...xxxxxx 05/20/2010 COM/220 Karen Moninger The life of a seven-year old girl tragically ends at the hands of a young boy. The court convicted Lionel Tate of first degree murder for beating the 48-pound girl, and sentenced him to life in prison. This punishment was a rather harsh judgment many in the community argue against today. Instead of incarcerating him for life, what other options are available? As teen violence continues to plague the nation, many people wonder if rehabilitation is an effective method for deterring future occurrences. Twelve-year old Lionel Tate took the life of a young girl named Tiffany Eunick. Lionel’s mother, a Florida Highway Patrol officer, was sleeping upstairs though she was responsible for babysitting Tiffany. The mother left the children watching television and playing together downstairs unattended. During horse play, Lionel begins to re-enact moves he saw watching wrestling. The 160-pound boy was responsible for cuts, bruises, fractured skull, lacerated liver, broken ribs and internal hemorrhaging on young Tiffany Eunick. Certainly the parents of the deceased child will want to see justice served for the loss of their loved one. Stories surface daily about a teen committing some sort of crime. A heart wrenching reality that many people will either themselves face, or know someone who has or will experience. The epidemic of teen violence is rapidly increasing; Statistics say youth under the age of 18 were arrested for nearly...
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...over the years. In particular, the killing of twenty schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut. In December 2012 this mass shooting fueled a national discussion over gun laws. However, compromise legislation would have banned semiautomatic assault weapons and expanded background checks was defeated in the senate in 2013, despite extensive public support. Arguments for more restrictive gun laws http://gun.laws.com/gun-rights/gun-control-versus-gun-rights As society continues to diversify and human beings become more individualistic, we drift further apart from understanding each other. The gun control debate is not directly effected by this, but psychologically human beings fear what we don't understand. In a society with hundreds of cultures, differences and arguments can arise out of nothing. Words are one thing but the use of firearms is an entirely different topic. With less restrictive laws on purchasing and ownership a seemingly pointless feud could intensify into murder. Guns give a man power, with power inevitably comes abuse. There is a high rate of gun-related violence http://gun.laws.com/gun-rights/gun-control-versus-gun-rights The United States leads the world in gun violence and ownership. There is a direct correlation. This is perhaps the most obvious argument made in the gun control debate-guns kill people, most of the time for pointless reasons. Some statistics to back this argument up-The American Journal for Public Health conducted a study-Of the 233...
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...Video games, amongst other forms of media, are being blamed for the violent actions of children and adolescence. “Movies and television entertain with realistic and bloody dramatizations of murders, beatings and tortures. Warlike video games have become a popular part of culture, and children routinely watch cartoons that depict violent events” (Earles, Alexander, & Johnson, 2002). The controversy and debate argues whether or not this claim is true. One side of the claim states that video games are genera lly harmless, a popular form of entertainment enjoyed by individuals of varied ages and origi ns. Regardless the popularity or the nature of the game, the individuals playing the game should understand that it is a fictitious scenario and should be treated as such. In addition, cens orship ratings have helped identify the appropriate audience for each individual game but as is the case with cigarettes and alcohol, it is not always adhered. Opposition claims state the cruel and bloody dramatizations have instilled images that have affected the minds of children. These effects have influence children to act violently often reenacting scenes and scenarios from certain video games. In addition, supplemental claims state that the lack of parental supervision and presence adds to the extremity of the violent acts. In terms of research analysis, quantitative statistics claims, “Youth violence results in considerable physical, emotional, social, and...
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...crimes such as murder, robbery, larceny-theft, and forcible rape.” What causes children to act so violently these days? Violence in movies and on television that they watch and emulate. The same study provided evidence of the link between movies and the crimes committed by such children: “the configuration of corpses, mutilated by disturbed teenagers to resemble victims in slasher movies.”Children at young ages are very impressionable. When a child is born, it is born without knowledge of how to act, speak, or think positively. Instead, as they grow, they pick up behavioral tendencies from various outside sources. Such impressions have a lasting effect on children which can last through adolescence. As these children develop, they copy the violent behavior of characters portrayed in the false reality created by movies, not knowing the difference between behavior that is proper, and behavior that is not. In today’s age of digital entertainment, video media such as movies are highly influential to people of all ages. Children, however, may be the age group most affected by movies. At younger ages, children’s minds are more pliable and will follow any behaviors set by any source. For example, let’s say that a family of 3, a mother, a father, and a 5 year old boy, go out to see Bangkok Dangerous, an action movie currently in theaters This movie is a typical modern action movie, containing generous amounts of gun violence and explosions. If the child sees action movies in a generally...
