Saturday, August 31, 2019

Rehabilitation Paper Essay

Rehabilitation is a word that is used often within the corrections, in the prison setting. It is an attempt to change an individual’s attitude and behavior. There are programs that are to prevent habitual offenders, help a criminal get to their normal state of mind and not to be punishing for their action that may cause the criminal to change and become an outstanding citizen that follows the rules instead of the individual getting out and committing another crime. Throughout the years there has been many processes created to form rehabilitation process of criminal justice. The process has helped many offenders by allowing him/her to return within their community as a changed individual. Rehabilitation is a specific program that is applied within a prison setting to bring the end of a criminal’s behavior called desistance, the meaning to cease and stop. An inmate getting into the right program would keep them long enough in order to complete the program successfully, once the program has been completed then the inmate can be put in the community so that their behavior would be tested as a non-criminal behavior. There are some facilities that offer rehab, religion, and anger management (Foster, 2006). In the twentieths century it was believed that prison official were not able to give a defined and clear method of rehabilitation (Foster, 2006). Scientific penology was a major role in defining and conducting structured thoughts and scientific studies that is utilized through rehabilitation (Foster, 2006). The program has an effect on prisoners, the prisons and society in various ways. Inmates have these types of programs available as it gives the individual something constructive to do with his/her time. The type of rehabilitation programs can have a  positive impact on inmate’s life, if rehabilitation is completed while incarcerated all means his/her life change and when released they will benefit to society. In my opinion, I think that prison rehabilitation is in a good setting when it comes to offenders however, once an individual is released he/she should continue to be monitored for a period of time to make sure that they stay on the straight and positive path. Rehabilitation can help an individual make positive choices in his or her life. I just believe that it can be a positive program, however prisoners have to see a need for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation is a word that is used often within the corrections, in the prison setting. It is an attempt to change an individual’s attitude and behavior. There are programs that are to prevent habitual offenders, help a criminal get to their normal state of mind and not to be punishing for their action that may cause the criminal to change and become an outstanding citizen that follows the rules instead of the individual getting out and committing another crime. Throughout the years there has been many processes created to form rehabilitation process of criminal justice. The process has helped many offenders by allowing him/her to return within their community as a changed individual. Rehabilitation is a specific program that is applied within a prison setting to bring the end of a criminal’s behavior called desistance, the meaning to cease and stop. An inmate getting into the right program would keep them long enough in order to complete the program successfully, once the program has been completed then the inmate can be put in the community so that their behavior would be tested as a non-criminal behavior. There are some facilities that offer rehab, religion, and anger management (Foster, 2006). In the twentieths century it was believed that prison official were not able to give a defined and clear method of rehabilitation (Foster, 2006). Scientific penology was a major role in defining and conducting structured thoughts and scientific studies that is utilized through rehabilitation (Foster, 2006). The program has an effect on prisoners, the prisons and society in various ways. Inmates have these types of programs available as it gives the individual something constructive to do with his/her time. The type of rehabilitation programs can have a  positive impact on inmate’s life, if rehabilitation is completed while incarcerated all means his/her life change and when released they will benefit to society. In my opinion, I think that prison rehabilitation is in a good setting when it comes to offenders however, once an individual is released he/she should continue to be monitored for a period of time to make sure that they stay on the straight and positive path. Rehabilitation can help an individual make positive choices in his or her life. I just believe that it can be a positive program, however prisoners have to see a need for rehabilitation.

Friday, August 30, 2019

Starbucks Marketing.

Coffee houses In the urban area were very popular. The entry strategies for Shattuck across USA and Turkey that might account for the there success was major the Cataracts experience. The experience consist of highest quality coffee from control over the quality and processing of the beans, outstanding people that were recruited and trained on knowledge of coffee along with costumer service and the design of the stores to create a cozy atmosphere with help of there sanctuary Like ambiance with Its aroma, lighting, music and dcord. This basically, attracted people to socialize at Cataracts coffeehouse. ) The Core benefit from Cataracts Turkey is the deferent variety of the Coffee they serve. Actual benefits are the excellent customer service from high trained on the knowledge of coffee along with perfect cozy environment experience. Augmented benefit Is the Turkish coffee that they offer In Turkey. 3) Cataracts uses hybrid-marketing strategy in Turkey. I can claim this confidentially because along with more that 30 varieties of drinks, including espresso based coffee drinks, teas, iced coffees, made from up to 1 5 types of coffee beans, foodItems, and merchandise goods, they also offered Turkish Coffee on their menu in Turkey, which Is part there heritage. 4) Market Penetration strategy: To grow the current products In Turkey, Cataracts can do the following: C] ; Encourage current customers to buy more by providing a stamp system where customer will get 1 cup coffee drink free after every 5 cups. ; Attract competitor's customers: By providing half price offers on selected drinks.C] ; Get non-coffee drinkers to start coming by providing other local coffee substitute which will give hem opportunity to expose them to there core products. Market-Development Strategy: To launch Shattuck in new rural areas, there are three approaches that can be taken: 0 ; Perform advertisement before opening a new store to built anticipation In the surrounding people ; Prove TLS Dive rge Tree at ten new location Tort a couple of days to built potential customers ; Check demographic of the location and dcord the shop accordingly to attract customer by their interests.Product-Development Strategy: If a new product is launched in the current arrest follow strategies can be approached: ; The beverage should be made according to taste of the customers ; Shattuck also introduce some local products, which are preferred with coffee by the common local community like Huzzah ; Provide free Internet in their cafà ©s to attract professional and the student coward. Diversification: If they want to launch a new product for the new market, it's always good to keep following items in mind: ; That product should be exclusive for the locations community, which means that it should be according to their taste. Advertise the new product on large scale to make sure that community is aware of it. According to my understanding of the case, Shattuck has accomplished to penetrate the T urkish market in urban areas but there still growth potential, whereas expanding in the rural areas shouldn't be difficult task if they reduce there prices to some extend and follow some of the strategies mentioned above. 5) My recommendation for Cataracts Turkey to improve sales growth by little more localization while keeping hybrid strategy intact.They should introduce some more coal food items with coffee. Some of their local sweets and Hausa, which also is a long lasting heritage of Turkey and the rest of the Arab community. Like Turkish coffee is an opportunity to socialize similar smoking Hausa with friends is also very common activity in Turkish get together. This is will bring more customers to the coffee house to hang out and by multiple cups of coffee in a single visit. Also reduce price to some extend to make it affordable to a larger variety of coward as Turkey has a very uneven income distribution.

Thursday, August 29, 2019

Baseball and Statistics

Baseball is the era of America in the past. The two fields are not identical. The only part of the baseball stadium in your league is Uchino. Each Major League baseball park is a quadrilateral square with a size of exactly the same size as Uchino and a size of 9 feet on both sides. According to the rules of the league, the league determines the size of the ball and the baseball gloves, the baseball game uses wooden sticks or metal bats between the two teams. At the beginning of the game, the home team first participated in the competition. Sabremetrics refers to the development of statistical studies of baseball and the development of new statistical and analytical tools. This term is also used to directly reference the new statistics themselves. This term was built by Bill James, one of the main supporters in this field around 1980, born from the American Baseball Research Association (SABR). The basic percentage measures the basic ability of the batter. It is calculated by dividing the total of batters' batting (hitting plus walking and ball hitting) with the batter's full board appearance (blow plus walking and coat plus sacrifice). (Fly), in addition to sacrificing shorts It is also called Moneyball. Actual database management. An attractive story, geek covers the baseball field (literally not). Statistics has changed into a baseball reconnaissance method: the industry has completely ignored the traditional wisdom that he did not follow for decades and began studying numbers. This is a universal scientific story about emotions that every otaku recognizes. Randomness is an excellent book on probability. We carefully study opportunities through its role in human history, its perspective on philosophy and religion, and its modern application in technology. In similar books, it is unusual for mathematical problems to be explained by the fluency of the human tongue. Baseball statistics have been developed over the years. Early baseball statistics were only aimed at recalculating what happened, but the surveyor realized that statistics could be used to predict future events. As a result, in the latter part of the 20th century, a wave of new statistics has emerged to keep the player's value more accurately predicted. The work of James, Dewan, Ricky, Palmer's military investigators has laid the foundation for teams to adopt similar ideas and strategies when creating lists and deciding games. Front desk also takes advantage of the inefficiency of in-game and foreground strategies, as the military school staff at that time recognized the flaws in current player evaluation methods and created new statistics to address known shortcomings did. Baseball and Statistics Baseball is the era of America in the past. The two fields are not identical. The only part of the baseball stadium in your league is Uchino. Each Major League baseball park is a quadrilateral square with a size of exactly the same size as Uchino and a size of 9 feet on both sides. According to the rules of the league, the league determines the size of the ball and the baseball gloves, the baseball game uses wooden sticks or metal bats between the two teams. At the beginning of the game, the home team first participated in the competition. Sabremetrics refers to the development of statistical studies of baseball and the development of new statistical and analytical tools. This term is also used to directly reference the new statistics themselves. This term was built by Bill James, one of the main supporters in this field around 1980, born from the American Baseball Research Association (SABR). The basic percentage measures the basic ability of the batter. It is calculated by dividing the total of batters' batting (hitting plus walking and ball hitting) with the batter's full board appearance (blow plus walking and coat plus sacrifice). (Fly), in addition to sacrificing shorts It is also called Moneyball. Actual database management. An attractive story, geek covers the baseball field (literally not). Statistics has changed into a baseball reconnaissance method: the industry has completely ignored the traditional wisdom that he did not follow for decades and began studying numbers. This is a universal scientific story about emotions that every otaku recognizes. Randomness is an excellent book on probability. We carefully study opportunities through its role in human history, its perspective on philosophy and religion, and its modern application in technology. In similar books, it is unusual for mathematical problems to be explained by the fluency of the human tongue. Baseball statistics have been developed over the years. Early baseball statistics were only aimed at recalculating what happened, but the surveyor realized that statistics could be used to predict future events. As a result, in the latter part of the 20th century, a wave of new statistics has emerged to keep the player's value more accurately predicted. The work of James, Dewan, Ricky, Palmer's military investigators has laid the foundation for teams to adopt similar ideas and strategies when creating lists and deciding games. Front desk also takes advantage of the inefficiency of in-game and foreground strategies, as the military school staff at that time recognized the flaws in current player evaluation methods and created new statistics to address known shortcomings did. Baseball and Statistics Baseball is the era of America in the past. The two fields are not identical. The only part of the baseball stadium in your league is Uchino. Each Major League baseball park is a quadrilateral square with a size of exactly the same size as Uchino and a size of 9 feet on both sides. According to the rules of the league, the league determines the size of the ball and the baseball gloves, the baseball game uses wooden sticks or metal bats between the two teams. At the beginning of the game, the home team first participated in the competition. Sabremetrics refers to the development of statistical studies of baseball and the development of new statistical and analytical tools. This term is also used to directly reference the new statistics themselves. This term was built by Bill James, one of the main supporters in this field around 1980, born from the American Baseball Research Association (SABR). The basic percentage measures the basic ability of the batter. It is calculated by dividing the total of batters' batting (hitting plus walking and ball hitting) with the batter's full board appearance (blow plus walking and coat plus sacrifice). (Fly), in addition to sacrificing shorts It is also called Moneyball. Actual database management. An attractive story, geek covers the baseball field (literally not). Statistics has changed into a baseball reconnaissance method: the industry has completely ignored the traditional wisdom that he did not follow for decades and began studying numbers. This is a universal scientific story about emotions that every otaku recognizes. Randomness is an excellent book on probability. We carefully study opportunities through its role in human history, its perspective on philosophy and religion, and its modern application in technology. In similar books, it is unusual for mathematical problems to be explained by the fluency of the human tongue. Baseball statistics have been developed over the years. Early baseball statistics were only aimed at recalculating what happened, but the surveyor realized that statistics could be used to predict future events. As a result, in the latter part of the 20th century, a wave of new statistics has emerged to keep the player's value more accurately predicted. The work of James, Dewan, Ricky, Palmer's military investigators has laid the foundation for teams to adopt similar ideas and strategies when creating lists and deciding games. Front desk also takes advantage of the inefficiency of in-game and foreground strategies, as the military school staff at that time recognized the flaws in current player evaluation methods and created new statistics to address known shortcomings did. Baseball and Statistics Baseball is the era of America in the past. The two fields are not identical. The only part of the baseball stadium in your league is Uchino. Each Major League baseball park is a quadrilateral square with a size of exactly the same size as Uchino and a size of 9 feet on both sides. According to the rules of the league, the league determines the size of the ball and the baseball gloves, the baseball game uses wooden sticks or metal bats between the two teams. At the beginning of the game, the home team first participated in the competition. Sabremetrics refers to the development of statistical studies of baseball and the development of new statistical and analytical tools. This term is also used to directly reference the new statistics themselves. This term was built by Bill James, one of the main supporters in this field around 1980, born from the American Baseball Research Association (SABR). The basic percentage measures the basic ability of the batter. It is calculated by dividing the total of batters' batting (hitting plus walking and ball hitting) with the batter's full board appearance (blow plus walking and coat plus sacrifice). (Fly), in addition to sacrificing shorts It is also called Moneyball. Actual database management. An attractive story, geek covers the baseball field (literally not). Statistics has changed into a baseball reconnaissance method: the industry has completely ignored the traditional wisdom that he did not follow for decades and began studying numbers. This is a universal scientific story about emotions that every otaku recognizes. Randomness is an excellent book on probability. We carefully study opportunities through its role in human history, its perspective on philosophy and religion, and its modern application in technology. In similar books, it is unusual for mathematical problems to be explained by the fluency of the human tongue. Baseball statistics have been developed over the years. Early baseball statistics were only aimed at recalculating what happened, but the surveyor realized that statistics could be used to predict future events. As a result, in the latter part of the 20th century, a wave of new statistics has emerged to keep the player's value more accurately predicted. The work of James, Dewan, Ricky, Palmer's military investigators has laid the foundation for teams to adopt similar ideas and strategies when creating lists and deciding games. Front desk also takes advantage of the inefficiency of in-game and foreground strategies, as the military school staff at that time recognized the flaws in current player evaluation methods and created new statistics to address known shortcomings did. Baseball and Statistics Baseball is the era of America in the past. The two fields are not identical. The only part of the baseball stadium in your league is Uchino. Each Major League baseball park is a quadrilateral square with a size of exactly the same size as Uchino and a size of 9 feet on both sides. According to the rules of the league, the league determines the size of the ball and the baseball gloves, the baseball game uses wooden sticks or metal bats between the two teams. At the beginning of the game, the home team first participated in the competition. Sabremetrics refers to the development of statistical studies of baseball and the development of new statistical and analytical tools. This term is also used to directly reference the new statistics themselves. This term was built by Bill James, one of the main supporters in this field around 1980, born from the American Baseball Research Association (SABR). The basic percentage measures the basic ability of the batter. It is calculated by dividing the total of batters' batting (hitting plus walking and ball hitting) with the batter's full board appearance (blow plus walking and coat plus sacrifice). (Fly), in addition to sacrificing shorts It is also called Moneyball. Actual database management. An attractive story, geek covers the baseball field (literally not). Statistics has changed into a baseball reconnaissance method: the industry has completely ignored the traditional wisdom that he did not follow for decades and began studying numbers. This is a universal scientific story about emotions that every otaku recognizes. Randomness is an excellent book on probability. We carefully study opportunities through its role in human history, its perspective on philosophy and religion, and its modern application in technology. In similar books, it is unusual for mathematical problems to be explained by the fluency of the human tongue. Baseball statistics have been developed over the years. Early baseball statistics were only aimed at recalculating what happened, but the surveyor realized that statistics could be used to predict future events. As a result, in the latter part of the 20th century, a wave of new statistics has emerged to keep the player's value more accurately predicted. The work of James, Dewan, Ricky, Palmer's military investigators has laid the foundation for teams to adopt similar ideas and strategies when creating lists and deciding games. Front desk also takes advantage of the inefficiency of in-game and foreground strategies, as the military school staff at that time recognized the flaws in current player evaluation methods and created new statistics to address known shortcomings did.

