â€Å"It did not have a major impact on reducing the proportion of students who had tried cigarettes or drugs at age 18† (Schwarz, Joel 1999). In the early 19th century, there are already efforts made to reduce juvenile delinquency by making school attendance compulsory. This social control for juvenile delinquency also required that all children be sent to school and so all children should be pulled-out from the workplace (Feld, Barry 1999). Despite this, researchers especially psychologists still find it the most effective and efficient means of reducing juvenile delinquency for parents and elders to set themselves as excellent role models of moral uprightness. 2. What are some of the key principles of the juvenile justice system that distinguish it from the criminal justice system? What can be done to ensure that these principles are protected so the juvenile justice system remains distinct from the adult system? While criminal justice system aimed at punishing the criminal offender, 1the juvenile justice system primarily aimed at the rehabilitation and reintegration of the juvenile offender into society. In this regard, an independent juvenile justice system is required to be established. A legal scholar argues that these principles are measures to adjust to the less developed cognitive ability and still developing social skills of the youth (Zimring, Franklin 1998, page 69). Zimring argues that youth offenders should have â€Å"diminished responsibility† relative to their offenses as compared with adult offenders. He explained that this was based on the grounds that youth actually do not yet have the well-developed ability to decide on things relative to real-life decisions because there are not yet mature enough to understand the real course of life. Because of immaturity and the skill of self-control, Zimring argues that this may have been a major contributor to an adolescent committing crime. Peer pressure among youth is also of great influence to juvenile delinquency. As Zimring puts it, the immediate pressure of peers is the real motive for most teenage crime. Peer pressure is one thing that youth lack the capacity to withstand and this might have been the answer to the research findings that majority of the youth offenders do not repeat their offenses after they have reached maturity. The age of the offender is a primary consideration in the juvenile justice system aside from the serious consideration of the offender’s circumstances. The Human Rights Commission of the United Nations asserts that juvenile justice system should 2ensure that decisions on the cases of youth offenders should be solely for the best interest of the child and that such decisions should ensure that the offender shall have his due worth and dignity be highly considered. In order to ensure that these principles are protected, the UN’s Human Rights Commission requires that the justice system for youths â€Å"be established with especially trained staff. † It is also recommended by the same body that youth offenders should be separately detained with that of the adults (The Beijing Rules, 1985). Since these children are expected to be immature in terms of cognitive and social aspects of their lives, they should be treated accordingly. This is the main purpose why the justice system’s personnel should be well-trained parallel to the needs of the youth offenders. Coordination with specialized institutions, particularly those whose aims are relative to strengthening and developing the moral and spiritual aspects of these children will be of great help. This way, the children will also have the assurance that they will be taken care of instead of being punished. The American Prosecutors Research Institute suggests a more comprehensive and balanced principles that are to be implemented in the operations of the juvenile justice system. They suggest that the system should implement community protection, offender accountability and competency development (Harp, Caren , November 2002). Harp argues that when these three modern principles are strictly implemented, the justice system for youth offenders have the assurance that it will â€Å"operate in the best interest of the child and the community. † It is important for children to pay the price of their actions in order for them to learn and develop the sense of accountability or responsibility (The Denver Post, August 30, 2007). They are arrested and detained to segregate them from the community for a time until they learn to act responsibly. They are to be under custody to let them know that immaturity is never an excuse for being accountable. While in custody, it is important that they spend such time in engaging with activities that will develop their personality because juvenile offenders are more importantly to be educated than to be incarcerated (Allah, Dasun, The Village Voice, 2002). This is what Harp is pointing to as competency development through competency-enhancing work which is needed to ensure that these offenders will still the chance of living a better life after they are released from rehabilitation. 