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...movies." | | "The question whether movie violence should be regulated or not is a difficult and complicated matter." Although many people criticize violent movies, if there is a movie which does not contain sex and violence, who will go to see that movie? Most major movies, such as "Lethal Weapon", "Die Hard", and "Independence Day", were really popular in spite of the fact that the "good guy" killed more people than the "bad guy" did. In my opinion, Hollywood tends to produce few kinds of movies--action, panic, love story, and comedy. Whenever I watch a movie or a video, there is at least one murder in each movie. The biggest number of deaths are in the panic movies, in my opinion. Action movies with violence take heat from adults who blame them for real life violence because they are closer to reality than other movies. For example, in "Natural Born Killers" we can see around 50 deaths, whereas in "Independence Day" thousands of people die. In both movies, tons of people are killed, though the ways to kill are different. The big difference between them is about reality. |[pic] | |PHOTO BY THOMAS PETERS | |"Although many people criticize violent movies, if there is | |a movie which does not contain sex and violence, who will go| |to see that movie?" | Children might imitate behavior they see...
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...injury or death. The work environment needs to be free from any violent occurrences to prevent and resolve security incidents involving threats and episodes of violence. A strong commitment from management, supervisors and employees is warranted to enhance workplace safety, and to reduce and prevent disruption and violence. Violence emerges from behaviors that are disruptive, threatening or simply violent in nature. A disruptive/verbal behavior prevents or interferes with the normal work functions or activities whereas a threatening behavior includes physical actions short of actual contact or injury usually oral or written to people or property. The violent or physical behavior exhibits actions where a physical assault, with or without weapons, is interpreted as being potentially violent (i.e. throwing things, pounding a desk or door, or destroying property) or when specific threats inflict physical harm (e.g. a threat to shoot someone by name). All these behaviors motivate business owners to take precautions and proactive measure to protect employees and coworkers of violent crime before it erupts. Several steps can be taken by businesses to address workplace violence. First step may take place in the interview hiring process of the employee; expand pre-employment screening. The company culture should set the stage to establish and maintain a good workforce that doesn’t tolerate violent behaviors; this should be briefed during orientation. Additionally...
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...In the opening paragraph, it was asserted that it was on the shoulders of society for the responsibility of these increases in violent crime. The following paragraphs are the reasons that will prove my arguments. The forces of social control affect every aspect of an individual in a society such as Canadian Society. That is, it is the attempt that society makes to regulate behavior of its citizens within that society. Some examples of these society enforced roles are our status roles, which place us into a hierarchy that is given to us by society. Their are both positive and negative structures and factors to enforce these laws rules created by the society. Positive being praise, wealth and power for abiding by the laws of a given society. Negative enforcers are disgrace, negative praise etc ... and other forms of deterrence that are created by society. These levels of punishment equal the importance of the laws that they enforce in the eyes of the society. Laws against criminal behavior has the criminal justice system in place to enforce and act as a form of social control. “A formal system that responds to the alleged violations of laws using police, courts and punishments …” Therefore although society as a whole sees crime as a personal failure and a choice of the individual to act upon. Society is the anvil on which ideas of good and evil are wrought and the individuals are hammered into conformity with applied force that is physical and personality shaping. ...