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Introduction to computer systems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Introduction to computer systems - Essay Example In this scenario the business has established its intentions and objectives toward implementing completely new business management system. This report is intended to present a detailed analysis of some of main aspects of new system implementation. These important aspects can include business customer management and transactions management, etc. This report will also discuss the PC related requirements such as operating system requirements and other software and hardware requirements. 2- PC REQUIREMENTS This section is aimed at presenting the fundamental aspects of the new business management workstations. In this section I will present specifications and analysis of main technology features and aspects for new computer systems at corporation. Here for this purpose we have established some standards and frameworks those need to be followed for achieving better quality business management. ... e less costly 1.1- System Selected After the detailed market research and analysis of local and web based computer business shops I have assessed that the most excellent solution for the online customer management is Vostro 230 Slim-Tower. This system is slim, smart and looks attractive. Additionally, the overall processing and storage capability of this system is excellent. Below I have outlined the system’s specification and image: Figure 1- Dell Vostro 230 Slim-Tower Source: http://www.techlocation.com/files/2010/03/Dell-Vostro-Mini-Tower-Price-580x420.jpg 1.2- System Specifications PROCESSOR This system is based on Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5800 w/VT (3.2GHZ, 2MB L2, 800FSB) (Dell). OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit is installed on this system (Dell). OFFICE SOFTWARE This system comes with Microsoft ® Office Starter: reduced-functionality Word & Excel w/ads but no PowerPoint or Outlook (Dell). SERVICES & WARRANTY Dell Corporation offers 1 Year Basic L imited Warranty and 1 Year NBD On-Site Service for this system (Dell). MEMORY RAM This system includes 3GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHZ - 1x2GB 1x1GB (Dell). OPTICAL DRIVE (DVD) This system is offering Single Drive: 16X DVD-ROM Drive (Dell). HARD DRIVE (Main Storage) The memory of this system is up to 320GB with Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cacheâ„ ¢ (Dell). VIDEO CARD This system is having Integrated Video (based on Intel ® GMA X4500) (Dell). MONITOR We have selected Dell 18.5 inch Widescreen E1910H Flat Panel display device (Dell). SECURITY SOFTWARE This system offers Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security Services for 15-months (with cost of $39) (Dell). MODEM & WIRELESS There is no modem option available in this system (Dell). MEDIA READER This system does not offer any Media Reader

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Consumer Reports Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Consumer Reports - Essay Example But those whose treatment consisted of mostly talk therapy did almost as well if they had 13 or more visits with the therapist." (1) More scientific data is needed before health professionals can determine whether or not this is true. Both problems are much more complex than the article indicates. Either can be strictly psychological and, therefore, benefit more from talk therapy than drugs. They may also stem from a strictly physical problem and, therefore would appear to benefit more from drugs. Or the third scenario would be that they are both caused by a combination of the physical and psychological. If this is true, then a healthy response to treatment would respond better to both treatments: talk therapy and drugs. Some early analyses seemed to suggest that medications were better if the client were severely depressed. Giving away their pro-drug bias, the American Psychiatric Association jumped on the results and recommended drugs as the first line of treatment in people who are severely depressed. Now, all too quietly, the truth emerges.

Monday, August 26, 2019

Reducing urban traffic congestion Research Paper

Reducing urban traffic congestion - Research Paper Example Having been faced by various divergent perspectives on policies and approaches for dealing with traffic congestions, what kind of recommendation can policy makers be given in order to ensure there are the best possible policy outcomes of transport? Traffic congestions in urban areas takes on numerous faces, takes place in distinct contexts, and is as result of various processes. Due to these reasons, there is no one particular approach to managing traffic congestions; and this paper is therefore is not dictatorial about specific management measures of traffic congestions in urban areas. Nevertheless, there are quite a number of things that policies for traffic congestion management should consider if they are to reduce traffic congestions in urban areas. With that regards, this paper seeks to address traffic congestions in urban areas, its causes, costs and impacts, and management measures and strategies of reducing traffic congestions (Fielding 239). It is very unlikely that vehicle automation or roadway construction will alleviate most major urban traffic congestion in future. ... ches and compare them qualitatively against different criteria: economic efficiency, effectiveness at reducing congestion, flexibility of access for urgent trips, and income distribution effects. There are also recommendations made concerning measures of capacity-allocation with prospective to increase economic efficiency and to minimize traffic congestion (Laian 178). Introduction Traffic congestion are the incremental costs originating from among road users’ interference. The effects are significant under peak urban conditions in which volumes of traffic approach the capacity of the road. The consequent traffic congestion minimizes mobility and increases vehicle costs, driver stress and pollution. Traffic congestion is considered as one of the primary urban transportation problems, with an annual approximated cost of $100 billion in the United States, comparable to other countries. For example, in 2000, in US metropolitan areas, the average driver endured 27 traffic delay ho urs, an increase from 7 traffic delay hours in 1980. Traffic delays are noticeably worse than in the United States in many other countries. In developing countries traffic congestion in urban areas is rising with alarming rapidity. For more than 5 decades, economists have been advocating pricing of traffic congestion as the way to manage traffic congestion in urban areas; however, in spite some successes, pricing of traffic congestion is still encountering substantial resistance politically (Paulley 176). Urban centers and traffic have simultaneously developed since the earliest massive human settlements. Similar forces drawing inhabitant to congregate in large cities and urban areas result into intolerable traffic congestion levels on city streets and thoroughfares. An effective governance of

Analysis of the financial statements of three leading supermarkets in Research Paper

Analysis of the financial statements of three leading supermarkets in UK - Research Paper Example Reporting financial results in a transparent and straightforward fashion is a means to an end (Fridson & Alvarez, 2002). The financial performance of a company can be discerned by the different financial ratios in accounting that tries to evaluate the overall financial condition of a company. The different financial ratios can be categorised into liquidity ratios, activity ratios, debt ratios and profitability ratios. Liquidity ratios measure the company's availability of cash to pay its obligations and debts. Activity ratios measure the ability of the company to convert non-cash assets into cash. Debt ratios measure the company's capability to repay long term obligations. Profitability ratios measures how the company controls its expenses and uses its assets in order to generate an acceptable rate of return. Based on the financial statements and financial ratios calculated, Tesco is more liquid than Sainsbury and Morrison. The liquidity of the company is measured by the current assets ratio as well as the acid test ratio. An asset is liquid if can be readily converted to cash, while a liability is liquid if it must be repaid in the near future. The current assets ratio compares the assets that will turn into cash within the year to the liabilities that must be paid within the year. The acid test ratio is a more conservative liquidity measure where the numerator of the current ratio is reduced by the value of its inventory. (Higgins, 1995) The trends of Tesco's liquidity ratios are increasing from 2007 to 2009. This means that the company has

Sunday, August 25, 2019

High School Violence Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

High School Violence - Essay Example Using the research questions and assumptions used in Chapter I, the researcher developed a research survey questionnaire that was presented in Chapter III. For Chapter V, the researcher will come up with a conclusion based on the quantitative and qualitative data analysis and the research findings presented in Chapter IV. Right after discussing the study conclusion, the student will discuss about the implications for teaching practices including some implications for future research. The research questions in the study were answered using a combination of quantitative and qualitative research questionnaires that was distributed to randomly selected participants between the age brackets of 14 – 18 years old at (name of US high school) and (name of US high school). Eventually, the research survey results was compared to the research findings that was reported by the National School Safety Center: Review of School Safety Research (2006) including the Childhood experience and the personal relationship of each individual with the parents significantly affect the behavior of each individual. Since the development of a child’s attitude starts at home, parents are considered to be responsible in the psychological, mental, and behavioral development of their children. Likewise, the school teachers also have a role to play in terms of disciplining the students whereas students in general could easily track down possible causes of school violence more than the school teachers or parents since these young individuals are more closely involved with other children who are capable of committing violent acts. Since parents, teachers, and students are among the three most important groups that actively participate in school activities, the research study concluded that it is important for these groups to be given a special role to play in the prevention of school violence. Encouraging these people to

