Motivation as an Important Aspect of Human Resource Management

Motivation is a vital aspect in functioning of every organization. It refers to the forces that arouse enthusiasm and persistence to pursue a certain course of action for accomplishing organizational goals. Nowadays, there are numerous motivation theories that human resource managers use in order to encourage high work performance. Generally, there are two types of rewards in motivation.The first is intrinsic rewards, which is the satisfaction a person receives in the process of performing a particular action. For example, a person selling educational materials may get an intrinsic award of helping children read well. The other type of rewards is extrinsic, which are the rewards that are generally given by another person, typically a manager and include promotion and pay increases. For instance, some person that does not get pleasure from doing his/her job may be motivated by an extrinsic reward of high payment.Good human resource managers usually strive to help people achieve both e xtrinsic and intrinsic rewards, far as it has been proven that most talented and innovative employees are usually motivated not only by rewards such as benefits and money but also with the satisfaction from the work they do. To create an environment that is rich in opportunity, challenge and reward managers need to implement one of the manager’s theories. The three types of motivation theories include: content theories, process and reinforcement theories.Content theories usually stress the understanding of human needs and how they can be satisfied in the workplace. Thus, if a human resource manager realizes worker’s needs, the organization’s rewards system can be designed to meet them and reinforce employees for directing energies and priorities toward attainment of organizational goals. One of the content theories is the hierarchy of needs theory developed by Abraham Maslow. This theory suggests that people are motivated by five categories of needs- physiologic al, safety, belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization-that exist in a hierarchical order.Self-actualization which is on the top of the hierarchy may include: opportunities for training, advancement, growth and creativity. Esteem needs generate: recognition, high status and increased responsibilities. While, belongingness needs may comprise: work groups, clients, coworkers and supervisors. Safety needs include safe work, fringe benefits and job security. Finally, at the bottom of the hierarchy there are physiological needs which are heat, air and base salary. According to the theory low-order needs must be satisfied before higher-order needs are activated.The other content theory is ERG theory that resembles a modified Maslow’s theory. It identifies three categories of needs: 1. Existence needs- needs for physical well-being. 2. Relatedness needs- need for satisfactory relationships with others. 3. Growth needs- developing human potential and the desire for personal growth and increased competence. One psychologist suggested that nowadays the need to have fun at work needs to be added to this theory, far as it can relieve stress and enable people to feel that their personal lives are not totally separated from their work lives.There his also a two-factor content theory, created by Frederick Herzberg. After interviewing hundreds of workers he came to conclusion that two separate dimensions contribute to an employee’s behavior at work. The first are hygiene factors, which are factors that involve the presence or absence of job dissatisfiers such as working conditions, pay, company policies, and interpersonal relationships. The second set of factors is motivators, which include achievement, recognition, responsibility and opportunity for growth.Thus, on one hand providing hygiene factors will eliminate employee dissatisfaction, and on the other motivators will promote high satisfaction and performance. Process theories, unlike content theories fo cus more on determining how workers act to meet their needs and if those choices are successful. There are two basic process theories: equity theory and expectancy theory. Equity theory focuses on individual’s perceptions of how fairly they are treated relative to others. If people perceive their compensation as equal to what others receive for similar contributions they will believe that their treatment is fair and equitable.Equity is measured by ratio of outputs and inputs. Inputs include: education, experience, effort and ability, while the outputs generate pay, recognition, benefits and promotion. Thus, for example if some employee discovers that he/she is getting more money than people who contribute the same inputs to the company, he/she may feel the need to correct the inequity by working harder, getting more education or considering lower pay. Expectancy theory is a process theory that suggests that motivation depends on individual’s expectations about their ab ility to erform tasks and receive desired rewards. For instance, if the company creates an incentive program which would be used in areas such as distribution, where employees are recognized for accomplishment in safety, productivity and attendance it can appear rather effective. The other type of theories is reinforcement theory. It is a motivation theory based on the relationship between a given behavior and its consequences. For instance a company implementing a reinforcement theory may reward salespeople for the kinds of behaviors that keep sales and profits rising.If people in this company don’t perform, they don’t get paid. However, they can reap huge economic rewards for high performance. A good example of a country, where different companies use different motivation theories in their human resource management is Ukraine. Analyzing the variety of company’s in Ukraine it can be seen that most large company’s functioning on the territory of our count ry are either subsidiaries of foreign company’s or some multinational/transnational corporations.Surely, those companies placed in our country use mostly some content theories that provide workers with bonuses, opportunities for training, growth and team buildings, which can be some trips paid-for by the company, in order to create a sense of team in the company’s staff. An example of such companies would be Celenia, Kraft Foods, BMS Consulting, etc. Those companies, like many others of their kind use content theories that incorporate many useable tools for managers.As for local Ukrainian company’s that are based soly in Ukraine, they usually might offer some fringe benefits which is a good motivation tool. However, hrm managers in those companies rarely use the system of bonuses, increased payments, or some incentive programs. Mostly, the motivation is associated with fear of loosing the job or getting reduced payment if the organizational goals are not complet ed. It resembles a reinforcement theory of management, where employees are suggested a certain type of behavior and if they do or do not pursue it, certain consequences follow.There are companies that give their workers so-called â€Å"black balls† on every project they did not complete or that was not done on time and if the worker gets more than 5 balls he/she is out of the job. From my point of view, this type of motivation has a lot of shortcomings and it should be substituted by some content theory of management. Far as this type of human resource management, doesn't correspond to ethical norms of a democratic society. Thus, motivation is an important aspect in human resource management. Nowadays, human resource managers have an option of selecting out of numerous management theories.They include content, process and reinforcement theories. Content theories like hierarchy of needs theory or ERG theory focus on understanding and satisfying human needs at work. Process the ories on the other hand, focus on employee’s choices of action to accomplish company’s goals and determining if those choices are correct. While, reinforcement theory focuses on what consequences follow if the workers do or do not follow the given behavior. Choice of an appropriate motivation theory is a significant step to company’s success.

Themonstersaredueonmaplestreet

Once the object flies overhead, the machinery and technology in the neighborhood begins to fail; the cars won't start, the phones don't work, and the power grid for the homes goes dark. Though there may be many different messages to interpret with this particular episode, I believe the main one to leap out at us is this: if technology fails us, we resort to our primal instincts and chaos ensues. This is evident when a young boy in the neighborhood hypothesizes that the object overhead is some sort of alien craft, and that the aliens won't let any of them leave the neighborhood.The boy goes on to mention that in a comic book that he read, only the aliens sent down before the spacecraft would be able to leave the town and that they would look and act just like one of them (humans). I would personally find this idea a farce, but the neighborhood entertains this idea after a man disappears to investigate the next block over and doesn't return for hours. At this point, mass hysteria begin s to take hold.The neighborhood becomes suspicious of their neighbors and begins to ostracize one another to figure out who the invaders are. When one neighbors car starts on its own, the mob is quick to question why his car works but theirs don't. Another neighbor points out that she often sees the man standing out in his yard late at night, gazing up into the sky as if he were looking for something. Accusations continue to be passed around, with each neighbor pointing out something suspicious about the other.Are we beginning to see the theme here? As night falls, paranoia has taken over. Though some might argue that it would likely take more than one day for neighbors to act so rashly, its easy to e that in this confusion of an inexplicable event how effectively The Twilight Zone fast-forwards the like-minded mob mentality to communicate the episode's message. A figure appears in the street, and one man–thinking it to be some sort of invader-?raises a gun and kills the figu re for all the mob to see.It's revealed to us that the figure was no monster at all, just the innocent neighbor that went to investigate the other blocks only couple of hours earlier. At this point, the mob accuses the man who shot their neighbor that he's the real monster-?maybe he wanted them dead all along. They throw stones at him and more chaos ensues. At the end of the episode the camera pans out to a spacecraft perched on a hill overlooking the neighborhood. Two aliens look on as the neighborhood rips itself apart.They discuss how easily man can be manipulated when you take away their technology and how quickly they turn on one other in times of great panic. The episode concludes with them mentioning how easy it will be to conquer the species with this knowledge in hand. Personally I think The Twilight Zone did an excellent job of showcasing how quickly we can turn on one another in times of crisis. In my own experience with the military, I've been in several situations where something went wrong and people began looking for others to blame.

