...Do Inmates Deserve a Second Chance? Cari Adee, James Crooms, Latandra Sain, Taylor Cotter, Rodney Henry, Breanna Johnson, Latonia Pitts BCOM/275 7/20/2014 Do inmates deserve a second chance? Every time that you turn on the news you see it: School shootings, babies being left in the car by parents, people selling and doing drugs, people being murdered, raped and assaulted. According to the inter press services, in the last three decades people that are in prison have increased almost 790 percent, in the last 30 years the inmates count has risen from 25,000 to 219,000 and is still rising at a disrupting rate. The question that we need to ask ourselves is if the people that get out of prison deserve a second chance at a normal life. Everyone has a different opinion on this topic. Some people will agree that once a person serves time for the crime that they committed then they deserve a chance to start over. While others think that those who committed a crime should have thought about their actions before they did the things that they did. This paper will not just go over to the pros of why inmates deserve a second chance but the cons as well, in hopes that whoever reads this paper will make their own judgments based on all the information and not just part of the evidence. There are many pros for why a criminal deserves a second chance at life. For instance, many criminals have families that are in need of their assistance, financially, physically, and emotionally. There...
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...Should juveniles who commit first or second- degree murder receive a mandatory sentence of life without parole? That is a question that many people are asking themselves. This is a very debatable question due to the fact that if a juvenile does change, then he/she wouldn't have a chance at a new life because of the life sentence. I believe they should be granted a second chance, but if they take that second chance for granted, then they should be sentenced to life without parole. On the other hand, there has been cases where a teen who was sentenced to life got a second chance, but decided to take it for granted for being immature and emotionally unstable. Many teens make reckless decisions while growing up, some don't know better but others do. Where I stand in this situation is that juveniles should not be sentenced to mandatory life sentences without parole. Not many...
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...book filled with power life lessons, and various strong messages to young teens about life. It included, real people, who made real life decisions, and have to deal with the real consequences that come along with it. To start off, this book was about two completely different people with the same names growing up with the same experiences and lifestyles. Yet, in the end, both characters life turned out completely different. One becoming a Rhode scholar and the other in jail for the rest of his life. One page 67, the author Wes wrote, “ I guess it's hard sometimes to distinguish between second chances and last chance.” Both Wes Moores had second chances in their life and could of redeemed themselves easily. But the difference between the two realistic characters was the author Wes Moore, took the the second chance as a gift and the other Wes Moore, just took advantage of it and let it slip away. Overall, both Wes Moore’s received many second chances that affected both in different ways. To start off, the author...
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...being tried as juveniles but are being tried as adults and are getting life in prison. Kids as young as the age of 13 are being given life in prison with no opportunity at a second chance. The court systems are failing to recognize that these juveniles have their whole lives ahead of them.. Juveniles in the United States deserve second chances; they are not old enough or fully developed to know any better. Juveniles in the United States who are sentenced to life in prison still deserve a second chance at life, even if they commit a serious crime. Children in the United States, especially younger kids, are easily influenced by media and what type of home environment they live in because of their age. Kids tend to copy what they see, that means if they see something they should not be doing around them or on media, there is a chance that they will replicate it. The way children learn and behave is drastically different from the way adults do, which is why they should not be tried as adults and get sentenced to life. Children have the potential to change more than adults do. While kids are young they view the world differently. As Garinger mentioned adolescents are “less...
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...Save as many as you ruin Children… We have all been there. We have all grown up to be a reflection of our parents or guardian. Girls become comparable with their mothers and boys with their fathers. And then, there are the ones who don’t. All over the world both men and women live the everyday life as a single parent. Girls are missing their female and motherly role model, as well as boys are missing their male and fatherly role model or perhaps the other way around. The children suffer under the struggles of a single parent trying to do the job of both a mother and a father, while going to work to make sure their financial situation is stable. The line between chaos and cosmos becomes very fragile. And how is the single parent supposed to cope with the life of a single parent while trying to find a partner for life. Simon Van Booy’s short story Save as many as you ruin tells the story of a single father, Gerard, living with his eight years old daughter, Lucy, whose mother, Issy, left when Lucy was just a baby and died four years later. When Issy got pregnant with Lucy, Gerard was dating another woman, Laurel. Issy was just fun for Gerard and when he told Laurel that Issy was waiting his child she didn’t get mad, but it didn’t take long before Laurel broke it off with Gerard. Laurel is the only woman Gerard has ever truly loved. Now, eight years later Gerard meets Laurel. Gerard seems to be a middle-aged businessman. He works almost all day, but still gets off before the...