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Cultural studies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Cultural studies - Essay Example This is possible when the spirit is free from the influence of the universal will and instead it should be moved by the pure will or pure knowing. â€Å"Hegel believes that the idea of individual consciousness is closely connected with the Notion of Utility† (p.355). (G.W.F Hegel, 1977). It is this Notion of Utility which gives a new shape to the human consciousness-that of absolute freedom which Hegel considers as the ‘essence of all actuality’. Thus Spirit, in this absolute freedom, is aware of its own pure personality and of all spiritual reality which is a product of the general will of all individuals as such (p. 356). But there is a tendency for the consciousness to abolish all the ‘social groups or classes which are the spiritual spheres into which the whole is articulated’ (p. 357). Thus, it is necessary to bring about a balanced notion regarding the concept of absolute freedom and the way it creates difference between the individual and the universal consciousness. According to Hegel, the individual needs to respond to both the universal consciousness and his own personal consciousness . On the other hand he should also make sure that he doesn’t adhere himself to the dictates of the universal consciousness. The element of being is the key to nourish one’s self-consciousness. The self- consciousness should never be allowed to live in a world of illusion thinking that it is accomplishing a particular work while fulfilling the universal work itself. (p. 359). Hegel is of the opinion that the universal will represents only one actual will in a self whereas all other individual will are excluded from it. That is why he considers government as the ‘individuality of the universal will’ which represents only the ‘victorious faction’ (p. 360). Therefore, any attempt to bring together the universal will with that of the individual will is quite impossible and one should negate the very notion of â€Å"the individual as a being existing

Friday, August 23, 2019

Critically assess the US foreign policy-making process. What are its Essay

Critically assess the US foreign policy-making process. What are its main strengths and weaknesses - Essay Example The United States sets interaction among its organizations, corporations and individual citizens and into other nations through the implementation of its foreign policy. The United States does not live by its own economy alone but its level of achievement in the world depends on its interaction with its surrounding environment. It is known that the United States performs its functions not just for its people but to its surrounding nations and all other countries in which it has tied up interaction with. For instance, its healthy interaction with China is another important part that it needs to take into account. China is said to be an emerging economy in Asia and it is becoming extraordinary when it comes to its capacity to influence the world economy. With this, the United States has to essentially perform the best possible option in order to maintain its healthy interaction with Chinese government. On the other hand, the United States’ interaction with oil producing countrie s is another important strategy in which its economy will be able to survive in times of financial challenges. Thus, it is important to consider healthy foreign policy that will protect its national interests in times when there is a need so. ... The international distribution of power according to realists is one of the reasons why the United States adopts foreign policy, but another approach is giving more emphasis on the political institutions of a country in the domestic setting (Trubowitz, 2004). As can be observed, power is the bottom line which is one of those that influence the United States foreign policy making. There are different motivated individuals and groups competing against each other in order to achieve flow of power and symbolism in the government and society. And this eventually affects the entire foreign policy making process of the United States (Rosati and Scott, 2010). Competition at some point is healthy. Then one of the strengths in the United States’ foreign policy-making process is the ability to come up with the best procedure because it is necessary to substantiate all the needed concerns for the purpose of ensuring national interests. However, because of this competition there is also a need to properly define the best intention of stakeholders and other competing organizations in as thorough as possible. This is a disadvantage point because the unlikely intention may have greater chance to prevail in the process and will eventually affect the entire foreign policy-making process. As a result, the output may not entirely be for the national interest alone but for the benefits of the few. This creates a considerable issue because of the inclusion of power and generally politics. For instance, private groups have the capacity to check the state’s initiatives and this is due to the weakness of the US political system at some point (Krasner, 1977). Secure global system is one of the primary expectations in instituting foreign policy (Hill, 2002). This is highly

Thursday, August 22, 2019

The Organizational Change Essay Example for Free

The Organizational Change Essay A. What is organizational change? Organizational change is a term used to describe a total overhaul of an organisation. This refers to a big scale changes to suit the current change in needs. There are many reasons. Sometimes there is need for an organisation to curb challenges arising like neck to neck competition, retrenchments or massive lay offs. It may also involve new changes in technology and an organisation might want to adopt or re-fix the new structure in their work places. All this will affect the working operations and environment of an organisation. Organizations sometimes might find need to merge with other related organisation this will force both organisation to restructure (McNamara, 2008). Basic Context for Organizational Change An extreme markets battle has forced many organizations to adopt many ways to survive. An organization might have been offering quality services or rather substandard services hence need to adopt modern technology. This cannot be done without know how, it requires in depth information about how and how effective the change will be. Organizational change can be very expensive, some organization are on favor for minimal changes as they review the effect of the new change. These small changes act as stepping stones for more changes to come for instance lay offs; this is a very costly assignment to an organization. It is important to learn that organizational change requires lots of funding (Darby Mcglynn, 2000, p13). Though this can bring desirable transformation, it is a painful undertaking especially where finance is concern. At the end of the day an organization should evaluate its achievements brought about by the big change Organization change is a very technical procedure; it requires intellectuals, skilled person or specialist who has an insight understanding about the running, management and all other that pertain administration. The entire running and management will be approached very differently of an organization. It entails new procedures and regulations to be followed by the organization’s management and entire work force (Darby Mcglynn, 2000, p13). Every organizational change presents new vision and approach. Accomplishment of the targeted goals and result is now viewed in another perspective; this is because the change might come up with new challenges. The duties and roles of every individual worker changes, others might be absorbed hence need for everyone involved to specialize on ones best subject. It’s noteworthy to learn that every each organizational change shakes all the running of an organization from the top level to bottom and bring new sense of direction. After organization change is accomplished efficiency should be expected and redundancy eliminated (Darby McGlynn, 2000, p. 13). B. Forces for and resistance to organizational change  Organizational change is viewed as a life circle and every organization should undergo in order to survive both internal and external pressures. It is very fundamental given other forces surrounding the change are put into account. Emergence of new technology can compel an organization to embrace and adopt, for the benefits and betterment of an organization. Computerization of an organization’s department is a perfect example of technology changes especially those which have been carrying on their duties manually Such office automation comes with more efficiency and reliability in executing duties (Darby McGlynn, 2000, p13 ). Another example is the introduction of automated teller machines by banks, despite their cost they are accurate and efficient s compared to bank clerks. In that connection it can led a bank into providing more products and services to their clients and customers, competitiveness needs for more supply in the market, change of services products. For any organisational change to take place it need profound consultation in relation to the targeted results. Its result and final achievement should be tangible and convincing (McNamara, 2008). C. Evolutionary and revolutionary change in organizations  Evolutionary change The change within the organization should be successful and constant such that it does not arouse any massive upheavals within and without the organization. Major development and progress in any organization is dependant on the degree of change in the new ideas and how the affected react to it. The organizations need to check at what their users want and supply them appropriately. The use of the collective intelligence and social networking within the organization is evolutionary since it encourages the blending of different good ideas towards the progress of the organization. Exploration of complex situations and involving everybody to participate intermsof decision making is also evolutionary to an organization (Casey, 2008). Attracting people to your vision as a manager within an organization plays a very important role in persuading them to buy into your outcome products, since this will give them a since of feeling that their contributions are very appreciated. Initiatives are the best way to introduce implement and institutionalize deliberate and on-going renewal. The involvement of many people in operational problem solving evolves to Participative Management Problem which is a profit sharing program that increases productivity and employee involvement across the board (Miraglia, 1994). For the renewal of any organization it calls for the organization to improve on its response to customer needs and increase its willingness to experiment with multi-function structures and teams which are led by entrepreneurial spirit. The management layers also need to be scrutinized and reduced and the ineffective functions scrapped off. Determining better ways of pushing responsibilities to every section of the organization without any inconvenience is evolutionary. The creation and continuation of complex activities like efforts in training and quality management processes brings better changes to an organization. This calls for the keeping of simultaneous changes to move in relationship to each other rather than in isolation (Casey, 2008). Revolutionary Change The organizations don’t look to their users in order to try and adjust on what users are willing to adapt to on a large scale. The situation by which most organizations only look for the way to sell out their big products without considering the taste of the consumers is revolutionary since they force the consumers into doing new things they are not comfortable with. The abrupt introduction of or addition new technology within the organization is sometimes very disruptive since it will require quite a bit of training which will consume sometime to allow for adjustment (Miraglia, 1994). The time taken by the organization to sell out its ideas sometimes can be longer. This can be due to disagreements across the decision making board which delays the implementation processes. Within any organization the implication for the Human resources need to seen as not only just to preserve and teach old lessons, vocabulary and assumptions but also to lead in the change processes, development of versatile models, teaching and encouraging new vocabulary and also be at the forefront of the encouraging continuous learning and sharing of knowledge The critical business issues like entrance into emerging markets and new product development pose a revolutionary change into the organization. The competition by related organizations also poses a challenge (Miraglia, 1994). D. Managing the Organizational Change Since an organization is a group or an association made by people who come together with different thoughts and opinions with an aim of achieving certain goals, therefore an organization is made up of individuals and in order for organizational change to be successful; there are different principles which should be considered. First an individual has got to achieve personal change which gives a positive approach to the change by applying it. Thoughtful planning and implementing sensitivity is another crucial principle to boost the organizational change. Consultation and involvement of the individuals affected by the organizational change is important since forcing of changes to an individual will cause problems (Kotter, 2002). The organizational change must be real, measurable and also achievable. These characteristics are relevant in the management of individual changes. Before the commencement of organizational change management, there are questions which are supposed to be taken into consideration. Organizational achievements, why, and how will an organization know if it has achieved the changes. Who the changes have affected and their reactions, how much of the change can be achieved and what parts of the change which are needed with help. These features are in strong relation to the management of the Organizational change (Kotter, 2002). For proper management, change needs to be understood and managed in such a way that people can successfully cope with. The director is the settling pressure. The affected organization or individuals need to agree with the change, understand the need for change and also be given a chance to decide on how the change will be managed and also they should be involved in the application and planning of the change (Kotter, 2002). Confronting each other is the best way to undertake susceptible issues of organizational change management. People or employees need to encourage their, manager to talk face to face to them if they are of help to the manager in managing the organizational change. Sending mails through internet and writing notices are the weakest ways of communication and enlargement understanding. If there is urgent change to be made in an organization, the reasons should be investigated and also its urgency is real. Also their needs to be consideration if the consequences of accepting the rational time-frame can be more devastating rather than taking control over the unsuccessful change. Fast changes in organizations avoid proper consultations and involvement and these leads to complications and more times is consumed when it comes to solving the issues (Kotter, 2002). For successful management for an organizational change, top management in an organization should be involved. This brings out reliability, ideas and expressiveness from the champions. Change is achieved when carried out as a group. The change representative always has a role of carrying out translation of the vision to a practical plan and also carries out the plan. Change communication is required to be regular with all the affiliates of the organization. For change to be maintained, the organizations’ composition needs to be given an amendment by either making course of actions, guiding principles and also deliberate plans. Such kind of change in the constructions of an organization characteristically involves re-freezing process and an unfreezing change (Mc Namara, 2008). E. Organizational Development Organizational Development is a challenge which gives authority to the organizational members in order for expansion to take place in peoples’ openness with each other concerning their opinions of the association and their experiences in the organization. This encourages members to take greater accountability for their own deeds as members of the organization. In organizational development the assumption is that when people practice the purposes simultaneously, there is a likeliness of organizations finding out new techniques of working together and hence there is achievement of the organizational goals (Nielsen, 1984, pp2-3). The final thought of organizational expansion is that organizations are social arrangements. Their aim is to increase long term presentation and physical condition of the organization as well as to also improve lives of its associates. The organizational development loom stresses on organization background which manipulates the way people perform their duties using organizational change based on exploration and achievement (Toolpack Consulting surveys, 2008). By using planned modification based on research, there is increase in motivation, elimination of obstructions and easier change. The perfect is an organization where there is constant improvement which is rampant in a way that it is not expected as a proposal. Organizational Development, changes the performances, shared beliefs and values, of the organization by working with technical and social systems like incentives, communication, work processes and civilization (Toolpack Consulting surveys, 2008) Organizational Development assists an organization in authorizing leaders and individuals’ workers. It also creates a culture of constant improvement and arrangement around shared achievements. There is easier and faster change making. All the minds of the employees are put to task. Organizational Development also enhances momentum and quality of choices. There is also assistance by the Organizational Development in beneficial conflict making rather than negative. Also leaders are given more control over the outcome by giving workers more authority over how they do their tasks (Toolpack Consulting surveys, 2008). There are different benefits which the Organizational Development has achieved, they include satisfaction to its customers, individual feeling of success, and profits by reducing costs for non profits, improvement suppleness of the organization, they have also achieved effectiveness of the costs as well as living, occupation and employment satisfaction. Objectives of organizational development are observed in an organization where, the needs of the customers are always recognized and thought about by the managers and the workers, also people get remunerations for success instead of failure of innovation or creativity hence there is high improvement. The construction and processes are based on the present requirements rather than in the past needs hence there is efficiency and assistance offered to people (Tool pack consulting surveys, 2008). Also in an organization, organizational development s’ objectives are achieved when in an organization; there is constructive resolving and conflict treatment. Hence this is used for modernization with no suppression and lack of intrusion with efficiency. The system of rewarding strengthens the organizational wellbeing. Also open communication is encouraged in both imaginative and straight and hence all the appropriate feelings are distributed and due to this, people can learn from the experience. Decisions are required to be made by people with most related, express knowledge (Toolpack Consulting surveys, 2008). Conclusion Organizational Change is a very crucial feature which brings about wide change in any organization with the aim of assisting the organization achieves its goals strategically. Such changes include, restructuring of self managed teams, new technologies, collaborations, mission changing and also changing of the complete Management of Quality. Hence there is transformation of the organization. This designates essential as well as elementary orientation in the way that the association operates (Mc Namara, 2008). In order for this change to take place successfully, individuals play a very important role in the organization. Hence there opinions and achievements as well as there aims are very crucial and require to be put into consideration. And this will only be possible with the application of some principles which once put into practice; the change becomes successful (Kotter, 2002). Since communication is important to the success of any organizational change efforts, it is important for face to face communication since it is believed to be strong as compared to sending mails and notices. Motivation should be encouraged amongst the organization by rewards, incentives etc. Organizational Development is of great benefit to organizations since it brings about profits, satisfaction both at work and in life. Also goals are achieved due to the Organizational Development efforts (Tool pack Consulting surveys, 2008).