3. Discuss the most important advantages to community treatment for juvenile offenders. Has community corrections (probation, juvenile intensive probation supervision, electronic monitoring) generally been successful? Explain. The Hamilton County of Indiana has enumerated some benefits that can be derived from the implementation of community corrections. First the offender will be able to learn the sense of accountability since he has to serve in prison as his punishment for his delinquent actions. In consideration of the children’s immaturity, community corrections ensures that the offender be able to realize the importance of learning how to handle himself and his actions in order not to hurt anyone anymore. Through community corrections the public is ensured of its safety since offenders are to be held under close and strict monitoring or supervision. Since competency and skills development programs and activities are integrated in the community corrections, offenders will have the chance to make things right while there is still time. This way their families and the community are benefited both ways in the sense that offenders, after being treated in the corrections, will likely be going out to leave a far better life compared to his past. Since the system staff is expected to be especially trained in attending to the needs of the juvenile offenders, these children will have the better chance of improving their own personalities. In the community corrections, offenders feel more enthusiastic and have high self-esteem since they are being treated with special attention to their personal emotional needs. Community corrections programs spare offenders many of the negative effects of incarceration (Howard Society of Alberta, 1998). Offenders are treated not as criminals who are supposed to be punished rather they are there to be educated with life lessons especially to learn the sense of accountability. With community corrections, offenders are not segregated from the community as criminals since educational and competency programs are implemented in order to prepare them to face the challenges of life after their release. Employment opportunities are open for those who are graduates of community corrections. Such facilities are also cheaper than prison maintenance so government is able to save much money for running prison bars. REFERENCES 1 Juvenile Justice. Juvenile Justice Canada. February 06, 2006. Retrieved on September 04, 2007 from http://www. amnesty. ca/themes/resources/children/juvenile_justice_background. pdf 2Human Rights Commission. United Nations. United Nations Guidelines for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency (The Riyadh Guidelines). Adopted and proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 45/112 of 14 December 1990. Retrieved on September 04, 2007 from http://www. unhchr. ch/html/menu3/b/h_comp47. htm Allah, Dasun. Incarcerate or Educate? The Village Voice. February 27-March 05, 2002. Retrieved on September 05, 2007 from http://www. villagevoice. com/news/0209,allah,32636,5. html Bright, Martin. Youth Prison Not Safe For Children. The Observer. May 19, 2002. Retrieved on September 04, 2007 from http://www. vachss. com/help_text/archive/youth_prison_uk. html Case, Travis. Identifying Characteristics of Juvenile Delinquents. Retrieved on September 05, 2007 from http://www. traviscase. org/Teens/CharacteristicsJD. html Feld, Barry C. (1999). Bad kids. New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 17-57 Hamilton County Indiana. Benefits of Community Corrections. Retrieved on September 06, 2007 from http://www. co. hamilton. in. us/services. asp? id=5019entity=2102 Harp, Caren. Bringing Balance to Juvenile Justice. The American Prosecutors Research Institute. November 2002. Retrieved on September 05, 2007 from http://ndaa. org/publications/apri/juvenile_justice_monograph_nov_2002. html John Howard Society of Alberta (1998). Community Corrections. Retrieved On September 06, 2007 from http://www. johnhoward. ab. ca/PUB/C29. htm#effec Mason, Timothy. The Characteristics of Delinquents. Retrieved on Septeber 05, 2007 from http://www. timothyjpmason. com/WebPages/Deviance/Deviance4. htm Scwarz, Joel. High school students violent behavior, drinking, sexual activity drops, and school performance rises from elementary school interventions. March 14 1999. Retrieved on September 06, 2007 from http://uwnews. washington. edu/ni/article. asp? articleID=1553 Stoolmiller Mike et. al. Treating Violent and Aggressive Children. Retrieved on September 06, 2007 from http://www. selfhelpmagazine. com/articles/child_behavior/treatviolent. html Zimring, Franklin E. (1998). American youth violence. New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 69-83

What Governments Are Not Essay -- essays research papers

;What Governments Are "Not" In this essay I will be comparing the three economic systems: Communism, Capitalism and Socialism and will explain differences and similarities along with illustrations of each system. Communism is an economic system where the government owns and operates the means of production and distribution. It is also known as a command system because individuals cannot succeed others, the government controls all. Capitalism is an economic system where private individuals own and operate the means of production and distribution. People have the freedom to own, choose, compete and earn a living but with little or no government help. They have the freedom to own, choose, compete and earn a living. Socialism is a mixed market economic system. The basic means of production is managed and owned by the government, with the public owning and operating many businesses. Cooperation is stressed over competition, goals are high standard of living and economic security and high taxes provide free health care and education. In communism the government controls the market while in capitalism private individuals own and control the market. Socialism is a mix of the two because the government owns and controls production but with public owning and operating many businesses. In all three systems the lack of competition hurts the quality of goods and profits go down. So...

