Prison Corruption and Control Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Prison Corruption and Control - Essay Example For corruption to occur, it requires discretionary powers and a lack of accountability (World Bank, 1998). If accountability is present in any shape or form, the likelihood of corruption becomes reduced. In the same manner, a civil society as well as an organisation within that civil society can reduce corruption if it focuses on accountability wherever there are discretionary powers handed over to a given party (Von Muhlenbrock, 1997). For example, prison wardens may have discretionary powers to a large extent in terms of how prisons are supposed to be handled and how they are to be governed. This discretion gives them great power in managing prisons and they are able to maintain control of quite a few situations where not having discretionary powers would lead to inefficiencies in the system. Even a prison guard can be given discretionary powers and such powers are required for him/her to perform his/her duties. At the same time, all individuals working in a prison have to be made accountable for their actions. Situations where it is suspected that discretionary powers were misused, have to be brought to light and if the individual is found guilty of misusing his/her power, appropriate punishments need to be given out to that individual. Unless the process of holding people accountable for their use of power is established, discretionary power would lead to some level of corruption (Von Muhlenbrock, 1997). As long as accountability remains in place, the chances of prisons, societies even business enterprises becoming corrupt remain minimal (SMH, 2006). The issue of accountability is not limited to social bodies such as prisons and hospitals. On a larger scale it also applies to countries and nations who may use their discretionary powers to establish their own controls over a region or over other countries. Even in such cases, if the country can be made accountable for its actions, the chances of misuse of power become minimized.

Influence of Childhood Aerobic Fitness: Learning and Memory

Influence of Childhood Aerobic Fitness: Learning and Memory STUDENT NAME: Saghar Ahmadi DIRECTIONS: Please follow the Assessment 2 instructions carefully. Type your answers straight into this document. USE APA STYLE REFERENCING TO PROVIDE DETAILS OF YOUR ARTICLE HERE (2 MARKS): Raine, L. B., Lee, H. K., Saliba, B. J., Chaddock-Heyman, L., Hillman, C. H., Framer, A. F. (2013). The Influence of Childhood Aerobic Fitness on Learning and Memory. PLoS ONE, 8(9). Doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0072666 DESCRIBE THE MAIN PURPOSE OR PROBLEM PRESENTED IN THIS ARTICLE (5 MARKS): The main purpose of the article was to determine whether aerobic fitness enhances learning abilities, specifically memory, on a task where participants were asked to remember and recall fictitious names and locations on a map (Raine et al., 2013). Multiple strategies and procedures were implemented to better see and understand how fitness affects learning (Raine et al., 2013). This purpose was brought about through research which indicated a link between physically inactive children and certain health issues, such as being overweight, as well as decreased cognitive abilities, in terms of tasks pertaining to perception, memory and cognition (Raine et al., 2013). LIST THE HYPOTHESES OR RESEARCH QUESTIONS (5 MARKS): It was hypothesized that, in difficult situations, children who took part in physical exercise would have enhanced memory and learning (Raine et al., 2013). Also, the researchers proposed that the results would show when the enhancement of memory and learning occurs; it could either be during initial learning, retention or both (Raine et al., 2013). DESCRIBE WHETHER THIS RESEARCH COULD BE CLASSIFIED AS â€Å"LABORATORY† OR â€Å"FIELD† RESEARCH (3 MARKS): Field research entails research taking place in a more uncontrolled ‘real world’ environment such as a zoo. For this reason, this research cannot be reasonably classified as field research and is therefore, laboratory research because it was conducted in controlled conditions in a facility (Raine et al., 2013). This can be seen through tests which participants underwent, such as the VO2max test which required a motorised treadmill (Raine et al., 2013). It can be assumed that the treadmill was used safely inside a facility. DESCRIBE THE SAMPLE THAT WAS USED IN THIS RESEARCH (5 MARKS): The sample originally consisted of forty-nine children, aged 9-10 (27 participants were females), however, one participant was excluded from the analysis so the number of participants in the end was forty-eight (Raine et al., 2013). DESCRIBE THE TYPES OF METHODS THAT WERE USED (5 MARKS): On day 1, after giving consent, the legal guardians and participants completed a series of questionnaires, including the: Pre Participation Health Screening, Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder Rating Scale IV, health history questionnaire, a demographics questionnaire and the Modified Tanner Staging System (Raine et al., 2013). The last test the participants completed is the maximal oxygen consumption test which tested their fitness levels and determined if they qualified for the study (Raine et al., 2013). The data was then compiled and evaluated