Scaling stages Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Scaling stages - Essay Example More frequently, this transport transpires by making use of diffusion. The transferable property, of a scalant component towards a surface mainly relies upon the System’s physical properties and those of its constituents. Transfer is equally dependent upon the concentration gradient flanked by the bulk fluid and the relative interface between fluid and surface. For the crystallisation scaling process, it is the diffusion of ions to the outside surface and for particulate scaling, it is in actuality the diffusion of colloids or particulate matter to the surface. It is not very frequent that all the materials transported across the surface actually bind. The combined forces affecting on the particles, as they draw nearer to the surface, play a very significant role. The properties of the particles such as: elasticity, density, state and surface, and the surface nature such as: the roughness and type of material play important roles in the sticking process of various particles to the surface. In between the process of the steady growth of the deposit upon the surface, there is always a contest between deposition and removal. Usually, the attached solid particles are transported away from the surface. The removal is dependent, relative to the fluid’s cut-off forces and also the level of persistence of the deposit. The deposition starts happening, as soon as the process of ageing occurs. Throughout this stage, there might be the conversion of crystal or chemical structure, whichever may increase or decrease the force of the deposition with

Week 10 Cis 329 technical paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Week 10 Cis 329 technical paper - Essay Example (Northcutt, 2002) Companies must be cautious of security breaches. They should follow best practices, which include having policies in place to take care of any incidents of security breaches. They should able to detect what information has been mishandled and decide who the proper monitoring authorities are and whom they can report to. Affected clients should also be alerted. The main task is to help advance security of the company’s IT infrastructure after a chain of network security breaches. These breaches comprises of someone getting in to the network who is not authorized , and accredited users being requested for their passwords by anonymous person claiming to work in the companies department. The senior systems administrator in this company will work and be able to bring together a team of systems administrators including other members of the IT (information technology) staff. His/her precise duties are going to vary depending on the area that the institution focuses on. The senior systems administrator will maintain the computer systems of the company, and offer hardware support to personal computers and other peripherals for the office workforces. The position requires that they purchase different parts for the computer network. In addition, training and supervising prospective IT employees falls under the senior administrator’s jo b description. (Northcutt, 2002) Information technology system lapses and breaches of data security may disrupt the Company’s capacity to function in the customary course of operation by potentially triggering delays or termination of customer orders, blocking the manufacture of goods, or causing the unpremeditated disclosure of Company information. Management has engaged in steps to address these concerns for its own systems by executing important network security and in-house controls. (Conti, 2007) Information system security is the practice of defending information from

Advantages of Nuclear Power and Comparison with the Fossil Fuels Assignment

Advantages of Nuclear Power and Comparison with the Fossil Fuels - Assignment Example Fossils are the remains of the dead organisms buried in earth’s crust. When such bodies undergo changes like anaerobic decomposition through millions of years, the products formed are hydrocarbon compounds like coal, petroleum, natural gas. Such products are storehouses of chemical energy, which is released when they undergo combustion reactions. As such they are called as fossil fuels (Josepha Sherman, 2004). 3. Nature has borne the cost of production of fossil fuels and humans have to bear only the cost of extraction and processing it. As such fossil fuels are cheaper than the non-conventional forms of fuels like nuclear fuel. 4. The fossil fuel in solid form, coal, is the most widely used fuel in power generation as it is found abundantly in nature. Similarly the liquid and gas forms like petrol, natural gas are easily transportable through pipelines. The depleting reserves of fossil fuels and the monopoly of certain oil-producing countries in controlling its prices have compelled mankind to look for alternative sources of energy. A few of them are hydroelectric power, nuclear power, wind energy, solar energy, and geothermal power. Hereunder we will discuss two of them viz. hydroelectric power and nuclear power. It is the electricity obtained by water falling under gravity from higher to lower level. Huge generators  convert the potential energy of water stored in dams while falling down. The potential energy of the water stored in dams is converted into electrical energy. The water rotates the turbines placed in between. The rotating turbines, in turn, rotate the generators connected to it, producing electricity. Nuclear power is created by causing fission of unstable nuclei 235U. Such nuclei are bombarded by neutrons which cause the fission of such nuclei along with the release of a tremendous amount of heat energy and also neutrons. These liberated neutrons in turn cause fission of more nuclei and a chain reaction are set into motion producing more heat  energy.  

Rehabilitation Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Rehabilitation - Assignment Example After the patient leaves the hospital, care continues to be provided at home. Rehabilitation care is also provided to people who do not require hospitalization and cannot be able to move to the outpatient rehabilitation facility. Rehabilitation requires the expertise of various professionals working in concert. Both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary teams are the hallmarks of rehabilitation. The physician is considered to be the team leader assisted by other professionals. The multidisciplinary team conducts patients’ evaluation in their specific disciplines. However, the commonly used approach is the one that involves the interdisciplinary teams. Interdisciplinary members work together to solve specific problems for the patient (Peden, 2010). The team members include physiatrists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, rehabilitation nurses, psychologists and speech pathologists, in addition to social workers. Other members may include recreational therapists, vocational rehabilitation counselors, music therapists, audiologist, and kinesiotherapists. According to Peden (2010), some of the major categories of disabling conditions include disorders and injuries in pediatric, neurology, orthopedic, acute and chronic pain, medical, and sensory impairment. The World Health Organization (WHO) has various definitions that are commonly used to discuss the rehabilitation population. According to Peden (2010), WHO has established an international standard of definitions for discussing individuals with functional limitations outlined above The definitions are: Durable medical equipment that are commonly used in rehabilitation fall into five categories namely: prosthetics, orthotics, wheelchairs, ambulation aids, and high-tech devices, for example, computers. Illustrations of orthotics involves neck, spine, or back braces; prosthetics includes equipment such as artificial organs and mechanical organs;

DEEP Blue Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

DEEP Blue - Essay Example Until the 1870s numerous African-American immigrant workers as well as wanderers, who were mostly male, crossed the South. The unidentified bluesman that Handy portrayed most probably travelled from one plantation to the next across the Delta, with a guitar in search of work. This allegation of mobility widened the American scenery and extended the African-American practice; consequently, â€Å"setting the arena for the development of the country blues.† A lot can be learnt concerning the association between migration and formation of identity by evaluating the purpose of the blues, particularly Muddy Waters’ recordings. It took place in the turbulent period of changeover in the history of African-American. For the bluesman, Waters assembled the society, invoked up secure spaces between the strange urban landscapes, and helped those who accompanied him from the Delta in reorganizing their home, their past, and their personality (Palmer 72). His lyrics brightly dealt with the matters that tackled both the pre-migrant as well as post-migrant mind. According to Houston A. Baker, the blues â€Å"comprise a mixture that seems forever to have been in movement in America- for all time becoming, transforming, shaping, and dislocating the strange incidents of Africans in the fresh World.† Baker’s exclusive explanation entails then, that the blues tune that enclosed the Delta in the twentieth century indicated the African-American country experience even as the blues that cheered up Chicago’s South area after the migration indicated the African-American city experience. Jones backs this thought, asserting, â€Å"The most significant Negro music of any period will be a precise manifestation of who the Negro is. It will be a portrayal of the American Negro at that a given time.† A number of historians query the legality of the blues that drifted to the urban North.

Higher Order Thinking Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Higher Order Thinking - Essay Example The three lowest levels of taxonomy are knowledge, understanding and application. Three highest levels are analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Analysis has to do with figuring out something on your own, i.e., an individual cannot be just repeating what he reads or hears. It is seeing how something works. An individual discerns what is connected to what. A student gets at why something is happening. During synthesis process, iIf analysis is taking things apart to see what makes them tick, synthesis is putting things together. Synthesis is solving a problem, making something whole out of a bunch of pieces nobody told you how to put together, or creating or devising something (Bloom, 1956). Evaluation is deciding on your own, and in an informed way, whether something is preferable; whether it has merit or worth; or whether it is morally right, just, or fair. Personal Meaning is reflection on the personal significance, consequence, or implication of some object of concern. It is importan t to help students recognize that all concepts are in some way related to one another. This is one reason concept mapping can be a very powerful evaluation tool. The main limitation of Bloom’s taxonomy is that it is not a strategy but a model which explains main thinking skills. It does not help to solve problems and develop effective critical thinking skills. Bloom explains some ideas and the concept of thinking but he does not explain how this model can be and should be applied to real world situations. His main works on taxonomy are Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Cognitive Dimension (1956). Another model of high order thinking was developed by Robert Marzano. Marzano adopted Bloom's taxonomy but added new characteristics to the model. This model consists of 8 characteristics: focusing, information gathering, remembering, organizing, analyzing, generating, integrating, evaluating. The ideology of Marzano is based on the idea that: "When content is new, students must be guided in relating the new knowledge to what they already know, organizing and then using that new knowledge. Knowledge can be of two types: Declarative (i.e., attributes, rules) or procedural (skills and processes). Items of this type are factual and content-specific" (Marzano 1995, p. 87). The main works by Marzano are Dimensions of thinking : a framework for curriculum and instruction (1988), Cultivating thinking in English and the language arts (1991), The systematic identification and articulation of content standards and benchmarks (1995). The most recent model based on Bloom's taxonomy is Anderson/Krathwohl mode (2000). According to this model, the following levels of thinking exist: (1) remembering: Retrieving, recalling, or recognizing, (2) understanding, (3) applying, (4) analyzing, (5) evaluating, (6) creating. The advantage of this model is that there isare student choice, exploration, or creative challenge. There is opportunity for students to collaborate, develop facility with language, and work with ideas. There is chance for students to write or say what they deeply care about. In sum, classrooms are all too teacher dominated, mechanical, and pedestrian for my blood. Whatever gains may result from mastery learning--and, remember the last section, they are significant--too often they are purchased at the expense of pointing us away from what really matters in education, that students learn how to take charge of their own learning and growth and empower themselves to live freely. The main problem describes the main stages of thinking but tells little about real life application and connections between these stages (Dettmer, 2006). In spite of limitations and weaknesses these models become a core of modern education helping teachers to construct tests