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...Ryan Batista Casey Lukenbill SOCIOLOGY 1 TWTH 4:10-6:50 P.M. 2/3/2011 Violent Crimes in Society Deviance is the contravention of what society sees as normal. Crime is one of the main problems within deviance that society faces on a daily basis. One specific type of crime that many are affected by is violent crime. This type of crime ranges from minor traffic violations to murder. Violent crimes in the United States affect society domestically, personally, and sexually. One type of violent crime that affects men and woman is domestic violence. According to Professor Lukenbill’s lecture, domestic violence used to be a major dilemma that many would be scared to express freely, but because of how strict society has become on the issue, it is slowly declining. For example, stricter laws have taken a threshold on cutting down unnecessary abuse. The authorities did not take this issue as seriously as they did then as they do now. The police would merely show up, ask what was wrong, and leave the premises. Presently, the police now have to arrest the suspect of the abuse without further notification. The arresting takes place in order to ensure the safety of the victimized spouse. Also, this is an example of how the law is stricter than ten years ago. Another reason for the decline of domestic abuse is the wider variety of job opportunities that women have today. In fact, since women now have more employment opportunities, they can fend for themselves and not feel...
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...assign children early in their lives to watch different doses of violence on television and then 15 years later see which children committed violent crimes. But the same type of limitation also exists for medical research: We can't randomly assign groups of people to smoke differing amounts of cigarettes for 15 years, and then count the number of people who developed cancer. Tobacco researchers conduct correlational studies in which they look at the amount people have smoked during their lives and then chart the rate at which they have succumbed to cancer. They control statistically for other factors, of course--other healthy and unhealthy behaviors that either reduce or promote the tendency to develop cancer. Then they can find out whether smoking contributed to cancer, over and above these other influences. And since they can't do cancer experiments on people, they use animal studies. These are artificial, but they tell us something about the short-term effects of tobacco that can't be found from correlational studiesthe animal experiments for cancer, these are not natural situations, but such experiments fill the gaps they cannot fill otherwise. Experiments are designed to show short-term effects, like increases in hostility or more accepting attitudes toward violence--changes that we know increase the likelihood of violent actions, both in the short term and in the long run. A second reason for the misunderstanding of the media-violence work is that most public...
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...United States, the founding fathers attempted to create a list of rights they deemed, “inalienable.” Among these rights was the, “Right to bear arms”. Never has a Constitutional amendment generated so much publicity and heated debate. Many people feel that the founding fathers never could have predicted that firearms would evolve into weapons capable of a rate-of-fire greater than one round per minute. As such, they call for a new interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. They’re rationale being that allowing people to have access to firearms with “high” rates of fire actually increases violent and non-violent crime rates. Over the decades, there have been some changes in the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, and laws have even been instated that follow the same rationale. Coincidentally, there has also been a drop in crime rates. In fact all crime rates, violent and non-violent, have been steadily decreasing since 1993. Statement of Problem The major problem for my research study is based on further understanding the connection between firearm control laws and crime rates in the United States. Looking at the use of firearms in crimes is difficult as there are many different situational factors involved. Factors such as firearm control laws determine how well a potential victim may be armed. The enforcement of these laws can also determine how well armed a potential offender may be. If firearm control laws are not enforced properly, then it may be easier for people...
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..."Who shot me? You punks didn't finish; now you're about to feel the wrath of a menace, I hit em' up." A quote from late Tupac Shakur and most young men's anthem and golden rule they live by. Each factor of a person's life or make up can affect and be affected by another factor. Peer pressure, drugs and alcohol, lack of intelligence, negligence in the home, revenge, and abuse can cause psychological problems. When the accumulation of negative factors is present and there are no positive factors such as opportunities to be successful, adults who provide encouragement, or a resilient temperament reach a threshold, that's when violence is more likely to erupt as a means of coping with life's problems. Statistics show that most young men between the ages of 16-21 cope with their life problems by resorting to violence and crime. They steal- because of jealousy and greed; money, clothes,jewelry or cars has to be in their possesion by an means necessary. Peer pressure- the lack of intelligence and wanting to be accepted and fit in because of the lack of attention and love at home, they follow the crowd and never make wise decisions. Or they look up to a certain person in their neighborhood and want to mimic them and live their lifestyle. But, the main and most commonly known contributing factor is revenge. Losing a loved one to hands of another human being is never a easy pill to swallow and everyone deals with a loss differently. Most of us cry and help the authorities to...