relative to the age and gender of participants (Raine et al., 2013). If participants scored above the 70th percentile for their respective age and gender then they were classified as HF – High Fit, and those below the 30th percentile were considered LF – Low fit (Raine et al., 2013). Participants scoring in between those two scores were excluded from the study (Raine et al., 2013). On day 2 learning occurred (Raine et al., 2013). The participants were to remember the four letter names of 10 regions on two different fictitious maps (20 regions across both maps), using two different learning strategies – study only (SO) and test study (TS) (Raine et al., 2013). The participants were randomly placed in the four groups and explanations were provided regarding each learning strategy (Raine et al., 2013). The participants were allowed to practice on a separate sample map (using an iPad) and ask any questions (Raine et al., 2013). The SO group began by looking at the names of the regions on the map for 3 seconds each, then trying to remember whatever they could (Raine et al., 2013). After this, the SO learning strategy occurred wherein participants had 6 seconds to tap on the region name located correctly on the map (Raine et al., 2013). This was done for all the regions 6 times (Raine et al., 2013). Each time, the participants were asked to remember the region names for the upcoming blocks and for the next day (Raine et al., 2013). The TS group, were also exposed to the region names for 3 seconds and asked to remember what they could of the map (Raine et al., 2013). They then went through the 10 regions 6 times, as the SO group did (Raine et al., 2013). Each time, the region names were displayed for 6 seconds, including a 4 second test phase and a 2 second study phase (Raine et al., 2013). In the test phase the participants were asked to tap on the map regions which corresponded to the region names, as the names were located outside of the regions (Raine et al., 2013). After this, the correct region name was displayed in the right location for 2 seconds—the study phase. Participants were asked to remember what they could regarding the region names for the next day (Raine et al., 2013). On day 3 the participants attempted to recall the region names through either undergoing a free recall test or a cued recall test (Raine et al., 2013). A free recall test included the participants being shown a blank map, on an iPad, with textboxes on each region which they were to name (Raine et al., 2013). Cued recall consisted of participants being shown the same blank map, however, they had the region names listed, like a word bank (Raine et al., 2013). The participants then wrote the region name in the textboxes on the map (Raine et al., 2013). DISCUSS THE RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS OF THIS RESEARCH (5 MARKS): The results showed that firstly, in the test study (TS) condition, with every block, high fit (HF) participants had an increased accuracy percentage, in terms of correct answers as opposed to the low fit (LF) participants (Raine et al., 2013). Also, the TS condition yielded the most correct answers when recalling regions on the map, as opposed to the SO condition (Raine et al., 2013). In the TS condition, the HF group scored higher than the LF group (Raine et al., 2013). Also, HF and LF participants in the TS condition with cued recall proved to be the most efficient method which got the most percentage of answers correct on recall day (Raine et al., 2013). Therefore, based on these results it can be concluded that physical exercise does improve learning abilities as the HF participants scored on average higher, in both SO and TS conditions, than LF participants (Raine et al., 2013). However, the learning strategy as well as the type of recall also heavily impacts whether the participants will score better (Raine et al., 2013). In this particular case the test study strategy with cued recall produced a higher percentage of accurate answers (Raine et al., 2013). DESCRIBE YOUR OPINION OR REACTION TO THIS RESEARCH- BE CRITICAL IN AN OBJECTIVE AND SCIENTIFIC WAY (5 MARKS): Overall, I think it is a sound research paper. Firstly, in terms of ethics, the researchers obtained consent from the legal guardians of the children as they were underage and seeing as they may not have understood many of the questionnaires, the researchers made sure that their guardians completed them. Also, the researchers implemented particular methods so that that harm is minimised to the participants and so participants are able to better understand the research. For example, the OMNI scale was implemented whilst the children completed the VO2max test which allowed them to indicate to the researchers how tired they were based on pictures and participants were allowed to ask questions about anything they did not understand (Raine et al., 2013). Although the research stands to simply prove yet again that aerobic exercise is beneficial for learning and memory, it The only negatives are that in the sample size there is an uneven ratio of females to males and the age is restricted only to 9-10 year olds. This indicates that the results cannot be strictly generalised to the public because of the limited size and representation, however the basis of the results can be applied to those who are physically active.