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Official Crime Statistics Essay Example for Free

Official Crime Statistics Essay What are the main strengths and weaknesses of official crime statistics and victimization surveys? In this essay I will be discussing the main strengths and weaknesses of official crime statistics and victimization surveys. I have done tremendous research to back up my work, I have also used famous criminologists and other bodies who understand criminalization to help re-enforce my points. Most experts and successful authors, such as Tim Newburn, Brent E. Turvey and Clive Coleman have attempted, through their literature to show how crime has evolved and how surveys have influenced the public’s views about it. The first ever national crime statistics were published in France, 1827. Adolphe Quetelet, a scholar and previous astronomer was the first individual to take a serious approach and interest in criminal statistics. He then went on to become a leading body in criminology and social sciences for his work. Official crime statistics are placed under the ideology of crime rates in the UK and Wales. Numbers that the BCS, police and other law aboding bodies can gather together from the public, their research and other sources to help give the most accurate rate of crime they can. Victimisation surveys are generally random samples of the population asked whether they have been a victim to crime within a specific period of time. The reasons why these two different types of surveys must be taken are so that crime statistics can attempt to be more solid, although the argument is always made that there will never be an accurate percentage of crime and I will also be touching on why this statement has and always will be made. Crime statistics and Victimisation surveys are polls taken and received by victims of crime or the criminals and individuals who commit them. There has been much controversy amongst crime statistics of how accurate and precise they really are. I will be discussing these issues, but overall focusing my main points onto the strengths and weaknesses of official crimes statistics and victimisation surveys. Without crime statistics there would be no base grounds on the numbers of crimes averagely committed, by what sex and by what age group. Howeve r, without victimization surveys crimes may stay ‘hidden’ crimes such as domestic violence, burglary and intimidation. Why I mention these three in particular are because statistics show that most common repeat victims of crime are within these types of offences. Other offences also include other household theft and vandalism. One example of a top victimization survey is the British Crime Survey. The British Crime Survey or BCS for short is a nationally represented survey with a successful sample of approximately 47,000 adults living in private households in England and wales every year. The BCS started its survey’s in 1981 and it became a fluent survey database until 2001/2002. This survey is a face to face interview where the respondents or victims are asked about their experiences and feelings of crime that may have happened to them or people they know in the last 12 months, the BCS also ask them about their opinions of crime and crime related topics such as anti-social behaviour. These types of people would also be asked about the effectiveness of the police and how they deal with these is sues of crime. The British crime survey is a very important key piece of information and source of data on the background of respondents and the overall circumstances of victimization. A public, accurate crime statistic is most commonly the police, a more community based, less national and less accurate version as it’s range of scope does not cover the nation; however both sources limit themselves to a set of offences. Making it easier to gain a more accurate percentage. One main difference between the BCS and the police is that the BCS excludes victimless crimes, drug dealing and murder. The reason for this is the victims are no longer available to discuss the events that happened. Other crimes they exclude are sexual offences; this is generally due to the small number reported and the unwillingness of respondents to come forward. Another main difference between the two is that BCS thefts including personal property and other household items, because with the police they would involve everything included in the theft, jewellery, personal belongings, with the BCS it would all fall into a similar category making it a difficult task to achieve. A weakness of official crime statistics and victimisation surveys is that an argument could be bought up are they actually official? Just because they’re published doesn’t make them correct. What about the crimes that aren’t reported, Because of victims being afraid, intimidated or not having trust in the police. These events being called ‘Hidden Crimes’ or as they are often referred to ‘Dark Figures’. In addition to this, modern day statistics are now more enclosed, for example in Tim Newburn’s ‘Criminology’ he discusses how crimes such as violence against the person accounts to events such as murder, assa ult, however not reckless driving which could be considered to focus fully on physical damage. So as statistics are not as open to as many crimes as they wish, some will slip through and possibly go into a much minor category. Obviously a disadvantage being that individual may feel neglected and reluctant to detail the events. Due to the declining of main volume crimes in the recent years, beliefs about crime are still quite high. A third of the population from 2003 still believed that crime was a high rated problem. Advantages of Statistics such as these are that they tend to give the public a clear understanding of what crime rates are at. This table shows beliefs about crime, public fear that possibly the tabloids could have caused. This is discussed a weakness to crime statistics and the public, in a way the media are creating crimes, feeding on crime fear. As I mentioned earlier Crime statistics are never fully accurate and power is always an important factor when determining crime. Smaller crimes such as robbery are associated with the ‘Underclass’ Theory by Charles Murray. These types of offences are more down to the individual rather than a group. Dr Ziggy MacDonald of the University of Leicester wrote a piece in the Economic Journal about ‘Hidden Crimes’, one of the things his research showed was that ‘forecasts of crime trends fail to take proper account of what drives unreported crime. For example, someone who is currently unemployed is 7% less likely to report a burglary than someone who is currently in work, while someone on a relatively high income is 8% more likely to report a burglary than someone on less than average income’ He discussed how the decrease in employment could eventually lead to the higher rate of theft from people’s properties, and resulting in victims not reporti ng it, maybe thinking it won’t matter as their income isn’t high enough to replace the item anyway. Even though the difference between low income individuals and high income individuals is 1% which from my research closely is around 16% burglaries every year as a crime rate, 1% of those victims with a low income are subjected towards not reporting theft of their possessions. Certain individual’s economic status (as shown in from MacDonald’s work) can become a huge factor when determining ‘Hidden Crimes’. People could feel helpless as income is low, or they may live in a deprived area, with no way of being helped their behaviour could become ‘broken’ referring to the ‘broken glass theory’ a single building could have a shattered window for a period of time and the community around that area may feel unwanted, leaving a physical and emotional gap between this community and the open world. Because of this, other buildings may become trashed and broken, people would begin to avoid the area it ‘self, the idea of fear within these ‘Hidden Crimes’. This adds to the statistics the BCS and the police may not know about, smaller areas may not be expected to have high rates of crime and therefore focus is taken away from them. Bigger areas such as Birmingham would be a prime target for crime, the assumption is made. Another theory could that there could possibly be Marxist Criminology, Crime due to class divisions within a society or community, or pe rhaps crimes of the powerful, individuals or groups of people being treated differently in society, expelled from other physical and emotional contact, leaving them no choice but to turn to crime. Transference, to be precise. In August, 2011 the riots in the United Kingdom gave breach to a huge collaboration of crime sprees. Over 1000 people were arrested, yet possibly over 100,000 protested against this Marxist Criminology from politics, student fees and tax increases. Not every individual was caught, making statistics even scarcer. These significant changes within society set alight events that triggered this. This idea of Neo Marxism relating to ‘Dark Figures’ as not every individual in society has the same equal access as other fortunate people, be it financially, emotionally and they lash out because of it. Yet these ‘crimes’ aren’t recorded, they go unnoticed and became a damaging part of a society. In relation to this is the Left Realism theory, a social democratic approach to the analysis of crime and the development of effective policies of crime control. At the heart of all of this is a source of suffering for the poor and the vulnera ble, this links from the ideology of smaller much petty crimes. Bullying for example which as many of 44% of suicides by children from the ages of 10-14 are potentially linked. Data sources of the years have developed and grown onto this topic from the 1900’s as society and trends begin to evolve. Children picked on because of their backgrounds or income, yet data sources still have a less accurate number to this topic than any other. Official crime statistics do not generally show crimes committed by corporations, if any results are shown, they aren’t ever big corporations. An example of corporations is Citibank, high profile data breaches, and even the business Sony. These ‘White Collar Crimes’ are not easily detected, distinguishing them from victimization surveys. They could be breaches of health and safety laws, not identifiable to the easiest detail. Linking to this could be an idea of a corporations being known as ‘Mavericks’ people who are the exceptions rather than the rules, so society and governing bodies refuse to believe that they would commit corporate crimes, allowing them to get off easy. Or even reduc ing the expected costs. One of the biggest corporate crimes was an incident that occurred in 1984 Bhopal. Hundreds of people were killed in a chemical accident, by a company called Union Carbide. They owned a pesticide plant which was around 3 miles from Bhopal. The leading director of that company told the BBC that ‘methyl isocyanate gas (MIC) had escaped when a valve in the plants underground storage tank broke under pressure’ As laws are different from the USA and India, payments have still not been made to the families, who deserve compensation, an American firm that is above the law and have been forced into no legal action whatsoever. Could this have future affects to India, How people live, fear foreign businesses, Should they have to live in fear. In conclusion to my research and the theories I have mentioned. I believe that crime statistics can define the crime rate in the UK every year, both types of surveys have their weaknesses and strengths, society as a whole helps mould the body of crime, they can also be the reliable source to provide it, and stop it. My results and research from numerous sources have given an indication on the levels of crime in the UK. Bibliography http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime-research/hosb1011/ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/627523/victim-survey http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/crime-justice/crime/victims-of-crime/index.html http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110218135832/http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/crimeew0809.html http://www.res.org.uk/society/mediabriefings/pdfs/2002/february/macdonald1.pdf http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/3/newsid_2698000/2698709.stm http://www.civitas.org.uk/crime/factsheet-YouthOffending.pdf

