Ethical Considerations and Implications Essay Example for Free

Ethical Considerations and Implications Essay To digress into the philosophical and ethical discussions of state punishment is not to alienate the concept of punishment from justification for crimes done but to offer an insight into the principle of proportionality. Ideally, it is not possible to stifle concerns of the legalized infliction of harm and the trampling of inalienable human rights even in the face of incriminating evidence on the part of the offender. Punishment serves to advance the states responsibility of maintaining harmony through legal infliction of considerable harm for the purposes of retribution for wrongs done and the maintenance of law and order in the society. Reflections of punishment are as old as the very onset of philosophical thinking (Ryberg 2004). The proportionality principle lies at the very core of legislative reforms that determine the structure of the state punishment system (Ryberg 2004). It is the meeting point between philosophical thinking that purport to eliminate the structures of punishment on one side and penologists on the other hand. Because the existence of punishment of criminal acts is not a matter of question in recent days, proportionalism only seeks to determine the extent to which certain crimes may be punishable. It is about quantitative distribution of punishments and that is why it elicits ethical tones. Surveys of public opinion have always been harsh on the criminal. When this is coupled to political pressure on the judicial system to institute harsher penalties, notable ethical implications may arise with respect to the application of the law proportionately to the seriousness of crime as well as policy objectives of the legal statute. A crisis of confidence has always marked the ability of the criminal law and criminal justice system to built a just and crime free society (Fagan 2008). Several statutes have been enacted to try and achieve this end objective but there still remains a gap in community justice. Supermaximum Prisons Supermaximum prisons or â€Å"supermax† prisons as they are commonly called are ideally jails within prisons. The prison is a classic scenario of an enclosure where individuals are kept as they undergo correction. However this controlled environment does not prevent some individuals from engaging in assault or violent acts, incite disturbances, prey on weaker and vulnerable inmates, attempt to escape or exhibit any other form of disruptive behavior (Riveland 1999). Since order and safety remain the basic priorities of the correctional facility, such people must be isolated from the general prison population as they exhibit behavioral characteristics that threaten the order and safety of the prison populace. Different correctional facilities have their own form of such isolation. Some call it disciplinary segregation, punitive segregation or just segregation to differentiate it from the general prison housing. Such a confinement exists in complete isolation. Structurally, it is a single, windowless cell where inmates are made to spend 23 or more hours a day. In such isolation, inmates are solely dependent on staff that patrols the tiers, push mail, toilet paper or meals through small spaces in the heavy doors. For the few minutes that prisoners gain the opportunity to be led out, they are often shackled and cuffed under full prison guard. This only happens during showers or a little solitary wander in the yards. The extremity of the confinement defines the prison systems success in isolation (Rhodes 2005). According to the prison officers or the media these are the manifestations of the worst cases of criminal behavior. While it can be confirmed that there are cases where such confinement is meant only for prisoners who have been convicted of serious crimes, the reality is that most of these cases involve prison misbehavior by individuals under protective custody or those convicted on minor offenses. Statistically, United States prisons may be holding up to 20,000 people in such conditions (Rhodes 2005). Therefore for minor behavioral discrepancies an individual may receive a gift of a punitive and individualistic form of punishment. There are a number of select factors that are independent of prisoner behavior but which propagate the shift towards segregation units. From political pressure on the judicial system for harsher sentences, economic deprivation of the low income rural localities, inherent population pressure in prison establishments and staffing issues, the supermax prison phenomenon is rife in America today and policy backups to address this clearly defined ethical issue is non existent. Rhodes notes that such facilities are seldom put under the limelight in public prison debates and budgetary allocations. When this is coupled to the fact that the facilities are completely out of bounds to the ordinary public arena, salient ethical issues arise that need to be addressed. The pragmatical and philosophical aspect of the supermax phenomenon presents grave complications to the forgotten prisoner languishing in solitary confinement (Rhodes 2005). Health studies have found out a direct nexus between solitary segregation and the pathological development and progression of mental illness. Initially, decompensation sets in as a result of psychological damage caused by isolating an individual from fellow inmates (Lovell 2004). The cost-benefit, operating costs, legal and ethical issues of supermaximum facilities raise an uproar in debates. While the continued construction of supermaximum facilities can be attributed to political pressure, the overall constitutionality behind the insistence on such programs still remains unclear (Riveland 1999). Priority on human control has given rise to a host of debilitating mental conditions. Research publications are more focused on the eventuality on recidivist criminal behavior while the damage to the psychological integrity of inmates takes a backbench. When large numbers of characteristically dissimilar inmates are incarcerated, such diversity has the potential to potentially damage any notable correctional improvements creating a situation where the prisons act only as a maturing ground for worse cases of criminal activity. Unfortunately, policy makers have not been as astute in presenting solutions to such ethical dilemmas like they legislate for the building of segregation units (Riveland 1999). Several research studies on the supermaximum prison facilities have concluded that despite the insistence that such facilities are necessary for meting out harsher sentences, they only serve to increase the prevalence and incidence of mental illnesses and sink budgetary financial allocations with no apparent social or economic benefits (Pizarro et al 2004). Legal ambiguities have been the cause of dire ethical implications and complications as regards punishment policy making initiatives. Zero tolerance as a concept is not fully defined even though it is representative of an approach to policing. Legal debates have raged as to the true nature of the term. Invariably, it has been linked to a variety of definitions. Being tough on crime is an example of the definition of the term. While being tough implies that something is about crime in general it usually lacks requisite explanation as regards punishment. Curiously though, being tough on crime has been the most commonly accepted denotion of zero tolerance policing and as such legal enforcement has been in the context of being tougher ion crime through harsher penalties. On the other hand, zero tolerance policing implies a strict non-discretionary context of law enforcement. Such a definition explains a key aspect of law enforcement where police activity is at its highest and the community at large takes a precautionary measure to desist from falling into the hands of the law enforcement offices. Moreover under such a policy, officers arrest or report offenses with no exception to the type of illegal act committed (Marshall 1999).