Lyrical Ballads Captures The Hour of Feeling Essay -- Coleridge Wordsw

Lyrical Ballads were written in a time of great change. They were dominated by the French Revolution and both Wordsworth and Coleridge felt great impact from this. There was disruption all over with the American War of Independence and other wars worldwide. Britain itself was changing rapidly due to colonial expansion, which brought new wealth, ideas and fashion, and there was much disturbance to both the people and the land with the act of enclosure, which may have meant more effective farming but less work. The introduction of the Poor Laws meant that landowners paid their remaining staff very little knowing that they would be supplemented by poor relief. However the conditions stated by the Laws before aid would be given were very similar to ?The Last Of The Flock? with people having to give up every means of self support and therefore reduce the chance of them ever living independently again. The Industrial Revolution introduced the new ?middle? class for which many of these poems were written for. They use simple language to allow them to understand and self educate, which many of them were very interested in doing and bettering themselves, much like Wordsworth himself and his sister as shown in ?Tintern Abbey?. Here he talks of her being at the stage of education that he was five years before when he last visited. Despite all the war and upheaval there was very little provision for those who got left behind such as those left unemployed due to the Industrial Revolution and enclosure as well as returning servicemen. The effect of this was felt widely as shown in ?The Female Vagrant?, the wife of a soldier forced to move countries etc and the increasing state of poverty they lived through. In a different culture ?The F... ...t brought all the great things they had hoped for and things had not got any better, in many cases things had actually deteriorated. Wordsworth and Coleridge seemed to be of a similar opinion to the general population throughout this whole period, they both began full of optimism for this time of change before slowly becoming more against it as shown in some of their poetry. ?Anecdote for Fathers? for example is a rather cynical poem focusing on a negative area of the human condition as a whole. Lyrical Ballads very much reflects Wordsworth and Coleridge?s feelings on society at the time and to me they seem to be of the same opinions as the general population during that period. The poetry and indeed the Romantic Movement also illustrated the ?hour of feeling? well and therefore I believe that Lyrical Ballads captures the ?hour of feeling? very successfully.

Children in Horror

With the release of Orphan upon us, it seems as good a time as any to consider the role that kids have played in the horror genre. Other groups have fairly consistent, even ritualized roles in films. Men as antagonists are usually the threat of aggressive male sexuality, wielding phallic weaponry and chasing down hapless female victims. Women are either the sexualized teenaged victim, the virginal survivor, or in some classic horror, the threat of female social and sexual empowerment to male hegemony. But children in horror movies have not had such a stable role.There are, however, three major trends in the way children fit into horror plots. We’ll call them â€Å"the silent witness,† â€Å"the creepy little kid,† and â€Å"the un-victim. † The silent witness is used most commonly in ghost films like The Messengers and Mirrors. These characters often don’t speak at all (perhaps due to some earlier trauma or developmental shortfall) or they only spea k in short, cryptic messages. The driving notion behind these characters is that in their innocence they don’t know to be scared of the ghosts and ghoulies, or in other cases, they retain some knowledge of trust or secret about life that we as adults have forgotten.Either way, these characters represent an almost covetous reverence for the ideal of childhood innocence. The sound of the child’s laughter is usually central to at least one scene, reminding