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Anti-Discriminatory Practice In Prisons

Anti-Discriminatory Practice In Prisons This briefing note will identify the problems and issues in relation to anti-discriminatory practice in prisons. A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person. (HMPS, 2007). Anti discriminatory practice is to challenge and reduce discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, age, disability and other forms of discrimination. Prison staff can easily discriminate other prison staff or prisoners on any of the forms of discrimination, mainly racial discrimination occurs in prison (Noden 2009).Over the last ten years the number of prisoners from ethnic backgrounds has increased dramatically, this briefing note looks at their conditions and treatments and the considerations in which to minimise racial discrimination in prisons. In many cases a prisoners particular needs are not met and they are not given the same support as other prisoners, prisoners are often treated with disrespect and experience racial abuse. The commission for racial equality announced that an investigation into racial discrimination in the prison service would be taking place, this investigation is going ahead due to the serious concerns that racism is widespread in many prisons. The commissions for racial equality are concerned at incidents of proven racial discrimination in the prison service. The decisions were made after several incidents including the murder of Zahid Mubarek, during custody at HMYOI Feltham, Zahid was murdered and was believed to be racially aggravated (BBC, 2003). Background: Overall, racial incidents have increased overtime, statistics show that in 2006 there were 11,389 complaints of racism and this has increased by 25% to 14,191 in 2008 and increasing each year. However racism between prisoners has decreased between 2006-2008, the most common racism complaint was prisoners against staff and increased by 39%, staff on staff racism increased by 37% and staff on prisoner racism also increased by 13% (Guardian, 2010). The murder of Zahid Mubarek lead to a formal investigation and found that the prison service had broken race laws on 17 different occasions, some of the breaches include failing to tackle a racist atmosphere in jails, discriminatory treatment of staff, and punishments based on racial stereotypes. The investigation found that prison culture meant that staff could ignore equality obligations and openly racist attitudes or behaviour had been tolerated (BBC, 2003). Prison staffs of ethnic minority were found to be working in an atmosphere of raci st taunting and would be victimised if they made complaints. Racial stereotyping was another factor, examples such as black inmates were more likely to be targeted for drugs testing then white cellmates, and that locking a prisoner in a cell for punishment was used unreasonably towards ethnic minority prisoners (BBC, 2003). 12% of the overall prison population are foreign prisoners, they originate from many different countries, mainly Jamaica, Pakistan, India and Turkey (Prison Reform Trust, 2004). Although the increasing numbers of prisoners, the prison service does not have a dedicated policy or strategy to deal with foreign prisoners. Majority of foreign prisoners have committed drug related offences and are serving sentences of more than four years. During the early 1990s there were an increasing number of Nigerian nationals sentenced for drug related offences, this has increased in the last decade to them being the largest single group of foreign prisoners. No source of regular income has led many Jamaicans prepared to make a living from the drug trade, providing them with a way out of poverty. Recent figures show that nearly 126 foreign nationals under the age of 18 were in custody and nearly half of them held in Feltham Young Offenders institution. (Hansard) Current Status: During a recent interview in March 2009, Muslim inmates have told the BBC that they have been verbally abused by staff at Glen Parva institute in Leicestershire. One man said Ive been called a terrorist just because I grow my beard or stupid Muslim.I had so many problems in this joint I cant tell you. This is the worst prison Ive been too more racist than others. During the same interview the prisoner also states that when a complaint is made, nothing is done about it, and the board always believes the prison staff. From this we can tell that racism is still rife in prisons, and that nothing seems to be done about it (BBC, 2009). Since the Zahid Mubarak case the prison reform trust has carried out many projects and researches into factors causing racial abuse and discrimination, the prison reform trust consulted BME prisoners and asked for feedback on changes that they would like to see in the prison that involve responding to racial incidents. The prisoners identified four main chan ges: The need for an independent review and input into investigations Procedures and rights in complaints should be clearly explained Enhancing the role of prisoner race representatives Mediation should be made available Key considerations/options: The prison system could apply the following changes in order to help minimise racial abuse and discrimination. Firstly each prison should adapt its solutions to meet the particular needs of the prisoners, this will increase the confidence in BME prisoners in the procedures for handling racial incidents, by implementing the changes it will enable both prisoners and staff to effectively communicate with each other and also come to an understanding. Prisons need to evaluate and look at the harm that racism causes to prisoners and staff, they also need to focus on the different types of racism that takes place (blatant racism, institutional racism etc), direct discrimination where punishments or benefits are given out on the grounds of race is one of the more common types of racism in prison, and by prison staff is not seen as racism, prison staff should be given relevant training on equality and diversity, and also be taught to respect other prisoners religious and moral values, once pr ison staff are aware of their beliefs and values then they can change the manner in which they do things to prevent them from discriminating. Prisons need to look at the current policies and procedures and assess whether the methods are effective or not, and whether changes need to be made, the current policies and procedures are not working because racial discrimination is still rife in prisons, the prison board needs to address this issue and look into changing the policies to suit the prisoners and staff, which will in turn minimise the risk of racism. More importantly they should consult prisoners and learn how they would like the prison to respond when racism takes place. When prisoners are involved in setting up systems to tackle racism, they will have more confidence in the system, as many feel that it is not an effective measure, they will also realise that the system is fair and sensitive. By consulting prisoners, solutions to problems can be identified, such as when a pris oner states that when a complaint is made, it is not kept confidential and if found out by other prisoners or staff could put themselves in danger to either more abuse or maybe even physical harm (Bhui, 2009), the prison board could then improve the manner in which complaints are made and to ensure that confidentiality is kept. The prison service should also look at each prisoners record and history to see if they have a history of racial abuse or any type of racial discrimination, this will decide whether they should put a certain prisoner on his own or sharing a cell with other prisoners, if this had been carried out, then the murder of Zahid Mubarek would not have taken place. Another consideration could be that to put all prisoners of the same race on the same wings, this will minimise the risk of racial abuse from other race prisoners, however this will also stop non racist prisoners from mixing and not allowing them to integrate with people from other ethnic backgrounds or com munities. The prison board should bring in new fully trained staff, who are aware of the different types of discrimination and the effects it has on prisoners and staff, this will ensure that prison staff are not committing racial acts, and prisoners can also approach staff if they are being verbally or physically abused by other prisoners, because they will have confidence that the staff can be trusted and something will be done about it. Each prison should be visited by an independent organisation once a month, it should investigate any incidents including racial and incidents that involved violence, by carrying out this measure it will put trust and confidence in the prisoners that if they were to put a complaint, an independent organisation would investigate and this could lead to the necessary changes that need to be made. The prison service should make sure that all prisoners are aware of the complaints procedures, aware of how they are reported and processed, and that prisone rs are protected from any attacks due to putting in a complaint (Prison Reform Trust, 2010). One prisoner stated If hes racist, he has got to be suspended. Right now, they have immunity to do whatever they want. There has to be a deterrent(Prison Reform Trust, 2010), another consideration that could be made is that staff or prisoners that do carry out racial attacks should either be suspended or given some type of punishment, this will deter them from carrying out the same offence again. Conclusion: This briefing note has identified the problems and issues in relation to anti-discriminatory practice in prisons. It firstly shows the background of how racial discrimination affects prisons, prisoners and staff members, it then goes on to explain the facts and statistics of racial attacks in prisons, the briefing note also explains the Zahid Mubarek case and the factors surrounding it. It then goes onto look at the current status in prisons, and looking at interviews from prisoners and their views and opinions on the changes that they would like to see in the prison system. Finally the briefing note gives reasons and analyses the changes that need to be made and the advantages and disadvantages with each option.

The Watergate Scandal :: President Richard Nixon

The tapes The hearings held by the Senate Watergate Committee, in which Dean was the star witness and in which many other former key administration officials gave dramatic testimony, were broadcast through most of the summer, causing devastating political damage to Nixon. The Senate investigators also discovered a crucial fact on July 13: Alexander Butterfield, deputy assistant to the President, revealed during an interview with a committee staff member that a taping system in the White House automatically recorded everything in the Oval Office—tape recordings that could prove whether Nixon or Dean was telling the truth about key meetings. The tapes were soon subpoenaed by both Cox and the Senate. Nixon refused, citing the theory of executive privilege, and ordered Cox, via Attorney General Richardson, to drop his subpoena. Cox's refusal led to the "Saturday Night Massacre" on October 20, 1973, when Nixon compelled the resignations of Richardson and then his deputy in a search for someone in the Justice Department willing to fire Cox. This search ended with Robert Bork, and the new acting department head dismissed the special prosecutor. Allegations of wrongdoing caused Nixon to famously state "I am not a crook" in front of 400 Associated Press managing editors at Walt Disney World in Florida on November 17. While Nixon continued to refuse to turn over actual tapes, he did agree to release edited transcripts of a large number. These largely confirmed Dean's account, and caused further embarrassment when a crucial, 18Â ½ portion of one tape, which had never been out of White House custody, was found to have been erased. The White House blamed this on Nixon's secretary, Rose Mary Woods, who said she had accidentally erased the tape by pushing the wrong foot pedal on her tape player while answering the phone. However, as photos splashed all over the press showed, for Woods to answer the phone and keep her foot on the pedal involved a stretch that would have challenged many a gymnast. She was then said to have held this position for the full 18Â ½ minutes. Later forensic analysis determined that the gap had been erased several—perhaps as many as nine—times over, refuting the "accidental erasure" explanation.. This issue of access to the tapes went all the way to the Supreme Court and on July 24, 1974 the Court unanimously ruled in United States v. Nixon that Nixon's claim of executive privilege over the tapes was void and they further ordered him to surrender them to special prosecutor Leon Jaworski.

Monday, August 19, 2019

Amr Moussa :: Essays Papers

Amr Moussa I am Amr Moussa. I currently represent the country of Egypt as Secretary General of the Arab League, but that’s getting ahead of myself. Allow me to take you back to my beginning. I was born on October 3rd 1936 (Medea’s Information files, 2002 pg 1). While I was growing up I studied law in Cairo, Egypt before I started my successful career as a civil servant. My duties as a civil servant began once I started in the office of Egyptian Foreign Affairs Ministry in 1958(Medea’s Information files 2002 pg 1). This was my first big break and I was going to take full advantage of it. In 1967, some 9 years later, I became the Egyptian Ambassador to India(The African Center, London 2002 pg 1). To me this was the break I had been looking for in my career. This was an opportunity I knew I had to capitalize on, and I did. I was also rewarded with permanent Representation to the United Nations in 1990(Medea’s Information files/Medea 2002 pg 1). Acting as the middleman between Israelis and Palestinians in 1992, when secret talks were going on, I gave my full support to the Declaration of Principles in September of 1993 to guarantee the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) of Egypt’s support. I was a supporter of the Israeli integration in the Middle East. I was very critical of the Israeli government for not having full support over the commitment to the peace process. I was also outraged at the lack of full support for not signing the new Non-Nuclear proliferation Treaty in 1995(Medea’s Information files 2002 pg 1). I have worked extremely hard my whole life to bring my country (Egypt) closer to neighboring countries such as Syria, Jordan, and Iran. Since I started on this journey, I have gained extensive ground to make such progress that is seen today. However there is still no guarantee that the relationships we have made will stand in future times of despair. I have been the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Government of Egypt since 1991(The African Center, London pg 1). In 2001 I was relieved of my duties at Minister for Foreign Affairs. I was recently appointed to be Secretary General of the Arab League of States in May of this past year of 2001(The African Center, London 2002 pg 1).