Alfred Stieglitz and Gallery 291 :: Armory show Art essays

Alfred Stieglitz and Gallery 291 A Modern Art Revolution Before the Armory Show â€Å"Quite a few years ago†¦there got to be—a place†¦. The place grew—the place shifted†¦the place was where this man was†¦. —Shift—is something that cannot be tied—cannot be pigeonholed. It jumps—it bounds—it glides —it SHIFTS— it must have freedom†¦. It seems those who do that worth the doing are possessed of good eyes—alive eyes—warm eyes— it seems they radiate a fire within outward. The places they inhabit have a light burning— a light seen from near and far by those who need this light— and this light sometimes dim—sometimes brilliant—never out—†¦. To realize such a place— a very tangible place was and is this man’s dream.† John Marin about Alfred Stieglitz[1] On February 17, 1913 the International Exhibition of Modern Art, or the Armory Show, opened to the public. It is unlikely that the some 4,000 guests milling around the eighteen rooms of the 69th Regiment Armory in New York that night could have realized the extent to which the artwork displayed would set off a revolution that would sweep the nation. Response to the Armory Show, however, was sensational. During the month long exhibition the, Armory Show became the talk of the town. The galleries were constantly full of people who came to gape at the spectacle, artists who came to study or deride, and celebrities and socialites who came to see and be seen. Former President Teddy Roosevelt even made a visit to the show praising the spirit of modernity present in the venture, but distrustful of the so called ‘radical’ art of the European avant-garde. In his response to the show published in Outlook, Roosevelt commented: â€Å"It is vitally necessary to mov e forward and to shake off the dead hand of the reactionaries; and yet we have to face the fact that there is apt to be a lunatic fringe among the votaries of any forward movement.†[2] In this statement Roosevelt summarized the public reactions to the show.