us again of the child’s innocence, but also implying that the child is not alone. One of the most elegant, though not central, uses of this character type is in Close Encounters of the Third Kind in the scene when the child, Barry, goes missing. Of course everyone’s favorite use of children in horror movies is the creepy little kid.This is the category that Orphan falls under and also incorporates a lot of ghost films like The Grudge and The Unborn, but it can also include demon-child movies like The Omen. The protagonists of these films are often the parents, or adopted parents, of the creepy kid in question, and these films play subliminally on oedipal anxieties. In films where the kid is a ghost, it will sometimes be â€Å"the good ghost† who is trying to warn and protect the other characters. But even if the child ghost is not benevolent, it’s still usually not the embodiment of pure rage that ghosts of adult men tend to be.Instead, the threat they pose is usually more akin to a trapped animal, and often these characters are associated with a specific animal or take on animalistic traits. Whether alive or dead though, creepy little girls have become iconic within the horror genre. With sunken eyes, perfect hair, and always the same style of going-to-church dress, the image of the creepy little girl has become standardized, but the fact that it still remains creepy while being so familiar is a testament to its ability to strike a deep psychological chord with the aud ience. In many ways the creepy little girl is the flip side of the silent witness character.Both imply that young children know more about their surroundings than they let on, but whereas the silent witness can’t communicate, the creepy little girl won’t, inevitably to nefarious ends. Where the silent witness represents the purity and innocence of childhood, the creepy little kid represents all the cruelty and selfishness that children are capable of. Finally, there is what I like to call the un-victim. These are the kids in movies who get chased by the bad guys, but everyone knows they’re going to live through the end of the film. Classic examples would be Tommy Jarvis in Friday the 13th Part IV, or Reggie in Part V.A more recent example would be the two kids in Signs. These kids are un-victims because they’re threatened through the entire movie, but never get killed off because killing a kid in a movie is going too far for most filmmakers (though appare ntly not for Lars Von Trier in Antichrist). As a result, these kids end up being a sort of safety blanket for the viewer. We know that they’re safe, and therefore we allow them to provide us some security and even the occasional moment of levity. For many horror fans though, these kids turn into an annoyance very quickly (Dakota Fanning in War of the Worlds). This is of course not at all comprehensive.Films that break these molds are often far better off for it, as just in general movies that buck or reverse trends and stereotypes are usually more creative and better made movies. Plus, this summary does not include demonic pregnancy movies like Rosemary’s Baby, or movies aimed at children like Gremlins. And then there are a few movies that merge and meld these tropes together. Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining has not only the prototypical creepy little girls, but Danny Torrance incorporates all three character tropes. He is himself a creepy little kid at times, but at other times he acts as the silent witness.But then in the third act when the emphasis of the film begins to shift towards Jack’s insanity, Danny becomes an un-victim. So this is by no means a bible of children in horror movies, but it is an interesting topic to contemplate how children factor into a genre that is specifically meant to not be seen by them. Adults have always had a very interesting and compelling relationship with notions of childhood, and it’s certainly not insignificant that children, in one role or another, find their way so consistently into the horror genre, where all the fears and anxieties of the human psyche find their voice.