Sunday, August 18, 2019

Iagos Motivation in Shakespeares Othello :: Othello essays

Iago's Motivation in Othello      Ã‚   Iago is a "moral pyromaniac."   Harold C. Goddard writes that Iago consciously and unconsciously seeks to destroy the lives of others, especially others with high moral standards (Goddard 76).   However, Iago is more than just a "moral pyromaniac," he is a moral pyromaniac whose fire is fueled by pure hatred.   He is a hungry powermonger whose appetite for destruction can only be satisfied after he has chewed up and spat out the lives of others.   Iago lusts for power, but his sense of power is attained by manipulating and annihilating others in a cruel and unusual way.   Iago prepares and ignites his victims and then watches, with an excitable evil in his eye, as his human pyres go up in flames.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Iago undeniably has an unquenchable thirst for power and domination. Critics such as M. R. Ridley believe that the ability to hurt is the most convincing display of one's power   (Ridley lxi).   Iago has a deep, inbred desire to cause and view intolerable suffering.   The power of Iago is exercised when he prepares and then implements an evil plan designed to inflict man with the most extreme amounts of anguish possible.   Iago controls the play, he brilliantly determines how each character shall act and react.   He is a pressing advocate of evil, a pernicious escort, steering good people toward their own vulgar destruction.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Iago must first make careful preparations in order to make certain his fire of human destruction will burn with fury and rage.   He douses his victims with a false sense of honesty and goodness.   And, as do most skillful pyromaniacs, Iago first prepares his most important target, Othello:      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Though in the trade of war I have slain men,    Yet do I hold it very   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   stuff o'th' conscience   To do no contrived murder. I lack the iniquity.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   . .   I had thought t'have yerked him under the ribs . . . . . .he prated   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms   Against your Honor   (I,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   ii 1-10).    These sentences are obvious lies (to the reader), but they are crucial to the saboteur because they present Iago to Othello as a brave, loyal, and moral Iago's Motivation in Shakespeare's Othello :: Othello essays Iago's Motivation in Othello      Ã‚   Iago is a "moral pyromaniac."   Harold C. Goddard writes that Iago consciously and unconsciously seeks to destroy the lives of others, especially others with high moral standards (Goddard 76).   However, Iago is more than just a "moral pyromaniac," he is a moral pyromaniac whose fire is fueled by pure hatred.   He is a hungry powermonger whose appetite for destruction can only be satisfied after he has chewed up and spat out the lives of others.   Iago lusts for power, but his sense of power is attained by manipulating and annihilating others in a cruel and unusual way.   Iago prepares and ignites his victims and then watches, with an excitable evil in his eye, as his human pyres go up in flames.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Iago undeniably has an unquenchable thirst for power and domination. Critics such as M. R. Ridley believe that the ability to hurt is the most convincing display of one's power   (Ridley lxi).   Iago has a deep, inbred desire to cause and view intolerable suffering.   The power of Iago is exercised when he prepares and then implements an evil plan designed to inflict man with the most extreme amounts of anguish possible.   Iago controls the play, he brilliantly determines how each character shall act and react.   He is a pressing advocate of evil, a pernicious escort, steering good people toward their own vulgar destruction.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Iago must first make careful preparations in order to make certain his fire of human destruction will burn with fury and rage.   He douses his victims with a false sense of honesty and goodness.   And, as do most skillful pyromaniacs, Iago first prepares his most important target, Othello:      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Though in the trade of war I have slain men,    Yet do I hold it very   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   stuff o'th' conscience   To do no contrived murder. I lack the iniquity.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   . .   I had thought t'have yerked him under the ribs . . . . . .he prated   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms   Against your Honor   (I,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   ii 1-10).    These sentences are obvious lies (to the reader), but they are crucial to the saboteur because they present Iago to Othello as a brave, loyal, and moral

Saturday, August 17, 2019

Atlantic Slave Trade Essay

A slave can be defined as a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another, a bond servant or a person entirely under the domination of some influence or person. Slavery was well recognized in many early civilizations. Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, the Akkad Ian Empire, Assyria, Ancient India, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the Islamic Caliphate, the Hebrews in Palestine, and the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas all had either a form of debt-slavery, punishment for crime, enslavement of prisoners of war, child abandonment or birth of slave children to slaves. However, as the sixteenth century approached, so did the change in the way slavery would be looked at, for years to come. The Atlantic slave trade became the name of the three part economic cycle that involved four continents for four centuries and millions of people. The Atlantic slave trade or the middle passage, triangular trade and slavery affected the economy of Europe, Africa and the Americas in both negative and positive aspects. Starting in the 1430’s Portuguese were the first to sail down the coast of Africa to search for gold and jewels. The Portuguese had to extend their power across the co+ast because Sub-Saharan Africa’s trade routes were controlled by the Islamic Empire. By 1445, The Portuguese conquered three African countries and created trading posts. This allowed them access to Europe across the Sahara. Initially, the Portuguese traded copperware, cloth, tools, wine and horses for pepper, ivory and most importantly gold. The first slave purchase is said to have taken place in 1441 when the Portuguese caught two African males while they were along the coast. The Africans in the nearby village paid them in gold for their return. Eventually, they developed the idea that they could get more gold by transporting slaves along Africa’s coast. The Muslims were enticed by the idea of slavery as they used them as porters and for profit. Portugal had a monopoly on the export of slaves in Africa for more than two hundred years. This encounter is the beginning of one of the most tragic events in history, the Atlantic triangular trade (Thomas 1997). A triangular trade evolves when a region has export commodities that aren’t required in the region which its major imports come and provides a method for trade imbalances. The triangular trade is named for the rough shape it makes on a map. It worked like a triangle between all the colonies that were involved. For centuries the world was took part in its most successful trading system. There where nearly fifteen million Africans were shipped to both North and South America for more than three-hundred. Slaves, cash crops and manufactured goods were the most traded between the Americas, Europe and Africa. The Europeans controlled the first stage of the trade by carrying supplies for sale and trade such as, cloth, spirit, tobacco, beads, shells, metal goods and guns. This was their method of which were used to help expand empires and capture more slaves. These goods were exchanged for purchased and kidnapped African slaves (www. nmm. ac. uk/freedom/viewTheme. cfm/theme/triangular). African kings and merchants would capture the slaves or organize campaigns ran by the Europeans. The motives of the Europeans were based on one thing; they lacked a major source, a work force. It was stated that the Indigenes people were unreliable and Europeans were unsuited to the climate. However, Africans had experience in agriculture, keeping cattle, content with the climate. Africa soon became reliant on the slavery of their people and the profits that came along with it. The next stage involved the slaves being transported by voyage to the Americas and Caribbean, the middle passage (PBS. â€Å"The African Slave Trade and the Middle Passage. † http://www. pbs. org/wgbh/aia/part1/1narr4. html). The middle passage was a perilous, horrendous journey slaves made across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas. The final stage of the Atlantic slave trade was the return to Europe from the Americas with the produce from the slave-labor plantations. Most regions of North and South America were used to provide these raw materials to Europe for manufacturing. This wasn’t the first or only slave trade, but it was the cruelest. What began as a quest for gold ended as a quest for slaves, leaving a major stamp on African and American history (Thomas 1997). Before undergoing the middle passage, slaves faced human misery and suffering. Kidnapped slaves were forced to walk shackled in slave caravans to European coastal forts. Due to the lack of food and energy, half of the slaves became sick and were killed or left to die. Some had the strength to make it so they were left in underground dungeons. For years, Africans were stranded in these dungeons across the coast of Africa.. There, they wait on the embarked horrid encounter of the entire slave trade, the middle passage. None of the previous passengers returned to their homeland so none of the Africans knew what they were about to endure. The voyages were generally organized by companies and investors because they were a huge financial burden(â€Å"The African Slave Trade and the Middle Passage). Two theories show the packing of slaves in the European ships; loose and tight packing. Loose packing carried less slaves with the hopes of more room and more slaves making it to the Americas alive and in fair condition. This was exchanged for tight packing. Captains believed despite more casualties, this would yield a greater profit. On occasion, veterinarians inspected the slaves before the voyage to determine which slaves could make it across the Atlantic Ocean. The enslaved Africans were chained together by hand and foot, not even being able to lie on one’s side. They ate, slept, urinated, defecated, gave birth and died all in that one spot. There was overcrowding, inadequate ventilation and little to no sanitation. Twenty percent of every hundred died along the way from either suffocation, starvation, amoebic dysentery, scurvy or a disease such as small pox. The slaves that died were thrown overboard as well as the slaves that showed illness. Some threw their self-overboard risking their life rather than deal with these horrific measures. Approximately fifteen million captured Africans were sent to the Americas. The middle passage was the longest, most dangerous part of the Atlantic slave trade (â€Å"The Middle Passage Experience†). From the seventeenth century on, slaves became the focus of trade between Europe and Africa. Europe had already colonized North and South America as well as the Caribbean islands from the fifteenth century onward. This created an insatiable demand for African laborers, who were deemed â€Å"more fit† to work in the tropical conditions of the New World. The numbers of slaves imported across the Atlantic Ocean steadily increased, from approximately 5,000 slaves a year in the sixteenth century to over 100,000 slaves a year by the end of the eighteenth century (www. mariner. org/captivepassage). Upon their arrival to the Americas, the slaves were washed, greased and placed inside dungeons. The grease added a more appealing look making the slaves appear healthier so the profit would be much higher. European slave traders made sure all of their potential properties were in well condition before bidding. They were branded with a hot iron to keep their identity as a slave. There were two main types of slave auctions; highest bidder or grab and go auctions. Highest bidder was a bidding process which the buyer with the highest bid would get the slave. Grab and go auctions was the process in which the buyer would give the trader an agreed amount of money in exchange for a ticket. This process was where the slaves were released from their dungeon and the buyers would rush and grab the slave they wanted, Each slave would be sold to an owner who owned a great deal of land and worked on either a plantation or mine and there, the living conditions were still only barely better (Curtin 1969) A prominent African, author and a major influence on the enactment of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, Olaudah Equiano was well aware and very familiar with the Atlantic slave trade. At the age of eleven, Equiano and his sister were kidnapped from his village in Nigeria. He survived the middle passage, and taken to the West Indies. He tells how he was bought by Captain Pascal, a British naval Officer as a â€Å"present† for a cousin. He tells how was enslaved in North America for ten years, working as a seaman. In 1766, he bought his freedom and wrote an autobiography, â€Å"The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano,† Equiano gave a firsthand look of the conditions enslaved Africans were forced to live. This document was one of the first documents that explained, thoroughly, the terrible human cruelty of the Atlantic slave trade (Wright et al. 001). Although many lives were taken or at risk, The Atlantic slave trade fulfilled its major goal, profit and change the three continents. Europe, America and Africa’s economy were all affected by the slave trade. Europe’s economy was suffering before the slave trade. The Atlantic slave trade was during the time of recovery for Europe and completely recovered their economy. Because of the success of the trade, they needed more people to manufacture raw materials and export them to Africa. The great supply of jobs created many exports and the income to buy imports. By the end of the slave trade, Europe’s economy was in well standings as one of the wealthiest continents in the world. The America’s economies rose too. They were honored with a free workforce that provided many resources from sugar to cotton. The free labor allotted for them to received one hundred percent of the profit. They were importing more slaves and exporting the goods made by them to gaining wealth. America’s economy became agriculturally stable and soon industrialized. Europe and the Americas economies were affected in a positive way. However, Africa’s economy received a negative effect. Many, for years lived in fear due to slavery. African villages became small and poor. All of the kingdoms that were strong at one time, collapsed and were conquered. They received raw material goods from the slave trade but with nothing shown. The African kings prospered only because they were heavily involved in the slave trade. As the kings’ wealth grew, their economy was at a standstill and eventually failed. The Atlantic slave trade, human cruelty and evil at its finest, had a substantial effect on Europe, the Americas and Africa (www. understandingslavery. com).