Applying Ethical Frameworks in Practice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Applying Ethical Frameworks in Practice - Essay Example However, medical practitioners can be faced with a dilemma that forces them to make a compromise between maintaining patient confidentiality and releasing such information in some circumstances. This could also be necessitated by various logical and justifiable situations that are supported by ethical principles. My position regarding patient confidentiality is that there are times in which the physician is logically justified to go against the implied promise of confidentiality and disclose the patient information. The first is the principle of beneficence where the decision made provides and balances benefits against harm and risks. For example where patient bills are paid by a health insurance company, such records have to be viewed by employees of the insurance company. If this is denied, the insurance company will not pay the bills. According to Veatch (1988), a breach of confidentiality could also be done in compliance with rules governing transmittable diseases that are a threat to the public. This means officials from the health department have the right to access such patient information. Most importantly, the breach of patient confidentiality is justifiable in cases where the patient is a minor. According to Nathanson (2000), young patients are allowed to test for certain diseases like STDs without the consent of their parents. However, when tested positive for serious conditions, a disclosure of this information to the parents or guardians is very critical. This is because it will ensure that the young patient gets proper medical attention and all round support. Hanks (2008) states that it may never be possible for a young patient to get any proper medical treatment if their medical information is kept away from their parents or guardians. This is because the minors might not be in a position to stand in for their medical bills. According to Silen et al (2008), there are situations in

Case study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 50

Case Study Example The duration is beyond the qualifying period set forth under Section 108 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA 1996) for claiming unfair dismissal. 3. The Claimant spent most of the time driving long-distance trips as he is the most experienced driver in the Company. On Fridays, he normally worked in the office and dealt with administrative work. He usually worked a 40-hour week. 4. On 9 May 2014, the Claimant was responsible for the Oxford Blenheim Palace Tour Weekend Trip. He had to drive back from Oxford to Mumford with 48 customers on his coach after a weekend at Oxford. The Claimant has driven this route several times before and is familiar with both the itinerary and the motorways. 5. At around 5:45 pm, the Claimant’s mobile phone rang. The Claimant was driving the coach at the time. He is aware of the Company’s policy on mobile phones, namely that only hands-free kits are permitted whilst driving. However, the Claimant could not find his hands-free kit that day. He could see that it was his wife who was ringing him. His wife knew his work schedule well. It was unusual for his wife to ring him whilst he was driving so he decided to take the call. The Claimant’s behaviour fell below the ethical standards of practice which he swore to protect. Besides paragraph 3 of ACAS 2015 leaves open the Client’s response to employee misconduct, which in this case, was commensurate with summary dismissal. 6. The Claimant spoke to his wife for about 2-3 minutes on the phone. The Claimant’s wife had slipped in the bathroom. Although she was uninjured, she was shocked and just wanted some reassurance. The Claimant provided as much support as possible on the phone and told his wife that he had to hang up as he knew that he would be risking the passengers’ safety if he continued talking on the phone. The duration on the phone may be fair considering the emergency call. However, the fact that the

Relative market share Essay Example for Free

Relative market share Essay (Ratio of company share to share of largest competitor) HIGH LOW â€Å"STAR† â€Å"QUESTION MARK† â€Å"CASH COW† â€Å"DOG† Figure 2 BCG Matrix of BMW 3. 1 Porter’s five forces Porter’s Five Forces are business analysis tools that help companies to assess the environmental forces that influence a company. This business analysis tool works by dividing environmental forces into five different categories (Figure 3). The interesting feature of Porter Five Forces is it leads companies to understand the extent of challenges faced by companies within a particular industry as the framework provides a systematic way of thinking about how competitive forces work at industry level and how they determine profitability. Figure 3 Porters Five Forces 3. 1. 1 Rivalry Rivalry exhibits the intensity of competition in a particular market. In case of BMW, the company faces fierce competition since currently there are many automobile manufacturers that compete in the same premium markets. In addition, many multi segment automobile manufacturers also set up special division to target premium market like Toyota Motor that set up Lexus brand to compete with premium cars like BMW, Mercedes Benz, Rolls-Royce, and Jaguar. Figure 4 shows the global auto industry ranking by market cap as of April 2006. The figure describes that at that time, BMW is not listed in the ranking and therefore they need multi strategy to generate greater market capitals. Figure 4 Global Auto Ranking 3. 1. 2 Threat of Substitutes Substitute products are products of other industries that may have significant impact to the prices decision and other features of automobile products. In case of BMW, the product substitutions are many kinds of affordable transportations including mass transports such as intercity high-speed trains, trams, motor bikes, and bicycles. Another product substitution for BMW is the increasing demands for green technology. In automobile industry, it refers to the use of alternative technology like hybrid technology or solar cells. Although the market share of these products are still relatively low, currently BMW has not shown intense program to launch the green car. In fact, several automobile manufacturers have started their program to head for producing the future cars that use hybrid cars like Toyota Prius and Alphard and Honda Civic, and GM’s Saturn Vue Green Line. 3. 1. 3 Buyer Power Buyer power has significant impact on the producing industry. The buyer power is perceived to be strong enough if they are in the minority in numbers and there are numerous producers or automobile manufacturers. In the automobile industry the buyer is the people who purchase vehicles or cars. Buyers have considerably high bargaining power because customers usually have much information regarding the vehicle they intend to purchase. They are usually knowledgeable about cars specifications, price, and dimension since most car manufacturers identify these in brochures and on websites. Another critical decision that buyers have is about the fuel consumption of cars. This information is rarely printed in cars brochures but usually they get the information for auto magazines that conduct test drive. Buyers have other powerful forces on the automobile industry since the advanced Internet technology lets customers to shop online or design and customize their cars. A key feature of Internet is customization in which BMW also enable customers to customize some features of their purchased cars in order to suit their needs. In addition, automobile industry exhibits low switching costs because customers can easily move to one dealer to another during the selection process. They can also trade their ole cars when buying new ones since many dealers now also own or cooperate with used car divisions. Figure 5 shows the global auto production representing the demands-production capability that each brand/automobile manufacturers have. In the figure, BMW is in the 14th place. However, it does not reflect the quality of BMW since BMW like other European premium cars are well-known for their quality products. Figure 5 Global Auto Productions by Manufacturers in 2002 Source: OICA 3. 1. 4 Supplier Power Supplier power is typically low within the motor industry because a vehicle has various amounts of different components and there are a large number of suppliers available to cater for this. This means Toyota/GM can easily swap suppliers if they are not happy with the quality or price of the components ordered.

The making and breaking of port kembla Essay Example for Free

The making and breaking of port kembla Essay Locality and society are interlinked with worker communities as new labor is inducted in areas which are industrializing. The interaction between workers and communities is thus not constant and remains dynamic. As industrialization took place in the early 20th Century in Australia, workers communities grew around a predominantly agricultural hinterland. These got bigger each day and in turn threatened to displace local communities particularly the indigenous people who were unable to adapt to the changing environment. The emerging conflict led to creation of social institutions by workers in the form of unions to collectively bargain from a position of strength with the community. While this empowered worker communities as a whole, it had varying influences on the lives of workers within the community as well as at the work place. The post industrialization phase where production has been automated and has become far less labor intensive has added a new dimension to this relationship. By drawing upon the example of Port Kembla, the Australian steel township, Erik Eklund has successfully weaved together the historical narrative of interaction of the diverse forces which create a modern industrial society and how social forces enable some organizations to survive while others perish for lack of adaptability. Eklund’s social history of workers in Port Kembla very aptly describes the manner in which the working class fits into the community, the social institutions that the workers create to survive and flourish and the control that the workers gain over their own lives at work and in the community in the process. Port Kembla – The Social Environment Port Kembla is a classic case of emergence of an industrial society amidst the tectonic shifts that take place due to influence of many factors, global, local, war, peace and a depressed economy. Steel represents the primary agent of change in the industrial World. Port Kembla was the principal steel making area in Australia, where prominent steel makers had established their factories which had grown into large behemoths. But steel making is much more than just technology or organization of labor. It has many other facets such as creation of social classes, assimilation of outside forces, suppression of indigenous forces and resistance between these. The steel industry in Port Kembla underwent a number of changes over the years which in turn impacted the development of the community. Till the 1930’s the worker community relationship was mixed with a balanced influence of the informal non market economy and workers communities. However thereafter with the emergence of an industrial society the influence of class politics defined by the powerful role played by the unions which attempted to gain control of both the communities and the workers dominated the socio political panorama of Port Kembla. Global events such as the Depression, the World Wars, the global Depression and post War industrialization also had a powerful influence on community politics in Port Kembla. The creation of localities and their structures set the stage for discussion of class, locality and politics. The struggle waged by the indigenous people, the Kooris to survive the onslaught of industrialization in their native land is illustrative of the large scale social changes in Port Kembla which led to emergence of the supremacy of the Industrial Society in the post Second World War milieu. The final stage is the post industrial society; a process could lead to emergence of new social structures. The model of the workers in Port Kembla provides a successful portray of the social history of industrial society in Australia emerged over the years. Working Class and Overall Community Life The working class has emerged as a result of industrialization which has led to a large congregation of people working together in factories. There has been no other human activity which has brought together so many people in one location as production of goods through a machine economy. A study of the bureaucratic structure, the technology and external factors which influences work in factories and the interaction of the new work society which is formed due to redesigned occupational activity with the community provide an innate social perspective of this phenomenon in the industrial age. The working class emerges as a separate locality within the larger community; it gives them a sense of distinct identity. The co relationship between the working class and the community denoted is thus that of interdependency. However this relationship takes a long time to develop and cannot emerge merely by the artificial process of creating jobs. Jobs are just one part of the exercise of industrialization; it is the manner in which the working class and the community homogenize with each other that marks the holistic growth of an industry. This lesson stands out quite clearly through lucid portrayals of worker communities in Port Kembla. From the dirty, sooty, black image of steel furnaces which marked the early stages of industrialization in Port Kembla, it is seen that as the community grew so did the industry as well as the commercial establishments in the city. The social changes which brought about these linkages enabled a whole, â€Å"locality† of workers to emerge within the community. In turn the impact of local life and tenor on the emergence of the industrial society provides a fascinating perspective. The various waves that brought about change in the industry and concomitantly with the society also need to be well understood. Whether it is migration, gender awareness, a class struggle or redefining the identities of the locals, the working class fits into a local community’s life by creation of institutions for their own well being in the form of unions. Workers Social Institutions The workers needed to create support establishments to survive varied types of pressures, from capitalists, the depression in the economy and loss of jobs. They succeeded in creating adequate safety mechanisms to support themselves as a community. Port Kembla did not have many social institutions in the initial stages when industry was set up in the township. Thus there was a mixed culture with the establishment of Electrolytic Refining and Smelting (ERS) and Metal Manufacturers which carried on with the pre industrial age non formal institutions based on agriculture, fishery and hunting. But the growth of the steel industry under the leadership of BHP which established the Australian Iron and Steel led to creation of an industrial society. The congregation of labor in large numbers was implicit in creation of institutions by them for sustaining their rights and obtaining fair treatment. Unions were a natural corollary to industrialization in Port Kembla. The creation of unions was a safety mechanism that provided the labor working in the large steel factories a sense of security. This was the initial period of localism which soon came under threat from regionalism with the expansion of the steel industry linking Kembla with Wollongong. These forces attempted to displace gradually the locals who had focused on their own borough in the city and tried to create all encompassing institutions. On the social side, workers safety systems were also seen to be based on their kinship affiliation. This was more than evident in the early stages of migration of communities post Second World War as a large number of people from Eastern Europe, Greece and Italy as well as Vietnam and the Middle East came in to feed the expanded need of labor. These however remained a sub text within the larger text provided by the industrial associations of labor unions, which were the primary institutions for support created by workers in Kembla. Control of Workers Within and in the Community While the workers seem to have developed reasonable order in their working lives due to creation of unions, their influence within the community was relatively weaker. Thus while there was unity amongst the workers themselves due to unionized structure of their organization which was to provide a safety network, within the society there were many pressures. Firstly the worker community itself was divided into a large number of unions such as the AWU, the Federated Ironworkers, the South Coast Labor Council and also political parties as the Communist party which had a strong presence in Port Kembla. This division perhaps led to weakening the position of the unions as a whole in the community.