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...Second Chances Cold blooded murder is cold blooded murder no matter if a 17 year old commits the crime or a 40 year old. When you are holding someone’s’ life in your hands and deciding how long they should serve in prison for their crime, I would imagine it to be a very difficult situation, especially if the person is under 18. But I also believe that the punishment should fit the crime. The Supreme Court ruled that it violates the 8th amendment for a minor to go to prison for life without the chance for parole. I agree with the Supreme Court’s decision because there are many extenuating circumstances that need to be taken into account, no matter if you are dealing with a minor or an adult. First and foremost murder is murder no matter who commits it, but when you are young and you commit such a heinous crime, I believe that you are mentally unstable. I think that these people should be helped psychologically. This does not mean that they shouldn’t go to prison and that they just get a pat on the back and a referral to a psychologist, this means that they should get a chance for parole if they mature and get mentally stable. The character of a juvenile is not as well formed as that of an adult so that person should get a chance to prove that he or she deserves a second chance. Secondly, juveniles are very easily influenced by peer pressure. They are forced into situations in which they don’t really know what to do, which could force them to act out and do something horrible...
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...Save as many as you ruin Going through life, you are going to make many difficult decisions, every day you have to choose something and therefore deselect something else; some decisions will be the best ones we ever made, others we will live to regret for the rest of our lives. One thing is for sure though, you can’t change the past, and you can’t just go back and redo the important decisions, that’s just life. However, sometimes, if you’re lucky, life gives you a second chance. Gerard, the main character of the short story Save as many as you ruin by Simon Van Booy, has been given a second chance with love. He’s a single father, living on Manhattan. His daughter, Lucy, means everything to him, but except for her, his life seems meaningless and sad, and he seems to be frustrated with this empty and trivial living. He’s only ever loved one women, and it wasn’t Lucy’s mother Issy, it was a woman called Laurel, whom he thought he’d lost forever – but life grants him a second chance. On his way home, walking the cold, snowy big city-streets of New York: “he sees Laurel through the falling snow. Eight years has passed”. The famous “one that got away”. Gerard is a middle-aged, good looking man (“Gerard is handsome. He has slept with many women”). His relationship with women is rather superficial, he has slept with a lot of women, many of which he had no intention of loving. The women then keep a safe distance, to avoid “the grief of an ancient pain”, but all this meaningless sex and...
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...whether it is a dog or a cat, as part of the family and they often get treated like a member of the family. Unfortunately, not all pets arrive at a family’s house under the same circumstances. Many families decide that they want to purchase their pet via a breeder because they feel like they want a purebred dog, as opposed to the dogs that are sitting in shelters for months to even years at a time. Society needs to adjust, as purebred animals will still have a high chance at being bought, but shelter animals have a chance to spend a large chunk of their lives living in hopes that someone will come by and adopt them. Society has long preferred the purchasing of purebred dogs over shelter dogs and for various reasons. The first reason is the predictability of the physical traits in a purebred dog. By breeding two of the same dogs together, it uses a very similar set of genes which means that the traits that are common amongst the parents are going to be common amongst the offspring that they give birth too. A second reason is that people will buy their purebred dogs for the intent to run the dogs through dog shows. Purebred animals are the only kind of animals allowed in dog shows, so therefore by adopting a non-purebred dog; it eliminates all possibility of entering into dog shows. A third reason is that some temperamental traits are predictable in the offspring of purebred dogs. If the parents have similar temperamental behaviors (ex. biting, skittishness), there is a statistically...
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...He is a successful author and had no higher education like Wes did. Gaiman stated in his commencement speech, “The rules on what is possible and impossible in the arts were made by people who had not tested the bounds of the possible by going beyond them,” (Gaiman, 2012). To grow as an individual one must look beyond what is possible and what is impossible. Those who push the boundaries, those who see past the barriers are the open minded and they are the ones who succeed. They are the ones who live life to the fullest. Gaiman goes on to say, “People keep working, in a freelance world, and more and more of today's world is freelance, because their work is good, and because they are easy to get along with, and because they deliver the work on time. And you don't even need all three,” (Gaiman, 2012). He continues on to state that a combination of two of the three is enough to be successful in the world. When people are creative and have the ambition to achieve, they...