Essay, Valentine Carol Ann Duffy Essay

The poem Valentine is written by Carol Ann Duffy. Throughout the Poem she shows the positive and negative sides about love by comparing love to an onion. She does this by using different techniques such as language features such as metaphors, simlies, Imagery and word structure. All these techniques make it interesting because she uses an onion as a girft to represent love and relationships. In the begining of the poem Duffy starts off with a negative in opening line. â€Å"Not a red rose or a satin heart’. She tries to tell her Valentine to not expect anything romantic. This is telling the reader that it is not somthing sweet, romantic or taditional gift but something unique and original. Then in the following lines she sets out why and onion is a good gift. Duffy then uses a metaphor â€Å"It is a moon wrapped in brown paper. It promises light like the careful undressing of love’. The ‘brown paper’ is the outside of the onion that hides the white vegetable inside. This brown skin is the wrapping paper of the gift, the onion. Duffy compares her gift, the onion, to the moon being wrapped in brown paper. This picture of the moon represents the whole onion, just afger it has been peeled. The words â€Å"it promises light’ give a positive conntation meaning the moons ‘light’ represents love like a new start and begining of a relationship. Moonlight often provides a romantic setting. The peeling of the onion is also like two people taking off each other clothes before they make love â€Å"like the careful undressing of love’. THe different layers of the onion are like the layers of someones discovering the layers in a relationship. Therefore Duffy begins the poeam with a negative conatation and a positive connatation about the onion befoere giving it to her Valentine. In the second stanza of the second line a similie is used â€Å"It will blind you with tears like a lover’. To show that onions will make you cry and make you blind of the pain and that love can do the same thing to a person. This shows that she is giving her partner an onion because love can be beautiful but can also cause pain and upset. She then relates it too â€Å"your reflection is a wobbing grief†. Duffy relates this quote to one quote from the other stanza before â€Å"undressing love’. Here a metaphor has been used. A † wobbling photo of grief is compared to a mirror. â€Å"wobbling’ refers to photo which has become blurred from the tears created by the onion.When you look at a photo with tears it doesnt give a real image to that photo but a blurred or wobbling image. Also when you begin to â€Å"undress’ (discover) when you make love it can also cause you grief. This stanza shows that onions can make you cry and feel pain like love does and a good language feature has been use to help describe the aspects of the onion. Duffy then laters combines these quotes and makes a last stanza that gives more negative connatations towards the end. Duffy demands that her lover takes her gift † Take it’. She then talks about marriage † Its platnium loops shrink to a wedding ring, if you like† She suggests that the bright white layers of the onion are relationships and rings. Duffy imagines that the ring is made out of white valuable metal, platnium. She tries to tell us that the smaller the rings get the more chance of marriage increases but however if somthings † shrinks’ it becomes less valuable and more restrictive and perhaps somthing at the end of the relationship. Duffy thinks marriage is like a knife † Its scent will cling to you fingers, cling to your knife.’ The word â€Å"knife’ links marriage to a wound, and that Duffy may have been hurt in previous relationships. This shows a negative view of love and that someone had a knife and may have ended the relationship.† Cling’ has been repeated twice, Even if one brakes up with partner the scent or the thought will be clinged to your mind , like the smell of the onion on knife after its been washed. Therefore Duffy finishs the poeam with a negative connatation and tells us that onions do have simliarities as a ring or relationships. In conclusion Duffy shows her feelings about love in positive and negative connatations throughtout the poem by using different techinques to show how intresting this poem is when comparing love to an onion. And how the reader of this poem should understand why she thought an onion was a good choice as a gift by being original and unique.

The Clash Of Civilizations By Samuel Huntington - 1804 Words

This essay addresses the question of how, if at all, does the trend of intra-state conflicts among groups that have far outnumbered state vs. state conflicts, and if that trend in internal conflict within states over the last 20 years supports Samuel Huntington’s major hypothesis in his essay â€Å"The Clash of Civilizations.† Huntington’s main thesis was that â€Å"the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural.† This article was written in 1993. We will run the clock forward 23 years to the present in the year 2016. The first indications after reading his essay was that the author would seem to be semi-clairvoyant and provided a fairly accurate assessment from an analytical perspective. He was, in my estimation, about 75 percent correct in his predictions and assessments, and his overall thesis can be supported through a careful documentation of available facts, both then in 1993, and today. Huntington gives an exposition of three phases of conflict starting in May and October of 1648, when the treaties were signed in the Westphalian cities of Munster and Osnabruck ending the Thirty Years’ War in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Eighty Years’ War that was between the Dutch Republic and Spain. These treaties culminated in what we call the â€Å"Peace of Westphalia.† Nation state boundaries started to become more prevalent and used in a moreShow MoreRelatedThe Clash Of Civilizations By Samuel Huntington Essay1448 Words   |  6 PagesSamuel Huntington’s controversial article â€Å"The Clash of Civilizations?† was first published in Foreign Affairs in 1993 and was subsequently turned into a book in 1996 titled The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. 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HuntingtonRead MoreThe Clash of Civilizations: a Summary of Samuel Huntingtons Controversial Political Analysis and Its Critics2376 Words   |  10 PagesBishop The Clash of Civilizations: A Summary of Samuel Huntington’s controversial Political Analysis and its Critics â€Å"Culture and cultural identities, which at the broadest level are civilizational identities, are shaping patterns of cohesion, disintegration, and conflict in the post-Cold War World† - Samuel Huntington POLI 100 - F10N01! Gabrielle Bishop In a 1993 article published in Foreign Affairs, Harvard Professor of Government and Political Scientist Samuel Huntington made a predictionRead MoreThe Clash of Civilizations: a Summary of Samuel Huntington’s Controversial Political Analysis and Its Critics2367 Words   |  10 PagesGabrielle Bishop The Clash of Civilizations: A Summary of Samuel Huntington’s controversial Political Analysis and its Critics â€Å"Culture and cultural identities, which at the broadest level are civilizational identities, are shaping patterns of cohesion, disintegration, and conflict in the post-Cold War World† - Samuel Huntington POLI 100 - F10N01! Gabrielle Bishop In a 1993 article published in Foreign Affairs, Harvard Professor of Government and Political Scientist Samuel Huntington made a prediction