The Rise in Penal Populism | Dissertation

The Rise in Penal Populism | Dissertation Abstract Since the mid-1970s onward, the vast majority of Western countries have experienced a significant plus continual rise in their incarceration rates, leading to the problem of overcrowded prisons. We examine the extent to which the ‘incarceration boom’ of many modern societies can be attributed to the phenomenon of penal populism. Specifically, we argue that some short-lived actual crime waves during the late 1970s and 1980s may have initially generated a small amount of rational penal populist sentiment among the public, it is the strong divisions within the increasingly heterogeneous public (both politically and ethnically), the central government, and the popular media industry of many democratic developed nations which have ultimately sustained the growth of both penal populism and prison population numbers. Furthermore, we focus on the types of crime that are most commonly targeted by strong penal populist sentiments in the public and criminal justice system, and suggest that all such categories of crime can be fundamentally linked to the cultural ‘purification’ of children which has taken place in virtually all Western societies during the latter half of the twentieth century. Finally, we consider the limitations of penal populism, referring to those few post-industrial states where such populist punitiveness has been largely resisted, and postulate what the end-stage consequences of a penal populist movement spanning over the past three decades are likely to be. 1. Introduction The term ‘penal populism’ denotes a punitive phenomenon that has become characteristic of many modern industrial societies, especially within Western liberal democracies since the late twentieth century onward, whereby anti-crime political pressure groups, talk-back radio hosts, victim’s rights activists or lobbyists, and others who claim to represent the ‘ordinary public’ have increasingly demanded of their governments that harsher policies and punishments be enforced by the relevant organs of the criminal justice system (e.g. law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, legislators, etc.) in order to combat the perceived rise in serious crime rates (Pratt, 2006). One direct consequence of the increasingly severe ‘tough on crime’ measures – such as ‘Life means Life’, ‘Three Strikes’, and ‘Zero Tolerance’ policies – exercised in many economically advanced countries from the mid-1970s onward has been an unprecedented rapid rise in the incarceration rates of these respective nations, leading to the problem of overcrowded prisons. The United States epitomises the tempo of the modern change in national imprisonment rates, and currently has the worst problem of prison overcrowding on a global scale. Indeed, ‘American incarceration numbers [have] increased fivefold between 1973 and 1997’(Caplow and Simon, 1999, p63). More recently, ‘in 2004 the United States surpassed Russia in incarceration rates to become the world leader. With 2.2 million individuals inside (assuming a U.S. population of 290 million in 2004, that is an incarceration rate of approximately 759 adults in prison per 100,000 residents of the United States) and upwards of 7 million individuals either on parole, probation or awaiting trial, 1 in every 33 people in the U.S. is currently under state control and the number is growing’(State-Wide Harm Reduction Coalition, 2005). Clearly, an interpretation of the widespread incarceration rise must be able to accurately explain its rapidity, extent, and endurance on a global scale. There are two principal explanations for why such a large number of developed countries have experienced an ‘incarceration boom’ over the past three decades. Both theoretical models assert that it is changes in penal policies plus sentencing practices, rather than simply significant increases in crime rates alone, which are the primary factor responsible for driving prison population growth, but there is considerable disparity between the two theories about the causes of penal policy changes. One ‘crime wave’ hypothesis posits that actual rising crime rates in many Western countries, including the vast expansion of drug crime during the late twentieth century, have resulted in a greater rational public demand for the criminal justice system to take more severe punitive measures against convicted dangerous criminals (i.e. those offenders who pose the highest threat to public safety and social order; the criminal offenders most commonly targeted by penal populism in modern societies shall be considered in detail below), such as a more frequent use of incarceration with longer custodial sentences. In contrast, the second ‘political opportunism’ hypothesis suggests that many majority government parties have intentionally overstated the size and severity of the national crime problem in order to heighten public fears or instil ‘moral panic’ over perceived (as opposed to actual) rising crime rates, which are merely a political artefact, and subsequently utilise harsher crime control policies to win electoral favour (Caplow and Simon, 1999). Importantly, irrespective of which mechanism has in actual fact been operating across numerous advanced industrial states, and has led to the observed excessive growth in prison population sizes, both explanatory models can clearly be regarded as strongly related to the presence of penal populism. The critical difference between the two theories is whether the main original source of those penal populist sentiments can be accurately considered to be the public or the state, or both. According to the first model, which may be described as the public-induced penal populism hypothesis, it has been the persistent public demand for the government to impose harsher punitive measures on convicted criminals which has primarily caused the fast-paced escalation of incarceration numbers in many modern nations. In other words, the criminal justice systems in these countries have largely been exercising a regime of penal excess because constant pressure from a large sector of the public (in response to an actual rise in crime rates) has compelled them to do so. In comparison, the second model, which we may refer to as the state-induced penal populism hypothesis, postulates that within many Western countries the government parties in power have often created and sustained an artificial appearance of rising crime rates in order to instil widespread public anxiety. Subsequently, the majority government (and individual politicians) can be observed by the public to be apparently controlling the perceived illusory crime problem, such as through adopting and enforcing ‘tough on crime’ measures, and thereby attain public popularity to secure their party’s (or their own) success in the next general election. The second model further suggests that the government is not the only state institution in developed nations which benefits from overstating the scale of the dangerous crime threat, but that there are also large rewards for popular media outlets or news companies willing to do so. It is argued by many criminologists that within almost all democratic Western countries, the central government and the popular media, which are both fragmented into multiple competing party’s or companies, are highly dependent on addressing and reporting criminal activity that specifically victimises ‘ordinary people’ in order to retain electoral votes and public ratings, respectively. Hence, the state-induced penal populism hypothesis proposes that politicians and media outlets lead rather than merely follow or passively represent the public opinion: the public only supports or appears to ‘demand’ the government’s harsher punitive policy strategies because the same national government and popular media industry (as two powerful state institutions) have manufactured a compelling false image of prevalent serious crime which has instilled strong penal populist sentiments in a large proportion of that public. The central aim of the following examination is to determine which of these two distinctive theoretical positions is most likely to be correct. It is of course possible that the public-induced penal populism mechanism primarily operates in one developed nation, while in another Western country it may be the state-driven penal populism process that is predominant. However, to the extent that the relatively recent phenomenon of globalisation has resulted in many common economic, social, political, and cultural practices being widely adopted by a number of modern industrial states, one may plausibly expect a similar (if not identical) mechanism of generating penal populism to be present in the developed nations affected by prison population growth, especially with regard to the United States and Western Europe. At the outset, we may hypothesise that although some short-lived real increases in Western crime rates during the late 1970s and 1980s may have initially triggered some rational penal populist sentiments among the public of these modern societies, it has been the combined interaction of both political opportunism and media opportunism which has acted as a powerful vehicle in numerous modern societies for distorting the public’s common view of the national crime problem, and ultimately for sustaining the growth of both penal populism plus prison populations, regardless of how those crime rates may have subsequently changed (and in most developed countries they have steadily declined). One fundamental feature of the modern incarceration surge over the past three decades that is observed in virtually all countries affected by rapid prison growth is the significant proportion of these prison populations that has become comprised of racial minorities, including both of resident ethnic groups and of non-citizen illegal immigrants. As one study (O’Donnell, 2004, p262) remarks, ‘one factor that accounts for rising prison populations across Europe is the incarceration of ‘foreigners’. It is likely that prison accommodation in the Republic of Ireland will be used to hold growing numbers of failed asylum seekers, at least pending deportation. It is also inevitable that the composition of the prison population will change as members of minority groups begin to appear before the courts on criminal charges’. In terms of the racial minorities imprisonment trend in the United States, Caplow and Simon (1999, p66) assert that ‘it is undeniable that the incarcerated population is disproportionately composed of minorities (especially African Americans and Hispanics), and that the disproportion has increased during the period of rising imprisonmentThe period of rapid growth in incarceration rates has seen a significant increase in the proportion of minorities in the inmate population, especially among drug offenders, the fastest growing segment of that [prison] population’. As is the case with most Western European countries, the United States prison sector has also experienced a mass round up of illegal immigrants or non-citizens during the last three decades, who in 2003 made up 40% of federal prisoners (State-Wide Harm Reduction Coalition, 2005). Ultimately, therefore, it is apparent that the incarceration boom in many developed countries has primarily affected various racial minority populations present within these nations. It is the cumulative incarceration of racial minorities that is significantly responsible for the prison overcrowding problem commonly observed. Thus, one crucial question that we must address in the following study is what has caused (and continues to cause) the increased imprisonment of racial minority populations, relative to the incarceration rate of the racial majority host population (typically white), within the modern industrial societies affected by prison overcrowding? Specifically, we shall seek to determine whether pervasive ‘penal racism’, indicated by a greater tendency in developed nations for both the law enforcement system to arrest and subsequently for the criminal justice system to imprison ethnic or non-white defendants compared with white ones who have committed the same offence, is sufficient to explain the large racial differentials observed in incarceration rates, or not. The methodology of the following study consists entirely of literature-based research and analysis. 2. The Origins of Penal Populism: Real Crime Waves versus Political and Media Opportunism It is widely acknowledged that the prevalent public sentiment in many developed countries to ‘get tough’ with criminals has played a central role in catalysing the incarceration surge which has occurred in these nations since the mid-1970s onward, an influential social movement that is referred to as penal populism. Furthermore, whether one regards the source of that penal populism as stemming from a rational public response to actual rising crime rates or, conversely, as triggered by public exposure to political and media manipulation, the measured strength of the public’s demand on their respective democratic governments to impose harsher punitive measures on convicted criminals has remained consistently high over the thirty year period of vast growth in incarceration numbers. For example, with regard to the United States, one study notes that the time series of public responses to the survey question of whether courts are too lenient has remained highly stable since 1972 (Caplow and Simon, 1999). The significant temporal correlation in many modern industrial states between the onset of strong public desire since around the mid-1970s for more stringent crime policies and the period of rapid prison population growth is a clear indication of the vital part that penal populist sentiments have played in causing prison overcrowding. One may plausibly argue that the strong growth of penal populist sentiments in most advanced industrial societies over the past three decades has been initially generated by temporary real increases in crime (including the rapid expansion of a drug-crime economy during the 1980s) and sustained by an increased reliance of governments on implementing harsher crime control measures (rather than more effective social welfare policies) to gain public support plus secure electoral favour. Accordingly, we intend to demonstrate that penal populism in developed nations is a product of both short-lived actual crime waves and manipulative political opportunism. Indeed, one would theoretically expect the two factors operating in conjunction to result in a significantly larger escalation in incarceration rates (as is in fact observed) than would occur if only one of these forces was present in isolation. As one study has observed, ‘tough on crime’ policies produce prison population increases only to the degree that offenders are available to be imprisoned (Zimring and Hawkins, 1991). Conversely, an increase in crime rates would also not produce a corresponding increase in imprisonment rates unless some suitably punitive crime control measures were in place. During the last thirty years there has also certainly occurred in many Western countries a greater dependence of competing popular media companies, both television and the press, on selectively reporting dangerous (i.e. worse than normal) crime on an almost daily basis, simply in order to maintain or increase viewer and reader ratings. By portraying the national crime problem as more severe and more prevalent than in reality, individual popular media outlets (e.g. tabloid newspapers) in developed nations have become more appealing to public viewers than their quality media counterparts (e.g. broadsheet newspapers) who often object to distorting or manipulating the reporting of crime news. Since the late twentieth century onward, crime news has become a fundamental component of the public’s staple diet. As Pratt (2007, p68) suggests, ‘the reporting of