My Life Essay

Above anything else, I still think that the most ambiguous term, concept, and thing in the world aside from its existence is life. A person’s life can be the most difficult thing to describe, to define, to expound, and to measure. It will always be very challenging for an individual to summarize his of her entire life in nothing but words that do not even measure up to life’s vague beauty, wonders, and mysteries. But in the very best way that I can, combining everything I learned from writing, recounting history, and expressing my thoughts, I shall try to tell you what and how my life is so far. I will choose to tell how my life was in the past, what it is like now, and how I envision it to become in the future in my own tone and perspective. Simplicity is a very relative and subjective term. Some would associate this term with peace and serenity, but I would rather connect it with the ideas of non-extravagant beauty and non-chaotic momentum. And so, I would rather call my life a simple one in this sense. As for my childhood, I realized that this phase is not a completely natural incident and event which happens to everyone. In one way or another, and at least in my own life, I have come to understand that having a childhood is also partly an individual choice that people have to make. More importantly, having a happy childhood is the greater choice which people have to decide on whether they would have it or not. With regard to my own, I chose having a childhood and a worthwhile one. Twenty-three years ago, I cried meaningfully on the [insert date of birth; ex: 25th of December, 1986] which told my parents that I am already existing as a person. Throughout my entire childhood, I cried for various reasons — whenever I got hurt, got disappointed, felt sad, felt annoyed, and felt overwhelmingly happy. All these cries, my life proved, are part of growing up. In my life’s context, these things made me realize that I am but a human being who feels and learns to express what he feels whenever he feels the need for it. Growing up in Turkey, I can say that my past is as colorful and vibrant as my country. My mind never ran out of iridescent and crazy ideas when I was going through my primary and secondary levels of education. I think I owe to my parents the considerable amount of effort they had to sacrifice in order to give me and my one and only sister the kind of education which we can both be proud of. My heart never skipped a beat as it vigorously lived with the glorious days of my childhood and adolescent years when I felt like I was the most powerful and liberated man that God has ever created. In a nutshell, my childhood is something I would always want to reminisce over and over again. And so, I rekindle that vibrant feeling every now and then, especially now that I write this chronicle of my life. Excellence and being well-molded never fascinated me until my parents, together with my mentors at the previous schools that I attended, injected into my consciousness the significance of education to an individual’s betterment. I think that it safe to say that generally, young people dislike going to school very much; however, it was during those days, when I was on the verge of hating school, when I started to realize that education is actually the strongest foundation I could ever have that will equip me with the skills and knowledge to become a competent person in the future. As an average person who grew up with his parents in Istanbul, Turkey and who is still spending his days as a university student under the custody of his parents, I can say that I now have a considerably complete idea of what being a well-molded individual is like. Upon seeing and knowing successful people around me, I have to realize that all their authority, wealth, honor, valor come from a sufficient amount of education and dedication to it. But for me, aside from this, one thing which also aids in creating a well-molded individual in each person is his or her choice of submitting and staying under the guidance of his of her parents, for no parent shall wish for his or her child to go astray. And so, I chose to stay aligned with my parents’ guidance and proved to myself that indeed, parents have the innate ability to know the best and only the best for their children. I have never learned and realized the power of material things. I may have become fascinated with some, but one of the most amazing and valuable things I have learned in my life is that most of the things that can actually give true happiness to people are the intangible things that money cannot purchase in anyway. In several instances, I have also experienced the most typical emotional and psychological milestones that a human being goes through in life. As I entered adulthood, I have realized the value of true