Censorship in 1984 by George Orwell

â€Å"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself–anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face†¦ ; was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: face crime†¦ † Thoughtcrime does not entail death; thoughtcrime is death. † â€Å"Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves. † In 1984 the Party uses various tactics to manipulate the inhabitants of Oceania as well as t hose of Nazi Germany. A common form of control in both the Party and the Nazi empire was the use of children for fulfilling the will of their respective government. In Orwell’s novel 1984 Winston claims that, â€Å"It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children. And with good reason, for hardly a week passed in which the Times did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak—â€Å"child hero† was the phrase generally used—had overheard some compromising remark and denounced his parents to the Thought Police. the children of 1984 are used as a separate police force to monitor the actions of the people around them, including their parents. Theses â€Å"child heroes† are almost an exact. Memory hole A memory hole is any mechanism for the alteration or disappearance of inconvenient or embarrassing documents, photographs, transcripts, or other records, such as from a web site or other archive, particularly as part o f an attempt to give the impression that something never happened. The concept was first popularized by George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In Nineteen Eighty-Four the memory hole is a small chute leading to a large incinerator used for censorship In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speak write, a small pneumatic tube for written messages, to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston's arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building. In the novel, the memory hole is a slot into which government officials deposit politically inconvenient documents and records to be destroyed. Nineteen Eighty-Four's protagonist Winston Smith, who works in the Ministry of Truth, is routinely assigned the task of revising old newspaper articles in order to serve the propaganda interests of the government. For example, if the government had pledged that the chocolate ration would not fall below the current 30 grams per week, but in fact the ration is reduced to 20 grams per week, the historical record (for example, an article from a back issue of the Times newspaper) is revised to contain an announcement that a reduction to 20 grams might soon prove necessary, or that the ration, then 15 grams, would soon be increased to that number. The original copies of the historical record are deposited into the memory hole. A document placed in the memory hole is supposedly transported to an incinerator from which â€Å"not even the ash remains†. However, as with almost all claims made by the Party in this novel, the truth is left ambiguous and the reader is not told whether the documents are truly destroyed. For example, a picture which Winston throws into one early in the novel is produced later during his torture session, if only to be thrown back in an instant later. Nineteen Eighty-Four (sometimes written 1984) is a 1949 dystopian novel by George Orwell about an oligarchical, collectivist society. Life in the Oceania province of Airstrip One is a world of perpetual war, pervasive government surveillance, and incessant public mind control. The individual is always subordinated to the state, and it is in part this philosophy which allows the Party to manipulate and control humanity. In the Ministry of Truth, protagonist Winston Smith is a civil servant responsible for perpetuating the Party's propaganda by revising historical records to render the Party omniscient and always correct, yet his meagre existence disillusions him to the point of seeking rebellion against Big Brother, eventually leading to his arrest, torture, and reconversion. As literary political fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic novel of the social science fiction subgenre. Since its publication in 1949, many of its terms and concepts, such as Big Brother, doublethink, thought crime, Newspeak, and Memory hole, have become contemporary vernacular. In addition, the novel popularized the adjective Orwellian, which refers to lies, surveillance, or manipulation of the past in the service of a totalitarian agenda. Nineteen Eighty-Four (sometimes written 1984) is a 1949 dystopian novel by George Orwell about an oligarchical, collectivist society. Life in the Oceania province of Airstrip One is a world of perpetual war, pervasive government surveillance, and incessant public mind control. The individual is always subordinated to the state, and it is in part this philosophy which allows the Party to manipulate and control humanity. In the Ministry of Truth, protagonist Winston Smith is a civil servant responsible for perpetuating the Party's propaganda by revising historical records to render the Party omniscient and always correct, yet his meagre existence disillusions him to the point of seeking rebellion against Big Brother, eventually leading to his arrest, torture, and reconversion. As literary political fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic novel of the social science fiction subgenre. Since its publication in 1949, many of its terms and concepts, such as Big Brother, doublethink, thought crime, Newspeak, and Memory hole, have become contemporary vernacular. In addition, the novel popularized the adjective Orwellian, which refers to lies, surveillance, or manipulation of the past in the service of a totalitarian agenda. Mind control Mind control (also known as brainwashing, coercive persuasion, mind abuse, thought control, or thought reform) refers to a process in which a group or individual â€Å"systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator(s), often to the detriment of the person being manipulated†. 1] The term has been applied to any tactic, psychological or otherwise, which can be seen as subverting an individual's sense of control over their own thinking, behavior, emotions or decision making. Theories of brainwashing and of mind control were originally developed to explain how totalitarian regimes appeared to succeed in systematically indoctrinating prisoners of war through propaganda and torture techniques. These theories were later expanded and modified, by psychologists including Margaret Singer, to explain a wider range of phenomena, especially conversions to new religious movements (NRMs). A third-generation theory proposed by Ben Zablocki focused on the utilization of mind control to retain members of NRMs and cults to convert them to a new religion. The suggestion that NRMs use mind control techniques has resulted in scientific and legal controversy. Neither the American Psychological Association nor the American Sociological Association has found any scientific merit in such theories.