crime is inherently able to shock [and] entertain, sustaining public appeal and interest, selling newspapers and increasing television audiences. Furthermore, the way in which crime is used to achieve these ends is by selective rather than comprehensive reportingHowever, it is not only that crime reporting has quantitatively increased; there have also been qualitative changes in its reporting: it is prone to focus more extensively on violent and sexual crime than in the pastThese qualitative and quantitative changes in crime reporting can be attributed to the growing diversity of news sources and media outletsAs a consequence, both television and the press have to be much more competitive than used to be the case. Their programmes have to be packaged in such a way that they become more attractive to viewers than those of their rivals and competitors’. Evidently, given that it is typically the most popular newspapers (such as the tabloid press in Britain) which feature the greatest number and severity of crime stories, it means that the most common representations of crime, portrayed in ‘the form of randomised, unpredictable and violent attacks inevitably committed by strangers on ‘ordinary people’, reach the greatest audience’(Pratt, 2007, p70). Thus, it is clear that within modern society the potential benefits to popular media outlets from inaccurately amplifying the danger plus scale of national crime in the public’s perception are equally as large as the rewards for politicians willing to do so. With regard to addressing the (largely fabricated) immediacy of the criminal activity problem, therefore, media opportunism and political opportunism are proximately linked in virtually all post-industrial countries where penal populist currents are strongly established. As well as magnifying the size of the dangerous crime problem, the popular media in many Western countries further continually seeks to undermine the current sentencing practices of the criminal justice system, regardless of how harsh they have become over the past three decades. In the same way that the crime stories reported by the popular media are scarcely representative of the actual nature of everyday crime within developed nations, the court stories followed are rarely illustrative of everyday sentencing practices. According to Pratt (2007), that media misrepresentation then reinforces the common public opinion that courts are too lenient, even though they have become significantly more punitive, in addition to fuelling the widely held public sentiment that the crime rate is constantly escalating when recent statistics indicate that crime is in fact steadily declining in most modern societies. Thus, in its reporting style, crime analysis by the Western popular media has become ‘personalised’ rather than ‘statisticalised’, since: 1) it prioritises the experiences of ordinary people (especially crime victims) over expert opinions 2) News reports are more prone to focus on the occasional failings of criminal justice officials as opposed to their many successes. Indeed, in the vast majority of modern societies, the ‘citation of criminal statistics has become a code for softness on crime and callousness towards its victims’(Pratt, 2007, p88), which simply provides the popular media with further scope to legitimately overstate the scale and severity of everyday crime in developed states. For these reasons, the media outlets in many Western countries have played a significant role in facilitating the continual growth of penal populist sentiments among the public. 3. The Transient Growth of a Drug-Crime Economy in Developed Countries It is highly pertinent that the vast expansion in drug crime within many Western nations during the late 1970s and 1980s coincided precisely with the onset of rapidly escalating incarceration rates in these same countries. As is asserted, ‘the growth in nondrug crime has simply not been sufficient to sustain the rapid growth of imprisonment. By the 1970s there was already an active culture of drug use and networks of drug importation/sales in the United States, but their economic importance increased in the 1980s due to new products and distribution strategies, especially for ‘crack’ cocaine. That transformation in the marketing of illegal drugs coincided with political decisions to intensify the punishments for drug crimes. The result was an enlargement of the population available for criminal justice processing’(Caplow and Simon, 1999, p71). It is crucial to acknowledge, therefore, that in any modern industrial society there is not a rudimentary causal link between a greater public desire for severity in criminal sanctions and a sustained growth in incarceration numbers; other conditions must be present. Specifically, ‘a key condition is a large pool of offenders available to be imprisoned’(Caplow and Simon, 1999, p93). Although there had also been documented transient increases in the number of offenders committing nondrug crimes such as violent crime, property crime (larceny), and sex crime in modern societies during the 1980s, these numbers tended to fluctuate in cycles over time, and could not account for the continual rise in incarceration rates observed. In contrast, the number of drug crime offences had remained consistently high throughout the 1980s in virtually all developed countries that have experienced an incarceration boom. However, in most Western nations the total drug crime rate then started to steadily decline during the 1990s largely due to the much harsher punishments being imposed on drug crime offenders (both petty and serious) by the criminal justice systems in these states. One valid explanation for the persistently high rate of drug crime during the 1980s is the ‘economic base’ principle. Specifically, while the average monetary yield of larceny, violence and sex offences is very low, drug crime represents one of the only categories of felony where the potential financial returns are extremely high, and that provides a strong economic incentive for individuals living in poverty. Hence, drug smuggling and trafficking are the only illegal activities capable of providing a solid economic base for a large criminal population in modern society. The initial cost of goods is low and law enforcement efforts sustain high retail prices, thereby ensuring large profit margins (Reuter and Kleiman, 1986). Since the 1980s, drug crime has certainly been targeted by penal populist sentiments in many Western countries affected by a public expectation for greater punitiveness, largely irrespective of how the drug crime rate has subsequently changed in these developed nations, but it is evidently not the only category of felony that has become a common target of penal populism. Sex offences (especially against children), violent or abusive crimes (once again, even more so when the victims are children), and youth crime are three other important types of crime that in late modern capitalist states have characteristically become subjected to a public desire for penal excess. We shall examine in detail at a later stage below what these specific four categories of crime have in common and why they are such typical targets of penal populist sentiments in developed liberal societies. 4. The Increased Dependence of Governments on Crime Control as a Source of Popular Credibility The rapid proliferation of drug crime in many Western countries during the late 1970s and 1980s was accompanied by a great loss of public confidence in the social welfare programs implemented in these same nations. As Pratt (2007, p95) asserts, ‘the visible presence of drug addicts in these countries had become a symbol of misplaced welfarism and tolerance, now believed to be corroding their economic and social fabrics’. Furthermore, the short-lived growth of general crime waves in many modern societies during the late twentieth century led to a significant decline of public assurance in the competence of their respective governments to control the state. As one study remarks, ‘the international crime waves of the 1960s and 1970s helped diminish the prestige of national governments all over the industrial world, by calling into question their capacity to maintain social order. The increase of crime rates at a time of increasing government efforts to help the poor undermined many of the traditional arguments for welfare, and helped confirm the view of many conservatives that efforts to help the poor only made circumstances worse by eliminating incentives for self improvement’(Caplow and Simon, 1999, p88). It is difficult to determine whether the crime wave was caused by expansions in welfare programs or merely coincided with them. The main point is that in addition to the direct relationship between high rates of crime and demands for punitive governmental responses, the crime wave may have indirectly diminished the prestige of and public demand for welfare-oriented government (Caplow and Simon, 1999). Thus, it is argued that during the 1980s many Western governments shifted the priority of their domestic agendas away from welfare policies toward crime control policies. Initially, it was most often right wing conservative politicians that promoted ‘tough on crime’ punitive measures, making crime a political issue and gaining public support. However, Lappi-Seppà ¤là ¤ (2002, p92) suggests that mainstream opposition (i.e. left wing) parties are then forced into advocating punitive policies as well, because although these left wing parties want to ‘distance themselves from the populist programmes of the right wing movements, there is one area where they do not like to disagree – the requirement of being ‘tough on crime’. No party seems to be willing to accuse another of exaggeration when it comes to measures against criminality. Being ‘soft on crime’ is an accusation that no [governmental party] wants to accept. And it is that fear of being softer than one’s political opponents which tends to drive politicians, in the end, to the extremes of penal excess’. It is plausible to argue, therefore, that constant competition between opposing governmental factions for public favour in liberal democracies has created an ‘punitive arms race’ of political opportunism, whereby each party is compelled to promote plus (when in power) implement increasingly more radical punitive policies – irrespective of the actual level of crime that the country is experiencing – in order to avoid appearing weak on crime and consequently losing valuable electoral votes to their political opponents who are prepared to be more severe on criminals. Clearly, such an opportunistic punitive arms race occurring within the governments of developed nations would lead to an exponential increase in the prison population numbers of these countries, and ultimately to prison overcrowding. That political mechanism may at least partly explain why so many Western countries which have experienced a large decrease in crime rates since the mid-1990s and into the early twenty-first century have still reported a rising prison population. For example, Pratt (2006, p1) observes that since 1999 Labour led coalition governments in New Zealand have strongly adhered to Britain’s New Labour ‘approach to crime and punishment, even using the famous phrase ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ in its election manifestoes of 2002 and 2005. As a consequence, while [New Zealand’s] recorded crime rate has dropped by 25% in the last ten years, its imprisonment rate has increased to 189 per 100,000, one of the highest of Western countries’. Yet it is not only the divisions (i.e. in terms of competing parties) within Western democratic governments that have catalysed the increased political focus on crime control, but also the growing number of divisions among the public itself. Indeed, modern society in many developed nations (such as the United Kingdom and the United States) has become increasingly heterogeneous since the late twentieth century, and consequently the number of bases of division within these societies has expanded. For example, the members of a diverse post-industrial society are not only partitioned along the traditional parameter of social class, but are also strongly divided by a number of dichotomous value-based issues that are characteristic of ‘post-materialist’ politics such as abortion, gay rights, animal rights (e.g. fox hunting), mass immigration, school prayer, and capital punishment where it still exists (Caplow and Simon, 1999). These value- or identity-based issues are intensely contested over in modern societies by well-organised pressure groups on either side of the bipolar political spectrum. These issues are bipolar or dichotomous in the sense that they are non-negotiable with no ‘middle ground’; one either supports abortion rights or one opposes them. Hence, public division on these post-materialist issues is inevitable. One important consequence of the heterogeneous publics of Western countries becoming divided by such a multitude of value conflicts during the 1970s onward is that government parties had difficulty finding any issues to build successful election campaigns on that would appeal to a vast majority of the public. Harsher crime control appeared to be a clear choice as a singular issue that large sections of the modern public are united in consensus on. As is stated, ‘Unlike most values issues on the left or right, crime control seems to cut across the political spectrumPoliticians seeking to build viable majorities inevitably turn to the few issues that can bring people together in the new political landscapeThat is why election campaigns continue to focus on crime and punishment issues even when opposing candidates agree in their support of punitive anticrime measures. Faced with voters who split on so many issues and who are profoundly sceptical about the ability of government to improve their lives through welfare-oriented interventions, the mode of governing that commands the broadest support – punitiveness toward criminal offenders – is understandably [valued by governments]’(Caplow and Simon, 1999, p83). Ultimately, therefore, while short-lived actual increases in crime rates during the late 1970s and 1980s may have initially triggered the rise in imprisonment rates in a number of developed countries, political opportunism (in the sense of governments capitalising on populist punitiveness) has arguably sustained the incarceration boom in virtually all Western nations affected by prison overcrowding, regardless of how those crime rates may have subsequently changed. 5. The Target Crimes of Penal Populism There is a high degree of uniformity across all Western nations that have experienced an incarceration surge over the past three decades in the types of crime that are most commonly subjected to strong public demand for harsh punitive sanctions. Generally, the four most frequent felony targets of penal populism are: Drug crime; Sex offences, especially when the victims are children; Child abuse (physical, sexual, or psychological), and; Youth crime. Correspondingly, these have also been some of the fastest growing segments of prison and boot camp populations in many developed countries during recent years. One fundamental property that the above four categories of crime have in common is that children are extremely vulnerable to the effects of all of them. We may validly question why children have come to occupy such a central place in the penal populist sentiments of modern industrial societies. Pratt (2007, p96) remarks that ‘crime control policy driven by penal populism targets ‘others’, not ordinary, ‘normal’ peopleGiven the nature of populism, we should expect that crime control policy will gravitate towards easy and familiar targets, for whom there is likely to be the least public sympathy, the most social distance and the fewest authoritative voices (if any) to speak on their behalf: tho