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...because he was missing out on the attention his parents didn’t give. I feel sympathy for Greg, I would feel the same way as he felt if I was being neglected. Do you agree with young adolescents being put away for life in prison? I disagree, teens at a young age are immature seeking ways to impress friends. Most grow up in a bad environment; as a result, they get into trouble, losing chances to have a positive memorable childhood. In the article “Kids are Kids Until they Commit Crimes” written by Marjie Lundstorm, she states “And the bigger the crime, the more eager we are to call them adults.” I agree because teens that commit crimes are still at that stage where they are immature. Marjie also stated “research suggest that adolescents squeezed through the adult system are more likely to come out as violent career criminals than similar kids handled on the juvenile side”. That being said, i believe teens are capable of making a better person. Teens snap and are frustrated of being pushed...
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...thousand juveniles have been sentenced to life of imprisonment with no chance of parole (children in prison). Typically without any consideration of their home life, age, or background. This is cruel, wicked, sad, and barbarous. Juveniles should not be tried as adults because, everyone deserves a second chance, the adolescent brain is not fully developed until the age of twenty-five, and children are fixable. Everyone deserves a second chance to make the right decisions and to try become a better person. Juveniles should be given the second chance to reflect on what they have done and not be put in a jail cell. They are just starting their lives, this will affect everything they strive to do. Trying to go to college, get a job, or start a family. A juvenile is a person who is under the age of eighteen, that is not enough time to even know who you are yet, to see your potential. Some of the kids that are being tried as an adult today aren't even old enough to drive, let alone start their high school careers. They are just little kids that have went down the wrong path and need some guidance. It is proven that...
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...punish the guilty. It is necessary some sympathy be expressed to the guilty party since they could at one point in life decide to change for the better. The death sentence is not the noblest way to counter violence. In this case, it would appear as if it is tat for tat, or to repay violence wit violence. Several civil rights and religious groups have been against death sentence claiming that there is no outright prove that the convict is guilty or not. What if the accused is just innocent and is just accused falsely? There are several ethical downsides of the death sentence and the reasons it should be abolished or not used at all. Several religious and civil rights activists haven't found it easy to negotiate about this penalty. There is a lot of both religious and ethical concerns about the issue that have prompted different groups to oppose staunchly this sentence. Subjecting a person to a death penalty is unconstitutional. The main reason has the fact that the individual living also has his right to live. It's, therefore, barbaric to convict one to a death sentence ultimately ending his/her life prematurely. Death penalty defies are the conventions of religion since religion also protects the life of an individual. For instance, in Christianity, it is believed that God is the one to decide who to live and who to die. Attempting to take another person's life then appears to violate and...
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...Second half of one’s life begins at the early forties. Not many people manage their second lives as these people are the minority. People who managed their second lives are those who see the long working-life expectancy as a chance both for themselves and for society who will become the leaders and the models. Bill Gates once said, “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” But one does not simply become a success person. It took years to become one. There is one requirement for managing the second life of one’s life which is to begin creating it long before one enters it. Other than to become leaders and models, we need to think on what to do with our second half of lives because we cannot put hope that we will still be working in the same organization in twenty years from now. As the saying goes, “Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.” We were taught in class the graph of life; as we are getting older, the options that are available to us are getting smaller, but the responsibilities are getting bigger. So at this young age, we need to grab any chances for the benefit of our future. As the professor said in class, “Don’t get old, alone and broke.” If we did, we might have nothing at all; even family. We do not want to be a burden to ourselves and people around us. Life is about drawing circles. If we have a great life, we will draw a perfect round circle. If we slipped somewhere, the circles drawn might not look like a circle. ...
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...to day life we don’t know how the day could go. Losing loved ones is very hard for everyone; especially when there was a chance that they could have been saved. Today’s technology has allowed as that, when one life ends we can give another person a second chance to live by donating our organs. Many people have organ failure and waiting to get a transplant. Unfortunately many of ill people die due the lack of sufficient organ donors. For many reasons and false myths people don’t want to donate their organs. The debate has continued whether people should donate their organs or not after they are dead. The need is constantly growing. People should donate their organs for three reasons. First, donating organ is a social responsibility. There are thousands of people that are waiting to receive organ and many of them die waiting to have a donor. Organ donation helps these patients who might not survive their illness. Once we die our organ is not necessary to us, but if we donate it to someone in need, they will survive their illness and have a second chance to live. For example, someone who has a heart failure can survive, if he gets a matching heart from someone who is dead. Donating organ could help that person get to his normal life. There are far more in need of organ transplant than there are people willing to donate their organ. Donating organ makes a lot of sense no matter what, because one life is already over and there is nothing to lose. Second, Donating...
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...can also be treated like an adult doing their hearing or trials in court. It also talks about the (SB 260 law ( Senate Bill Law) that gives these juveniles another chance at life outside of the prison walls. Juan Gomez, Antonio Hernandez and Jarad Nova are three Juveniles who faced years in prison. Even...
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