Friday, August 16, 2019

Last Sacrifice Chapter Sixteen

CONSIDERING SYDNEY DESTROYED dead bodies on a regular basis, it was kind of surprising that she was so shocked by our post-fight appearances. Maybe dead Strigoi were just objects to her. Dimitri and I were real live people, and we were a mess. â€Å"I hope you guys don't stain the car,' she said, once the bodies were disposed of and we were on our way. I think it was her best attempt at a joke, in an effort to cover up her discomfort over our torn and bloody clothes. â€Å"Are we going to Paris?' I asked, turning to look back at Dimitri. â€Å"Paris?' asked Sydney, startled. â€Å"Not yet,' said Dimitri, leaning his head back against the seat. He was back to looking like a controlled guardian. All signs of his earlier breakdown were gone, and I had no intention of giving away what had happened before we'd fetched Sydney. So small †¦ yet so monumental. And very private. For now, he mostly looked tired. â€Å"We should wait until daytime. We had to go for Donovan now, but if Sonya's got a house, she's probably there all the time. Safer for us in daylight.' â€Å"How do you know he wasn't lying?' asked Sydney. She was driving with no real destination, merely getting us out of the neighborhood as fast as possible and before people reported screams and the sounds of fighting. I thought back to the terror on Donovan's face and shivered. â€Å"I don't think he was lying.' Sydney didn't ask any more questions, except about which direction she should drive. Dimitri suggested we find another hotel so that we could clean up and get some rest before tomorrow's task. Fortunately, Lexington had a much broader selection of hotels than our last town. We didn't go for luxury, but the large, modern-looking place we chose was part of a chain, clean and stylish. Sydney checked us in and then led us inside through a side door, so as not to startle any guests who might be up in the middle of the night. We got one room with two double beds. No one commented on it, but I think we all shared a need to stay together after our earlier Strigoi encounter. Dimitri was much more of a mess than me, thanks to his mutilation of Donovan, so I sent him to shower first. â€Å"You did great,' I told Sydney as we waited. I sat on the floor (which was much cleaner than the last room's) so that I wouldn't wreck the beds. â€Å"That was really brave of you.' She crooked me a smile. â€Å"Typical. You get beat up and nearly killed, but I'm the one you're praising?' â€Å"Hey, I do this all the time. Going in there alone like you did †¦ well, it was pretty hardcore. And I'm not that beat up.' I was brushing off my injuries, just as Dimitri would. Sydney, eyeing me, knew it too. My legs were scraped more than I'd realized, the skin torn and bleeding from where I'd fallen on the cement. One of my ankles was complaining over the roof-jump, and I had a number of cuts and bruises scattered over the rest of me. I had no clue where most had come from. Sydney shook her head. â€Å"How you guys don't catch gangrene more often is beyond me.' We both knew why, though. It was part of the natural resistance I'd been born with as a dhampir, getting the best of both races' traits. Moroi were actually pretty healthy too, though they sometimes caught diseases unique to their race. Victor was an example. He had a chronic disease and had once forced Lissa to heal him. Her magic had restored him to full health at the time, but the illness was slowly creeping back. I showered after Dimitri finished, and then Sydney forced her first aid kit on both of us. When we were bandaged and disinfected to her satisfaction, she got out her laptop and pulled up a map of Paris, Kentucky. The three of us huddled around the screen. â€Å"Lots of creeks and rivers,' she mused, scrolling around. â€Å"Not much in the way of lakes.' I pointed. â€Å"Do you think that's it?' It was a tiny body of water, marked APPLEWOOD POND. â€Å"Maybe. Ah, there's another pond. That could be a suspect too or–oh! Right here?' She tapped the screen on another body of water, a bit bigger than the ponds: MARTIN LAKE. Dimitri sat back and ran a hand over his eyes as he yawned. â€Å"That looks like the most likely option. If not, I don't think it'll take long to drive around the other ones.' â€Å"That's your plan?' asked Sydney. â€Å"Just drive around and look for a blue house?' I exchanged glances with Dimitri and shrugged. Sydney might be showing her bravery on this trip, but I knew her idea of â€Å"a plan' was a little different from ours. Hers were structured, well-thought out, and had a clear purpose. Also, details. â€Å"It's more solid than most of our plans,' I said at last. The sun was going to be up in another hour or so. I was restless to go after Sonya, but Dimitri insisted sleep until midday. He took one bed, and Sydney and I shared the other. I didn't really think I needed the rest he claimed, but my body disagreed. I fell asleep almost instantly. And like always lately, I eventually was pulled into a spirit dream. I hoped it was Adrian, coming to finish our last conversation. Instead, the conservatory materialized around me, complete with harp and cushioned furniture. I sighed and faced the Brothers Dashkov. â€Å"Great,' I said. â€Å"Another conference call. I have really got to start blocking your number.' Victor gave me a small bow. â€Å"Always a pleasure, Rose.' Robert merely stared off into space again. Nice to know some things never changed. â€Å"What do you want?' I demanded. â€Å"You know what we want. We're here to help you help Vasilisa.' I didn't believe that for an instant. Victor had some scheme in mind, but my hope was to capture him before he could do any further damage. He studied me expectantly. â€Å"Have you found the other Dragomir yet?' I stared incredulously. â€Å"It's only been a day!' I almost had to redo my math on that one. It felt more like ten years. Nope. Only a day since I'd last spoken to Victor. â€Å"And?' Victor asked. â€Å"And, how good do you think we are?' He considered. â€Å"Pretty good.' â€Å"Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, but it's not as easy as it seems. And actually †¦ considering what a cover-up this has all been, it really doesn't seem easy at all.' â€Å"But you have found something?' Victor pressed. I didn't answer. An eager gleam lit his eyes, and he took a step forward. I promptly took one back. â€Å"You have found something.' â€Å"Maybe.' Again, I had the same indecision as before. Did Victor, with all his scheming and manipulating, know something that could help us? Last time, he'd given me nothing, but now we had more information. What had he said? If we found a thread, he could unravel it? â€Å"Rose.' Victor was speaking to me like I was a child, as he often did to Robert. It made me scowl. â€Å"I told you before: It doesn't matter if you trust me or my intentions. For now, we're both interested in the same short-term goal. Don't let future worries ruin your chance here.' It was funny, but that was similar to the principle I'd operated on for most of my life. Live in the now. Jump right in and worry about the consequences later. Now, I hesitated and tried to think things over before making a decision. At last, I chose to take the risk, again hoping Victor might be able to help. â€Å"We think the mother †¦ the mother of Lissa's brother or sister †¦ is related to Sonya Karp.' Victor's eyebrows rose. â€Å"You know who that is?' â€Å"Of course. She turned Strigoi–allegedly because she went insane. But we both know it was a little more complicated than that.' I nodded reluctantly. â€Å"She was a spirit user. No one knew.' Robert's head whipped around so fast that I nearly jumped. â€Å"Whos a spirit user?' â€Å"Former spirit user,' said Victor, instantly switching to soothing mode. â€Å"She became a Strigoi to get away from it.' The sharp focus Robert had directed toward the two of us melted into soft dreaminess once more. â€Å"Yes †¦ always a lure to that †¦ kill to live, live to kill. Immortality and freedom from these chains, but oh, what a loss †¦' They were crazy ramblings, but they had an eerie similarity to some of the things Adrian said sometimes. I didn't like that at all. Trying to pretend Robert wasn't in the room, I turned back to Victor. â€Å"Do you know anything about her? Who she's related to?' He shook his head. â€Å"She has a large family.' I threw up my hands in exasperation. â€Å"Could you be any more useless? You keep acting like you know so much, but you're just telling us what we've already found out! You aren't helping!' â€Å"Help comes in many forms, Rose. Have you found Sonya?' â€Å"Yes.' I reconsidered. â€Å"Well, not quite. We know where she is. We're going to see her tomorrow and question her.' The look on Victor's face spoke legions about how ridiculous he thought that was. â€Å"And I'm sure she'll be eager to help.' I shrugged. â€Å"Dimitri's pretty persuasive.' â€Å"So I've heard,' said Victor. â€Å"But Sonya Karp isn't an impressionable teenager.' I sized up a punch but worried Robert might have his force field up again. Victor appeared oblivious to my anger. â€Å"Tell me where you are. We'll come to you.' Once more, a dilemma. I didn't think there was much the brothers could do. But this might present an opportunity to recapture him. Besides, if we had him in person, maybe he'd stop interrupting my dreams. â€Å"We're in Kentucky,' I said at last. â€Å"Paris, Kentucky.' I gave him what other info we had about the blue house. â€Å"We'll be there tomorrow,' Victor said. â€Å"Then where are you now–‘ And just like last time, Robert ended the dream abruptly, leaving me hanging. What had I gotten myself into with them? Before I could consider it, I was immediately taken to another spirit dream. Good Lord. It really was deja vu. Everyone wanted to talk to me in my sleep. Fortunately, like last time, my second visit was from Adrian. This one was in the ballroom where the Council had met. There were no chairs or people, and my steps echoed on the hard wood floor. The room that seemed so grand and powerful when in use now had a lonely, ominous feel. Adrian stood near one of the tall, arched windows, giving me one of his roguish smiles when I hugged him. Compared to how dirty and bloody everything was in the real world, he seemed pristine and perfect. â€Å"You did it.' I gave him a quick kiss on the lips. â€Å"You got them to nominate Lissa.' After our last dream visit, when I'd realized there might be some merit to Victor's suggestion, I'd had to work hard to convince Adrian that the nomination idea was a good one– particularly since I hadn't been sure myself. â€Å"Yeah, getting that group on board was easy.' He seemed to like my admiration, but his face grew grimmer as he pondered my words. â€Å"She's not happy about it, though. Boy, she let us have it afterward.' â€Å"I saw it. You're right that she doesn't like it–but it was more than that. It was spirit- darkness. I took some of it away, but yeah †¦ it was bad.' I remembered how taking her anger had caused it to flare up briefly in me. Spirit didn't hit me as hard as it did her– but that was only temporary. Eventually, if I pulled enough over the years, it would take over. I caught hold of Adrian's hand and gave him as pleading a look as I could manage. â€Å"You've got to look after her. I'll do what I can, but you know as well as I do how stress and worry can agitate spirit. I'm afraid it'll come back like it used to. I wish I could be there to take care of her. Please–help her.' He tucked a loose piece of hair behind my ear, concern in his deep green eyes. At first, I thought his worry was just for Lissa. â€Å"I will,' he said. â€Å"I'll do what I can. But Rose †¦ will it happen to me? Is that what I'll become? Like her and the others?' Adrian had never shown the extreme side effects Lissa had, largely because he didn't use as much spirit and because he did so much self-medicating with alcohol. I didn't know how long that would last, though. From what I'd seen, there were only a few things to delay the insanity: self-discipline, antidepressants, and bonding to someone shadow-kissed. Adrian didn't seem interested in any of those options. It was weird, but in this moment of vulnerability, I was reminded of what had just happened with Dimitri. Both of these men, so strong and confident in their ways, yet each needing me for support. You're the strong one, Rose, a voice whispered inside my head. Adrian gazed off. â€Å"Sometimes †¦ sometimes I can believe the insanity is all imagined, you know? I've never felt it like the others †¦ like Lissa or old Vlad. But once in a while †¦' he paused. â€Å"I don't know. I feel so close, Rose. So close to the edge. Like if I allow myself one small misstep, I'll plunge away and never come back. It's like I'll lose myself.' I'd heard him say stuff like this before, when he'd go off on some weird tangent that only half made sense. It was the closest he ever came to showing that spirit might be messing with his mind too. I'd never realized he was aware of these moments or what they could mean. He looked back down at me. â€Å"When I drink †¦ I don't worry about it. I don't worry about going crazy. But then I think †¦ maybe I already I am. Maybe I am, but no one can tell the difference when I'm drunk.' â€Å"You're not crazy,' I said fiercely, pulling him to me. I loved his warmth and the way he felt against my skin. â€Å"You'll be okay. You're strong.' He pressed his cheek to my forehead. â€Å"I don't know,' he said. â€Å"I think you're my strength.' It was a sweet and romantic statement, but something about it bothered me. â€Å"That's not quite right,' I said, wondering how I could put my feelings into words. I knew you could help someone else in a relationship. You could strengthen them and support them. But you couldn't actually do everything for them. You couldn't solve all their problems. â€Å"You have to find it within your–‘ The hotel room's alarm clock blared and broke me from the dream, leaving me frustrated both because