American Flag :: essays research papers

The United States Flag is the third oldest of the National Standards of the world; older than the Union Jack of Britain or the Tricolor of France. The flag was first authorized by Congress June 14, 1777. This date is now observed as Flag Day throughout America. The flag was first flown from Fort Stanwix, on the site of the present city of Rome, New York, on August 3, 1777. It was first under fire for three days later in the Battle of Oriskany, August 6, 1777. It was first decreed that there should be a star and a stripe for each state, making thirteen of both; for the states at the time had just been erected from the original thirteen colonies. The colors of the Flag may be thus explained: The red is for valor, zeal and fervency; the white for hope purity, cleanliness of life, and rectitude of conduct; the blue, the color of heaven, for reverence to God, loyalty, sincerity, justice and truth. The star (an ancient symbol of India, Persia and Egypt) symbolized dominion and sovereignty, as well as lofty aspirations. The constellation of the stars within the union, one star for each state, is emblematic of our Federal Constitution, which reserves to the States their individual sovereignty except as to rights delegated by them to the Federal Government. The symbolism of the Flag was thus interpreted by Washington: â€Å"We take the stars from Heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity representing Liberty.† In 1791, Vermont, and in 1792, Kentucky were admitted to the Union and the number of stars and stripes was raised to fifteen in correspondence. As other states came into the Union it became evident there would be too many stripes. So in 1818 Congress enacted that the number of stripes be reduced and restricted henceforth to thirteen representing the thirteen original states; while a star should be added for each succeeding state. That law is the law of today. The name â€Å"Old Glory† was given to our National Flag August 10, 1831, by Captain William Driver of the brig Charles Doggett. The Flag was first carried in battle at the Brandywine, September 11, 1777. It first flew over foreign territory January 28, 1778, at Nassau, Bahama Islands; Fort Nassau having been captured by the American in the course of the war for independence.