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...In October 2009, a Richmond, CA. high school student was repeatedly raped while a couple of bystanders watched; they laughed, took pictures, sent text messages and made phone calls as the crime was happening. None of the calls placed was to the police. While the bystanders in this case were mostly teenagers and young adults, this non-reaction amongst bystanders cuts across different age groups and gender. Sadly, this is a normal response from bystanders as acts of violence are committed. The passive reaction is borne out of our culture of individualism; a ‘me first’ or “what’s in it for me” mentality. There have been several reasons argued for the lack of bystander involvement in thwarting an act of violence. The reasons put forward include, fear of being hurt in the process, the taboo of snitching, not recognizing the situation as an emergency and invasion of people’s privacy to name a few. If these are some reasons preventing onlookers from helping, how does one explain the case of Kitty Genovese? Kitty Genovese was a woman who killed in New York in 1964. Her murder took all of thirty-five minutes, the attacker actually had the time to leave the scene, come back, and inflict more pain on her. About 38 people heard and saw this happening through their windows, from the comfort of their homes. Despite her screams that she had been stabbed, none of these people tried to help her, either by confronting the attacker or by contacting the police. The most help she got was someone...
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...would be any of the “X-Men” series. These people may be mutants but most of them use their gifts for good rather than break the law. A classic example would be “Robin Hood”, he broke the law only to help those in need. (rottentomatoes.com) There are other examples where crime and the movies coexist on both sides of the law, whether it would be cheering for the good guy or cringing when a killer kills their victim, movies cannot show you the whole story and cannot show you the real justice system. During my research I came across this essay called “Does Movie Violence Increase Violent Crime?” (Dahl & DellaVigna, 2006) an excerpt from the essay caught my attention because I believe it is true. That excerpt says: “Warnings about media violence are largely based on the psychological research. As Anderson and Buschman (2001) summarize it, “Five decades of research into the effects of exposure to violent television and movies have produced thoroughly documented research findings. It is now known that even brief exposure to...
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...Self-Defense Ever had one of those nights where you’re walking down the street and everything is quiet. Thinking that everything is just fine, you get attacked by a random stranger who lounges at you with brutal strikes and punches. Shocked and not knowing what to do, the easy thing to do is to just take the hits over and over again. By then, you have given satisfaction to your attacker by succumbing to the violent circumstances given and surely enough; you have been not only robbed of whatever few valuables you possessed at the time, but also you’re sense of security. Self-defense is the countermeasure that includes the protection one’s property and the prevention of harm. It is the very essence of the actions portrayed by preventing been harmed in any way by either/or diminutive or cataclysmic proportions. Self-defense does not mean to fight, but rather the use of intelligence to do its sole purpose: to defend. In history, martial arts have marked an evolution and adaptation of an individual’s attempts to protect both their honor and family. In today’s society, we live in a world where danger is found in every corner. Since the introduction of firearms, combat knives and even Tasers that can cause paralysis, evolution has yet again played a role in the art of protection. For instance, when you are been pointed to your face with a gun, the smart thing to do is to not provoke your attacker but to comply so long as your well-being is not threaten. If his/her actions and unwise...
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...How can we predict future criminal activity based upon a Childs social behavior and skills and understand how to help them? Have you ever wondered if we could prevent someone from becoming a criminal? Many people have studied the social behaviors in children to predict the chances of them becoming criminals in their future. This idea is becoming more popular as well as recognized in the United States in hopes that we can help the children with high chances before it is too late. The three main predictors looked at are anti-social children, their aggressiveness, as well as their reactions towards affection. Though there are many other social predicts these three are the biggest ‘red flags’ used by those who conduct the studies. Being anti-social at a young age forces a child to being independent and lack in social skills needed to interact in society. Though many cases are just shy children whom find it difficult to initiate conversation; others are drastically different. The shy children are taken out of the equation for high chances of criminal ability do to the fact of one word, choice. A child whom chooses not to interact with other children typically does so because they see themselves as higher than the other children. This leaves the other children to believe this child is weird or an outcast. Therefore the child is treated differently at school, or other places in which they would interact. This can grow to hatred from being tormented by the children and lead the child...
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