I missed Adrian and hadn't been able to say all I wanted to. Well, there was nothing I could do for him now. I could only hope he'd manage on his own. Sydney and I were both sluggish and squinty-eyed. It made sense that she'd be exhausted, since her whole sleeping schedule–when she actually got sleep–had been thrown off. Me? My fatigue was mental. So many people, I thought. So many people needed me †¦ but it was so hard to help all of them. Naturally, Dimitri was up and ready to go. He'd woken before us. Last night's breakdown might as well have never happened. It turned out he'd been dying for coffee and had patiently waited for us, not wanting to leave us sleeping and undefended. I shooed him off, and twenty minutes later, he returned with coffee and a box of donuts. He also had purchased an industrial-strength chain at a hardware store across the street â€Å"for when we find Sonya,' which made me uneasy. By then Sydney and I were ready to go, and I decided to hold off on my questions. I wasn't crazy about wearing shorts again, not with my legs in this condition, but I was too eager to get to Sonya to insist we stop at a mall. I did, however, decide it was time to get my companions up to speed. â€Å"So,' I began casually, â€Å"Victor Dashkov might be joining us soon.' It was to Sydney's credit that she didn't drive off the road. â€Å"What? That guy who escaped?' I could see in Dimitri's eyes that he was just as shocked, but he kept cool and under control, like always. â€Å"Why,' he began slowly, â€Å"is Victor Dashkov joining us?' â€Å"Well, it's kind of a funny story †¦' And with that intro, I gave them as brief yet thorough a recap as I could, starting with the background on Robert Doru and ending with the brothers' recent dream visits. I glossed over Victor's â€Å"mysterious' escape a few weeks ago, but something told me that Dimitri, in that uncanny way we had of guessing each other's thoughts, was probably putting the pieces together. Both Lissa and I had told Dimitri we'd gone through a lot to learn how to restore him, but we'd never explained the full story–especially the part about breaking out Victor so that he could help us find his brother. â€Å"Look, whether he can help or not, this is our chance to catch him,' I added hastily. â€Å"That's a good thing, right?' â€Å"Its an issue we'll deal with †¦ later.' I recognized the tone in Dimitri's voice. He'd used it a lot at St. Vladimir's. It usually meant there was a private talk in my future, where I'd be grilled for more details. Kentucky turned out to be pretty beautiful as we drove out to Paris. The land was rolling and green as we got out of the city, and it was easy to imagine wanting to live in a little house out here. I wondered idly if that had been Sonya's motivation and then caught myself. I'd just told Dimitri that Strigoi saw no beauty. Was I wrong? Would gorgeous scenery matter to her? I found my answer when our GPS led us to Martin Lake. There were only a few houses scattered around it, and among those, only one was blue. Stopping a fair distance away from the house, Sydney parked the car off to the side of the road as much as she could. It was narrow, the shoulders covered in trees and high grass. We all got out of the car and walked a little ways, still keeping our distance. â€Å"Well. It's a blue house,' declared Sydney pragmatically. â€Å"But is it hers? I don't see a mailbox or anything.' I looked closer at the yard. Rose bushes, full of pink and red blossoms, grew in front of the porch. Baskets thick with white flowers I didn't know the names of hung from the roof, and blue morning glories climbed up a trellis. Around the house, I could just barely make out a wood fence. A vine with orange, trumpet-shaped flowers crawled over it. Then, an image flickered into my mind, gone as quickly as it had come. Ms. Karp watering pots of flowers in her classroom, flowers that seemed to grow impossibly fast and tall. As a teenager more interested in dodging homework, I hadn't thought much about them. It was only later, after watching Lissa make plants grow and bloom during spirit experiments, that I understood what had been happening in Ms. Karp's classroom. And now, even deprived of spirit and possessed by evil, Sonya Karp was still tending her flowers. â€Å"Yeah,' I said. â€Å"This is her house.' Dimitri approached the front porch, studying every detail. I started to follow but held back. â€Å"What are you doing?' I kept my voice low. â€Å"She might see you.' He returned to my side. â€Å"Those are black-out curtains. They aren't letting in any light, so she isn't going to see anything. It also means she likely spends her time on the house's main floor, rather than a basement.' I could easily follow his line of thinking. â€Å"That's good news for us.' When I'd been captured by Strigoi last year, my friends and I had been held in a basement. Not only was it convenient for Strigoi wanting to avoid the sun, it also meant fewer escape and entry options. It was easy for Strigoi to trap prey in a basement. The more doors and windows we had, the better. â€Å"I'll scout the other side,' he said, starting for the backyard. I hurried up to him and caught him by the arm. â€Å"Let me. I'll sense any Strigoi–not that she's going outside, but, well, just in case.' He hesitated, and I grew irate, thinking he didn't believe me capable. Then, he said, â€Å"Okay. Be careful.' I realized he was just worried about me. I moved as smoothly and quietly as I could around the house, soon discovering the wooden fence was going to create difficulty in seeing the backyard. I feared climbing over might alert Sonya to my presence and pondered what to do. My solution came in the form of a large rock lying near the fence's edge. I dragged the stone over and stood on top. It wasn't enough to let me look completely over, but I was able to easily put my hands on top of the fence and hoist myself up for a peek with minimal noise. It was like looking into the Garden of Eden. The flowers in the front had merely been the warm-up act. More roses, magnolia and apple trees, irises, and a billion other flowers I didn't recognize. Sonya's backyard was a paradise of lush color. I scoped out what I needed to and hurried back to Dimitri. Sydney still stood by the car. â€Å"A patio door and two windows,' I reported. â€Å"All curtained. There's also a wooden deck chair, a shovel, and a wheelbarrow.' â€Å"Any pitchforks?' â€Å"Unfortunately, no, but there's a big-ass rock sitting outside the fence. It'd be hard to get it into the yard, though. We're better off using it to help us climb over. No gate in the fence. She's made a fortress.' He nodded in understanding, and without any conversation, I knew what to do. We got the chain from the car and entrusted it to Sydney. We told her to wait for us outside–with the strict instructions to leave if we weren't back in thirty minutes. I hated to say that kind of thing–and Sydney's face indicated she didn't like hearing it–but it was inevitable. If we hadn't subdued Sonya in that amount of time, we weren't going to subdue her at all–or leave alive. If we did manage to overtake her, we'd give some signal for Sydney to come in with the chain. Sydney's amber-brown eyes were filled with anxiety as she watched us head back around the house. I nearly teased her for caring about evil creatures of the night but stopped myself just in time. She might loathe every other dhampir and Moroi in the world, but somewhere along the way, she'd come to like Dimitri and me. That wasn't something to mock. Dimitri stood on the rock and surveyed the yard. He murmured a few last-minute instructions to me before taking my hands and boosting me up over the fence. His height went a long way to make the maneuver as easy and quiet–though not silent–as possible. He followed me shortly thereafter, landing beside me with a small thud. After that, we sprang forward with no delay. If Sonya had heard us, then there was no point in wasting time. We needed every advantage we could get. Dimitri grabbed the shovel and swung it hard into the glass–once, twice. The first strike was about the height of my head, the second lower. The glass fractured more with each impact. Right on the heels of the second hit, I pushed forward and shoved the wheelbarrow into the door. Lifting it and throwing it against the glass would have been a lot cooler, but it was too unwieldy to raise very high. When the wheelbarrow struck the already weakened glass, the cracked areas broke and crumbled altogether, creating a hole big enough for both of us to get through. We both had to duck–especially Dimitri. A simultaneous attack through both sides of the house would have been ideal, but it wasn't like Sonya could run out the front door. Nausea had started to creep over me as soon as we were near the patio, and the sensation hit full force as we entered a living room. I ignored my stomach in the way I'd perfected and braced myself for what was to come. We'd broken in pretty quickly but not quickly enough to truly get the jump on Strigoi reflexes. Sonya Karp was right there, ready for us, doing all she could to avoid the sunlight spilling into the living room. When I'd first seen Dimitri as a Strigoi, I'd been so shocked that I'd frozen up. It had allowed him to capture me, so I'd mentally braced myself this time, knowing I'd feel the same shock when I saw my former teacher as a Strigoi. And it was shocking. Just like with him, so many of Sonya's features were the same as before: the auburn hair and high cheek bones †¦ but her beauty was twisted by all the other terrible conditions: chalky skin, red eyes, and the expression of cruelty that all Strigoi seemed to wear. If she recognized us, she gave no sign and lunged toward Dimitri with a snarl. It was a common Strigoi tactic to take out the bigger threat first, and it annoyed me that they always believed that was Dimitri. He'd shoved his stake in his belt in order to carry the shovel inside with him. The shovel wouldn't kill a Strigoi, but with enough strength and momentum, it would definitely keep Sonya at arm's length. He struck her with it in the shoulder after her first attempt, and while she didn't fall over, she definitely waited before trying another attack. They circled each other, like wolves readying for a battle, as she sized up her odds. One charge, and her greater strength would push him down, shovel or not. All of this took place in a matter of seconds, and Sonya's calculations had left me out of the equation. I made my own charge, slamming into her other side, but she saw me coming out of the corner of her eye and responded instantly, throwing me down while never taking her eyes off Dimitri. I wished I had the shovel and could hit her in the back from a safe distance. All I carried was my stake, and I had to be careful with it since it could kill her. I did a quick scan of her eerily normal living room and couldn't see any other potential weapons. She feinted, and Dimitri went for it. He just barely corrected himself as she leapt forward to take advantage of the situation. She thrust him against the wall, pinning him there and knocking the shovel from his grasp. He struggled against her, trying to break free as her hands found his throat. If I tried to pull her off, my strength combined with Dimitri's would probably free him. I wanted this over as quickly as possible, however, and decided to make a power play. I ran toward her, stake in hand, and plunged it through her right shoulder blade, hoping I was nowhere near her heart. The charmed silver, so agonizing to Strigoi skin, made her scream. Frantic, she shoved me away with force that was astonishing even for a Strigoi. I fell backward, stumbling, and whacked my head against a coffee table. My vision dimmed slightly, but instinct and adrenaline drove me back to my feet. My attack gave Dimitri the split second he needed. He knocked Sonya to the ground and grabbed my stake, pushing it against her throat. She screamed and flailed, and I moved forward to help him, knowing how hard it was to pin a Strigoi. â€Å"Get Sydney †¦' he grunted. â€Å"The chain †¦' I moved as quickly as I could, stars and shadows dancing in front of me. I unlocked the front door and kicked it open as a signal, then ran back to Dimitri. Sonya was making good progress in fighting him off. I dropped to my knees, working with Dimitri to keep her restrained. He had that battle lust in his eyes again, a look that said he wanted to destroy her right here and now. But there was something else, too. Something that made me think he had more control, that my words in the alley had actually had an impact. Still, I uttered a warning. â€Å"We need her †¦ remember we need her.' He gave me a slight nod, just as Sydney showed up lugging the chain. She stared at the scene wide-eyed, pausing only a moment before hurrying over to us. We'll make a warrior of her yet, I thought. Dimitri and I moved to our next task. We'd already spotted the best place to bind Sonya: a heavy, reclining armchair in the corner. Lifting her–which was dangerous since she was still thrashing wildly–we thrust her into the chair. Then, keeping the stake at her neck, Dimitri attempted to hold her down while I grabbed hold of the chain. There was no time to think of a precise system. I just started wrapping it, first around her legs and then as best as I could around her torso, trying to lock her arms against her. Dimitri had bought a lot of chain, thankfully, and I hurriedly wrapped it around the chair in a crazy manner, doing everything I could to keep her down. When I finally ran out of chain, Sonya was pretty well locked into place. Was it something she could break out of? Absolutely. But with a silver stake against her? Not so easy. With both in place †¦ well, we had her trapped for now. It was the best we could do. Dimitri and I exchanged brief, weary looks. I felt dizzy but fought through it, knowing our task was far from over. â€Å"Time for questioning,' I said grimly.