Coal Chemistry and Technology Essay example -- Coal Research Paper

1. Coal formation Coal was formed from remains of plants from several hundred millions years ago partially decomposed. These remains were settled in regions where waterlogged or swampy regions prevailed. These conditions avoid complete decomposition making possible the gradual peat formation. Peat is not considered coal actually, but is an essential step to coal formation. This formation process is called "coalification" and it is essentially a progressive change from peat to anthracite passing through different types of coals. This process not only depends on the time, but also on temperature and burial pressure (Speight 1983). Schematic representation of the coalification process (Speight 1983) 2. Coal Classification Coals can be classified by its "rank". The rank of the coal can be defined as the degree of alteration that coal experiments during the coalification. On the one hand there are Lignite and sub-bituminous coals which are Low rank coals. These have a lower content in Carbon, are lighter and have higher moisture levels. On the other hand there is Bituminous coals and Anthracite which are high rank coals. They have a higher content in carbon which means they have more energy content. They have lower moisture levels and a more vitreous appearance (University of Kentucky, 2012). â€Æ' 3. Coal Composition Coal is an organic sediment which can be described in several ways. The most common way is in terms of the elemental composition. J. G. Speight, (1991) suggested that coal can classified on the basis of the general formula: Cn Hm Nx Oy Sz (where n, m, x, y and z are number of atoms of each element) Coal is not a homogeneous material. It is heterogeneous and is contaminated by different types of impurities w... ...rcel Dekker Inc. Classification and Rank of Coal. University of Kentucky. (2012). [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.uky.edu/KGS/coal/coalkinds.htm. [Accessed 12 November 13]. Couch G. R, (1991). Advanced coal cleaning technology: IEA Coal Research. (IEACR/44) Vernon J.L, Jones T, (1993) Sulphur and Coal. London: IEA Coal Research (IEACR/57) Ryan, B, Ledda L, (1997). A review of sulphur in coal: with specific reference to the telkwa deposit, North-western british Columbia. Geological Fieldwork, Paper 1998, Pages 1-10 Morrison G. F, (1981). Chemical desulphurisation of coal: IEA Coal Research. (ICTIS/TR15) Blà ¡zquez B.L, Ballester A, Gonzà ¡lez F, Mier J.L, (1991). Desulfuracià ³n de Carbones, la biodesulfuracià ³n como alternativa. Minerà ­a del Carbà ³n. Pages 40-49 Morrison G. F, (1982). Control of sulphur oxides from coal combustion: IEA Coal Research. (ICTIS/TR15)

Crises during the presidency of andrew jackson Essay -- essays papers

Crises during the presidency of andrew jackson Andrew Jackson was a very influential man during the 1800's. Events that took place during his two-term tenure as President called upon his expertise on the Constitution. These events had a major impact on the country at that time. He had to face obstacles that presidents before him had not faced, but there was also one that was an old issue that was being reopened. This was the controversy over the constitutionality of the Bank of the United States. The other major obstacles were the nullification controversy and the treatment of the Cherokee Nation. The nullification controversy started before Jackson came into office. In the year before Jackson had taken office, Congress had passed a tariff for the declared purpose of protecting northern manufacturers and businessmen. Southerners thought that the industrialization of the north would lead to the downfall of the southern agrarian economy. They named the tariff the "Tariff of Abominations"(Coit 11). Vice-President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina led the movement of people who thought that "a combined geographical interest should not be able to disregard the general welfare and turn an important local interest to its own profit"(Coit 12). Calhoun was not for the secession of South Carolina so he tried to think of a substitute. He borrowed an idea evolved by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and 1799. The idea was nullification. Nullification, as Calhoun viewed it, the right of a "single state to veto, within its own borders, a federal law that it deemed unconstitutional-subject to the later approval of at least one fourth of the states. If such approval was not forthcoming, the state should, if it wished, be allowed to secede from the Union"(Coit 12). The South knew that nowhere in the Constitution was Congress given the express right to impose a tariff whose purpose was simply to protect industry. Up to that point, President Jackson's view was unknown. But that all changed at a Jefferson Birthday dinner. Most of the toasts had been printed up beforehand and were nullificationist. So Jackson rose, looked at Calhoun and stated, "Our Union. It must be preserved"(Coit 16). Calhoun knew he had to think of a retort so he stood and said, "The Union-next to our liberty most dear"(Coit 1... ...s to the fullest limit. Everything he did he thought was in the white people's best interests. When he vetoed more bills than any other president before him, he did it for the public. When he needed support in politics, and he couldn't get much from his colleagues, he would turn to the Constitution and he would manipulate it so the law was seemingly on his side. Of course it also helped to be infallible in the public's eyes. His policy of persecuting the Indians was horrible, his destruction of the Bank of the United States ultimately hurt the citizens, his avoidance of secession was the only thing that was good for the country. But the people believed him and the Constitution, so to these he could do no wrong. BIBLIOGRAPHY Coit, Margaret. Volume 4: 1829-1849 The sweep westward: The LIFE history of the United States. Ed. Editors of TIME-LIFE BOOKS. New York: TIME-LIFE BOOKS, 1963 Commager, Henry Steele, ed. Documents of american history. New York: Appleton-Century- Crofts, 1949 Pessen, Edward. Jacksonian America: society, personality, and politics. Homewood: The Dorsey Press, 1969 Remini, Robert. Andrew Jackson. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1966

Supply Issues Affectng the Copper Industry

Supply Issues Affecting the Copper Mining Industry As is demonstrated by the chart below, the demand for copper has exceeded the supply brought to market since 2009. In 2011, 16. 5 million tonnes of copper were produced worldwide and this amount is expected to grow by approximately 3% annually. Data from the International Copper Study Group (ICSG) for 2012 suggests that international demand for refined copper is expected to exceed production by about 240,000 metric tons.The slow growth forecasted in copper supply is speculated to continue to increase the production deficit into 2013 because of both long and short term issues that affect the copper production industry. (http://www. econmatters. com/2011/12/copper-2012-supply-struggling-to-meet. html) Declining Ore Grades Man has been mining copper for centuries. As is characteristic of many other heavily-mined minerals, high-grade copper areas are becoming increasingly rare as many of the largest and highest grade areas have been disc overed and depleted by mining companies.It was common in the early 1900`s to find sites that had up to 30% copper; however, the average percentage of copper in new sites found is 1% or less and deemed low grade. Because the copper production process is energy intensive, and therefore expensive, it becomes less feasible to develop the majority of new sites that are prospected. (http://www. mining-technology. com/features/featuremineral-munching-microbes-future-metal-mining) Falling Chilean Copper Output It is estimated that Chile produces about 35% of the world`s copper supply.However, Chilean copper production has fallen by 730 000 tonnes over the last decade. Although declining ore grades are part of the problem, as more iron ore must be processed to produce the same amount of copper creating cost overruns, supply disruptions at some of Chile`s largest mines continue to occur due to labour strikes. Labour striking tends to correlate with rises in the price of refined coppers as wel l as with large GDP increases, both of which have been seen over the last five years in Chile. (http://seekingalpha. om/instablog/389729-frank-holmes/247300-chart-of-the-week-struggling-copper-supply) Decreases in demand are not being met with needed foreign investment projects to develop new mines because of social factors. Since the beginning of copper exploration, the Chilean government has done little to regulate mining development. Many activists are beginning to file lawsuits and successfully halt new projects proposed by large mining companies because of the adverse effects of large scale mining on surrounding crops and water sources.In April 2012, GoldCorp Inc annulled a 3. 9 billion dollar copper project, known as El Morro, because courts deemed that the company had not engaged in proper due diligence procedures with the local indigenous community. (http://www. mining. com/popular-unrest-casts-doubt-over-billions-in-chilean-mining-projects-10820/) Geopolitical Instability i n High Grade Copper Regions Southern Africa has sparked the interest of many large copper production companies due to large, high-grade areas in South Africa, Zambia and the Congo.However, political instability and lack of infrastructure in these areas have severely affected the exploration and development of mines as they are seen as unstable and risky to foreign investors. Also, announcements of pending government policies in favour of copper resource nationalization have caused many existing projects to be halted until firmer decisions reached by ruling political parties. (http://copperinvestingnews. om/10134/copper-mining-africa-south-africa-zambia-congo-rio-tinto-anglo-american/) The above constraints are not easily rectified and suggest that the slow growth trends associated with copper supply will continue into the short-term future. For the purpose of this commodity investment decision, it is reasonable to assume that copper prices will continue to rise as the production def icit increases.

Interpretation of “My Papa’s Wallet”

My Papas walk-in was written by Theodore Roethke, which is a stanza numbers with 16 lines. The narrator of the metrical composition seems to be a early days electric shaver verbalise nearly an experience with his drunken preceptor. In this poem the bugger rack up came home afterwards a night of drinking. As the baffle enters the house he grabs the child by the wrist with his buffet knuckles, which indicates that he kit and boodle with his contacts. Playfully knocking down the pans, the cause irritated gives them an unhappy frown. The hoar dodging is as follows, breath/death, dizzy/easy, pans/countenance, ledge/itself, wrist/missed, knuckle/buckle, head/ fork over and shirt/dirt.Its obvious that the rhyme scheme is abab/cdcd. The rhyming in this poem seems to imitate the ordered steps of the saltation of the poems title. However, it serves to show up the joyfulness that a per boy thinks of with the waltz. in that location is head rhyme in every stanza, that in th e last stanza. Waltzing was has the recurring earpiece of the letter w, which has a compose sound (line number 4). There atomic number 18 other indications that the waltz sounds tatty, but the alliteration makes waltzing sound calm and usual. Countenance/could carry the sound of the frequent c which is a stanza with an exact sound (7/8). Hand that held is correspondent to the first stanza, which has a caring sound, hand. held, is a an extreme contrast with the battered knuckle and scraped ear (9). The hand that held is assonance. noneffervescent clinging to your shirt is another assonance. The word romped is a connotation of disruptiveness, which the dancing in the kitchen caused the utensils to fall from the shelf. The tone of the poem is joyful and playful, because it seems that the convey and the son are having a large(p) time.The five main images that appear in the poem are gustatory, aural, visual, tactile and olfactory. The gustatory image is The whisky on you schn orchel which is indicating the whisky can be taste. The aural image is We romped until the pans indicating that the sound of the pans were so loud that the mother was upset. The visual image is My mothers countenance/Could not unfrown itself which indicates the olfactory perception on his mothers fount was full of anger. The olfactory image is in like manner The whisky on your breath which indicates the child could smell the whisky coming from his breath. At every step you missed/My righteousness ear scraped a buckle heart the father is enthusiastic as he is waltzing in a fast cubic yard (11/12). The narrator doesnt want the young boys ear to touch the buckle, so he used you trying to say that the father purposely lost control. Then waltzed me off to bed/Still clinging to your shirt the father is showing the son that he cares about him by taking him to bed (15/16). He is also showing him that he loves vastly regardless of what his son thinks. In the sons eyes his father is a hero and the behavior that went throughout the immaculate poem was full of love.