friendship and the value of having a special person caring for me. I have also been able to go through several rites of passage that defined my membership to the so called â€Å"in-circles† in my youth. Many times I fell hard and stood up again, never surrendering to the most miserable heartbreaks yet the most meaningful lessons that I can consider indispensable for the rest of my life. Truly, no material form of wealth and luxury can ever compare to the most special things that I regard as my greatest achievements in my life so far; and these include my self-dignity, the seemingly everlasting friendship that I share with my peers, the love I constantly receive from the people around me, and the bright future that shines ahead of me in this point of my life. I chose to value these intangible treasures that will last longer than me and than the ones that will fade after I passed. Yet, no matter how colorful or pleasant my writing will turn out to be, I also believe that life is not always a bed of roses. For several instances, I have received harsh criticisms from people who tried to judge me from a far and tried to measure me as a person without knowing me completely. I have faced several failures that brought me serious humiliation and deep self-disappointment. I also have failed to live up to other people’s expectations a number of times. At one point, I thought these falls were bound to identify and label me as an individual and as a man. But my hopes, aspirations, and visions inside of me that have been kept hidden behind these failures always manage to float above everything else and take over my consciousness. Thus, I chose to believe that I as an individual can only be judged and measured according to how strong and triumphant I succeeded after a fall and not by how hard I fell flat on the ground. I chose to tell you this tale of my life in my endeavor to give myself a hint on how I would want to envision myself in the future. If there is one thing this chronicle has taught me and made me understand about myself, it is that my life is truly made up of great choices, and each choice is a fruit of a trial-and-error process of learning. Right now, the life of being a university student is giving me all the positive thoughts of what my life ahead would become. I could be successful like today’s powerful and affluent people, yes I can say, but I would choose to follow this tale and make a success story of my own, keeping in mind all the vibrant memories I have had from my childhood, all the valuable lectures my parents and my mentors taught me, the inspiration that my sister, my friends, and loved ones gave me, and the indispensable lessons my failures made me realize. Most especially, I would choose to remember my own ambiguous yet insightful definition of what my life is right now and what it will be tomorrow. Thus, I would still choose, and in the future, I know there will still be more choices to make, but I guess that is what life is to me basically — a never-ending ball of choices which define who we are.

Multiregional Hypothesis Human Evolutionary Theory

The Multiregional Hypothesis model of human evolution (abbreviated MRE and known alternatively as Regional Continuity or Polycentric model) argues that our earliest hominid ancestors (specifically Homo erectus) evolved in Africa and then radiated out into the world. Based on paleoanthropological data rather than genetic evidence, the theory says that after H. erectus arrived in the various regions in the world hundreds of thousands of years ago, they slowly evolved into modern humans. Homo sapiens, so MRE posits, evolved from several different groups of Homo erectus in several places throughout the world. However, genetic and paleoanthropological evidence gathered since the 1980s has shown conclusively that that simply cannot be the case: Homo sapiens evolved in Africa and dispersed out into the world, somewhere between 50,000-62,000 years ago. What happened then is quite interesting. Background: How Did the Idea of MRE Arise? In the mid-19th century, when Darwin wrote Origin of Species, the only lines of evidence of human evolution he had were comparative anatomy and a few fossils. The only hominin (ancient human) fossils known in the 19th century were Neanderthals, early modern humans, and H. erectus. A lot of those early scholars didnt even think those fossils were humans or related to us at all. When in the early 20th century numerous hominins with robust large-brained skulls and heavy brow ridges (now usually characterized as H. heidelbergensis) were discovered, scholars started to develop a wide variety of scenarios about how we were related to these new hominins, as well as Neanderthals and H. erectus. These arguments still had to be tied directly to the growing fossil record: again, no genetic data was