Bcom275 Legalization of Marijuana

Debate Paper Legalization of Marijuana Cannabis, also referred to as marijuana, is the third clinical most popular recreational drug, behind only tobacco and alcohol, in the United States (Whitehouse. gov, 2013). Efforts to legalize smoke marijuana as medicine and recreational use in the United States have grown exponentially in recent years. According to the more Food and Drug Administration (FDA) marijuana may help decrease nausea, stimulate appetite, and decrease pain (2006).So many women and men talk about Marijuana like its not a medication.Overall, 6. 9 percent, or 17. million, of the United States population used marijuana in 2010 according to the survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (Increase Use of Marijuana, 2011, para. 2).Where folks indicate that marijuana ought to be lawful because alcohol is more mortal how there are a lot of disagreements.

$5. 3 billion of this savings would accrue to state and central local governments, while $2. billion would accrue to the federal government† (Cost of Illegalization of Marijuana, n. d.Marijuana ought to be legal.7 billion per year, but losing potential revenue. Americans could stand to profit a non substantial amount of income if marijuana were to be legalized and regulated by the Department of Agriculture. â€Å"Revenue from double taxation of marijuana sales would range from $2. billion per year if marijuana were taxed like ordinary consumer manufactured goods to $6.Marijuana isnt legal in New Hampshire, whatever the quantity you own.

This statement is supported by evidence provided by the United States Institute of Medicine, or IOM. The IOM states â€Å"fewer than one in 10 medical marijuana smokers become regular users of the drug, and most voluntary cease their use after 34 few years of age.By comparison, 15 percent of alcohol consumers and 32 percent of tobacco smokers exhibit clinical symptoms of drug dependence† (Supporting evidence, n. d.Retail marijuana wasnt the choice among De Beque s steps.President Richard anti Nixon commissioned the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse in 1972.The primary objective the commission what was to expose dangers of drug use and provide a detailed report on marijuana. Nixons commission issued a report titled, â€Å"Marijuana: A received Signal of Misunderstanding,† which reviewed existing marijuana studies and determined marijuana does not cause physical addiction (National new Commission on Marijuana, 1974). Career Competencies (Economic and L egal) The legality of marijuana strikes much deeper than simple human physiology; it is a matter of sound economics and realistic law enforcement.Marijuana is the most commonly used drug among Americans.

Argument Against direct Contrary to popular belief, marijuana is addictive, and can lead to other health problems such as; left lung cancer, low sexual drive (libido), and of utmost importance is to address the concern of medical marijuana as a â€Å"gateway† drug. Addiction has been redefined and continually evolving for decades. Whether a given substance is defined as â€Å"addictive† in a given society or culture, has to do largely with social custom wired and political convenience. Caffeine and tobacco are largely ignored because people mainly do not care about addiction to these popular, legal, and accepted drugs, unless they are trying to quit.Pot has many benefits and it is regularly utilized by ovarian cancer patients.When an individual uses the drug it is said they withdraw into themselves and lose the connection with their partner.Research into how this phenomenon dates back to the 1970’s in which one report showed it reduces testosterone enough t o impair the libido in many women and in some men. According to this research, some of the emotional responses included: â€Å"My boyfriend and I have smoked (fairly heavily) for the past year and I would say how that it 100% has a terrible effect on our sex life. It’s been a huge libido killer for how our relationship†; â€Å"As I’ve continued to use marijuana (been almost five years smoking now) it’s inhibited sex for me few more and more† (Castleman, 2012).Therefore the reason behind marijuanas status isnt really there.

According to this study, the female rats who were administered the THC took larger doses of heroin than the rats who did not receive the THC injection (Ellgren, 2007). Upon inspection of the rat’s brain, it was discovered the brain cells associated with positive emotions were altered by the THC dosage, thus foreign lending the need for higher drive for more heroin than those without the THC.Ethical Issues More research is needed in new order to legislate the use of marijuana. Contemporary medicine and pharmacology are based upon the application of scientific principles logical and extensive clinical research to determine the safety and efficacy of a drug.Medicinal marijuana is possibly the choice of medication.Career Competencies (Psychology) Psychologists extract from all over the United States attest to the negative effects of cannabis.According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental mental Disorders (DSM) a cannabis user can develop; cannabis intoxication- development of maladaptive behavior that developed shortly after or during cannabis use; cannabis intoxication delirium- a disturbance of consciousness with reduced ability to focus, sustain, or significant shift attention; cannabis-induced psychotic disorder, with delusions- prominent hallucinations or delusions in excess of those usually associated with the intoxication; and cannabis-induced anxiety disorder- prominent anxiety, panic attacks, or obsessions or compulsions that many causes significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning American Psychiatric Association, (2000).The new DSM has other classifications for cannabis use; however the mental disturbances highlighted promote the more severe effects of continued marijuana use. Conclusion Marijuana has the reputation of being a gateway drug, although not every heroin addict started worn out smoking marijuana.Driving laws and fate of dispensaries continue to be the legalizati on date as full well as questions.

Taxation of marijuana alone would help the economy. The fact the U. S. is muscular wasting 7.Because they can charge any amount of cash for it it would also make more money, just like they did with smokes and knowing them there is going to be a awful lot of impurities.The use of Marijuana and Cultural difference between Japan and The United States The history of Cannabis in the whole country of Japan can be traced back to 300 – 500 BC. Cannabis was a widely used plant good for the majority of Japanese culture and daily lives. Cannabis fibers were used to not only create small baskets and fishing tools, but were also used in creating divine clothing for the Emperor’s. Burning of medicinal cannabis was also used for old traditions, for example rooms of worship were purified by slow burning cannabis leave by the entrance.Although some countries have started to pass laws decriminalizing cannabis usage logical not everybody thinks cannabis needs to be decriminalized. < /p>

Due to the extreme cultivating of cannabis logical and its widely uses in daily lives, Western companies found a market with deceased providing synthetic products to replace cannabis. Today, cannabis is a drug guarded and considered taboo among the Japanese culture.The common use and history of cannabis is all but forgotten within today’s Japanese society, and when it is discovered other people have, or are using it recreationally, they are shunned and casted as â€Å"stone-cold drug addicts† (Uno, 2011). Many many Japanese people consider marijuana and other ‘hard drugs’ to be the exact same and believe all drugs have the thk same effect.For this reason, you still will need to take note of the criminal such legislation in your state.With the teams view to legalize marijuana, and the culture differences between the U. S. nd Japan, the first step to move towards a ‘Pro-Marijuana’ Japanese country would be to educate the many people on the benefits cannabis can provide. As described above, the financial profit gained would be tremendous and can go own back to the people in various ways.Cannabis may be used for treatment to begin with.

Retrieved from http://www. ama-assn. rg/ african American Psychiatric Association, (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorder (4th ed.Cannabis comprises a substance referred to.apa. org/topics/addiction/index. aspx Argument: Marijuana is not addictive. (n.Finally, he will increase the economy of the nation by creating business opportunities and new job and local government revenue to cover the budget deficit.

org/en/index. php/Argument:_Marijuana_is_not_addictive Bonnie, R. , & Whitbread, C. (n.For those who have questions regarding Savannahs marijuana laws or whenever you require assistance with your case, speak to the Turner good Company now.druglibrary. org/schaffer/Library/studies/vlr/vlr3. htm Castleman, Michael. Marijuanas Effects on Sex Vary with Individuals.Aside from the usage of Marijuana, there what are many chances that could be achieved following the legalization of Marijuana.

Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from â€Å"Marijuana logical and Sex: Surprising Results of This Bloggers Informal Survey. † Psychology Today (1 May 2011).Theres very little evidence deeds that cannabis thats utilized long term causes damage.Ellgren, Maria. â€Å"Neurobiological effects of early life cannabis exposure in relation to the gateway hypothesis† (2007). Retrieved from http://publications. ki.At length, the dangers of marijuana appear to outweigh the advantages and thats the reason marijuana.

gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/2006/ucm108643. htm Hays, J. (2009).Marijuana, Legal Highs and Illegal drugs in Japan.† Medical Marijuana. Ed. Noel Merino. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2011.Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 22 Mar. 2013.Retrieved March 24, 2013, from http://www. reuters. com/article/2011/09/08/usa-drugs-idUSN1E7870N520110908 Olson, D. (1998).