available. The predominant theory then was that H. erectus gave rise to Neanderthals and then modern humans in Europe; and in Asia, modern humans evolved separately directly from H. erectus. Fossil Discoveries As more and more distantly-related fossil hominins were identified in the 1920s and 1930s, such as Australopithecus, it became clear that human evolution was much older than previously considered and much more varied. In the 1950s and 60s, numerous hominins of these and other older lineages were found in East and South Africa: Paranthropus, H. habilis, and H. rudolfensis. The predominant theory then (although it varied greatly from scholar to scholar), was that there were nearly independent origins of modern humans within the various regions of the world out of H. erectus and/or one of these various regional archaic humans. Dont kid yourself: that original hardline theory was never really tenable -- modern humans are simply too much alike to be evolved from different Homo erectus groups, but more reasonable models such as those put forward by paleoanthropologist Milford H. Wolpoff and his colleagues argued that you could account for the similarities in human beings on our planet because there was lots of gene flow between these independently evolved groups. In the 1970s, paleontologist W.W. Howells proposed an alternate theory: the first Recent African Origin model (RAO), called the Noahs Ark hypothesis. Howells argued that H. sapiens evolved solely in Africa. By the 1980s, growing data from human genetics led Stringer and Andrews to develop a model that said that the very earliest anatomically modern humans arose in Africa about 100,000 years ago and archaic populations found throughout Eurasia might be descendants of H. erectus and later archaic types but they were not related to modern humans. Genetics The differences were stark and testable: if MRE was right, there would be various levels of ancient genetics (alleles) found in modern people in scattered regions of the world and transitional fossil forms and levels of morphological continuity. If RAO was right, there should be very few alleles older than the origins of anatomically modern humans in Eurasia, and a decrease in genetic diversity as you get away from Africa. Between the 1980s and today, over 18,000 whole human mtDNA genomes have been published from people all over the world, and they all coalesce within the last 200,000 years and all the non-African lineages only 50,000-60,000 years old or younger. Any hominin lineage that branched off from the modern human species prior to 200,000 years ago did not leave any mtDNA in modern humans. An Admixture of Humans With Regional Archaics Today, paleontologists are convinced that humans evolved in Africa and that the bulk of modern non-African diversity is recently derived from an African source. The exact timing and pathways outside of Africa are still under debate, perhaps out of East Africa, perhaps along with a southern route from South Africa. The most startling news from a human evolution sense is some evidence for mixing between Neanderthals and Eurasians. Evidence for this is that between 1 to 4% of genomes in people who are non-Africans are derived from Neanderthals. That was never predicted by either the RAO or the MRE. The discovery of a completely new species called the Denisovans threw another stone in the pot: even though we have very little evidence of Denisovan existence, some of their DNA has survived in some human populations.​ Identifying Genetic Diversity in Human Kind It is now clear that before we can understand the diversity in archaic humans, we have to understand the diversity in modern humans. Although MRE has not been seriously considered for decades, now it seems possible that modern African migrants hybridized with local archaics in different regions of the world. Genetic data demonstrate that such introgression did occur, but it is likely to have been minimal. Neither Neanderthals nor Denisovans survived into the modern period, except as a handful of genes, perhaps because they were unable to adapt to the unstable climates in the world or competition with H. sapiens. Sources Disotell TR. 2012. Archaic human genomics. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 149(S55):24-39.Ermini L, Der Sarkissian C, Willerslev E, and Orlando L. 2015. Major transitions in human evolution revisited: A tribute to ancient  DNA. Journal of Human Evolution 79:4-20.Gamble C. 2013. In: Mock CJ, editor. Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science (Second Edition). Amsterdam: Elsevier. p 49-58.Hawks JD, and Wolpoff MH. 2001. The four faces of Eve: hypothesis compatibility and human origins. Quaternary International 75:41-50.Stringer C. 2014. Why we are not all multiregionalists now. Trends in Ecology Evolution 29(5):248-251.