Ethical Treatment of Prisoners Essay Example for Free

Ethical Treatment of Prisoners Essay Ethical Treatment of Prisoners BY MeltssaoT People in society today have rules, regulations, and guidelines to follow in order to maintain freedom, safety, structure, and self-discipline. If any of these rules are broken, there are consequences to follow. It depends on the severity of the crime on what type of punishment or consequence is given to an individual. If the crime is severe enough the individual may be deprived of their rights, freedom of movement, and sent to prison for a duration of time. If one is sent to prison then the ethical treatment of prisoners rights must be taking into consideration and analyzed. A prisoner/inmate is a person that has committed a criminal offence and depending on their criminal history he or she may be put on probation or confined to a county Jail or state penitentiary. Once an individual gets behind those block walls their lives then tend to belong to the deputies, correctional officer or warden that is employed by that facility. Within the prison system there is a division of power that exists. This power can leave feelings of powerlessness and dependency in the prisoners. We all have heard stories of correction officers using their power of authority to abuse and psychologically harm the prisoner. For example a couple of months ago in the state that I live in there was an inmate who was locked up for a minor charge of failure to appear. He was waiting for his dinner this particular evening, and the deputy almost slammed the inmate finger in the door. Of course this escalade into a verbal altercation between the two, and from there a physical fight broke out. The deputy which outweighed the inmate by over 100 pounds picked up the inmate and slammed him on his head onto a concrete floor multiple times until the inmate was unconscious. The Jailhouse officials rush this inmate to the ospital in which he went into a coma, and eventually was placed on life support. The family of this inmate was faced with a difficult situation which was either remove him from life support or leave him there to waste a away. In the end the family made the decision to remove their love one from life support, and the deputy was behind a minor criminal matter the question is did he deserve to be treated less than a human being? Did he really deserve to die? Some people might argue the fact that because he was locked up then he deserved the treatment that he got and others might voice the difference. I personally say no, because this is still a life and even though he made a mistake there should have been a correct way to go about punishment for this inmate if he really had got out of order. When law abiding citizens and correctional officers look at prisoners, it does not matter what the crime was or how severe the punishment, a prisoner is a nobody. In the United States there are many people that may agree and have strong feelings when it comes to this statement. In ethics a utilitarian may say that human beings should focus on the potential rules of an action and determine what would happen if e or she follows the rules. Utilitarian theory states the moral worth of an action should be determined specifically by its usefulness in maximizing utility and minimizing negative utility. The world as a whole has a moral code on how people should conduct themselves, on what is right and wrong. The belief of the utilitarian theory can be used in prisons to help those that really want to be rehabilitated. I am not saying that this theory will work for all, but there are some men and women that deserve another chance in life. We have to realize that everyone makes mistakes n their life, some are worse than others, but in the end everyone still deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, no matter what they may have done. I have heard stories about men that may have raped or killed a little child is sent to prison the correctional officers tend to sometime turn their heads and let the other inmates beat him or rape him until he is almost dead. I dont agree with the fact that he hurt a child but at the same time I dont think that its morally right that they allow the other inmates to Jeopardize what little bit of freedom that they may have behind hose prison walls either. The ethical solution to this is when you do have a child rapist sent to prison put those type of people in a area amongst themselves and maybe have counselors around where they can get a better understanding of this person sick mind because sometimes these people that do these type of things have had some type of trauma when they were a child. It is unethical to confine an individual to a correctional facility and expose this individual to danger. When you talk about ethics in prison, in the eyes of some that is either driving by hat facility yard every day or has never really been behind those thick masculine bars then one may say that these people are animals and they deserve to be behind those bars. Once behind those bars their life changes because they have to be told when to eat, when to sleep, when to walk and talk. If an inmate is not like by a correctional officer or if one does not follow order then they may be deprived of food or even yard time. Torture and beatings will not correct their behavior but will make them more aggressive so that choice is not the best. If any of these things should appen then this may lead to riots and in serious scenarios, killing of security guards. It is best to provide the basic needs such as food to the prisoners so that there is a harmonious reaction between the prisoner and the correction officer. The utilitarian would say that inmates should follow a morally right rule that would result in happiness in which once they are return to society they can determine what rules citizens. Learning positive rules will result to good behavior and a change of mind that life without freedom is something that one may not want to return to. In contrast..

The Significance of Brown v. Board of Education Essay -- Case Review

In 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States was confronted with the controversial Brown v. Board of Education case that challenged segregation in public education. Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark Supreme Court case because it called into question the morality and legality of racial segregation in public schools, a long-standing tradition in the Jim Crow South, and threatened to have monumental and everlasting implications for blacks and whites in America. In 1951, Oliver L. Brown, his wife Darlene, and eleven other African American parents filed a class-action lawsuit against the Board of Education of Topeka on behalf of their twenty children for denying colored children the right to attend segregated white schools and sought to change the policy of racial segregation in the school district. The plaintiffs had been working closely with the leadership of the local Topeka NAACP to overturn segregation in public schools. In the fall of 1951, the parents tried to enroll t heir children in the neighborhood school nearest to their home, but they were denied enrollment in the white schools and told to attend segregated black schools. The District Court acknowledged that segregation in public education had a harmful effect on black children, but denied the need to desegregate schools because â€Å"the physical facilities and other ‘tangible’ factors† in Topeka, Kansas were all equal (Brown v. Board of Ed, 366). The District Court ruled according to the precedent established in Plessy v. Ferguson by the Supreme Court in 1896 and upheld state laws permitting, or requiring, segregation in public education. African Americans were inspired to defy laws discriminating against colored people and engage in nonviolent actions by the ev... ...ricans hope that they would be free from discrimination and given equal opportunity in all aspects of their lives. The Brown v. Board of Education case is often noted for initiating racial integration and launching the civil rights movement. Works Cited Hoffman, Elizabeth Cobbs, Edward J. Blum, and Jon Gjerde, 3rd eds. Major Problems in American History: Volume II: Since 1865. Boston: Wadsworth, 2012. Print. Roosevelt, Franklin Delano. â€Å"4. Roosevelt Identifies the ‘Four Freedoms’ at Stake in the War, 1941.† Hoffman, Blum, and Gjerde 271-73. United Nations. â€Å"1. The United Nations Approves a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.† Hoffman, Blum, and Gjerde 363-65. United States Supreme Court. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483-496 (1954). â€Å"2. The Supreme Court Rules on Brown v. Board of Education, 1954.† Hoffman, Blum, and Gjerde 365-66.

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Henry James is well-known for crafting fine literature. One special short piece, The Turn of the Screw, taps into a topic that received great acclaim in the era it was published: ghosts. It was initially released at the tail-end of the 19th century, and followed up with 20th century critical essays regarding this saga. Turn of the Screw was first released when actual ghost-sighting incidents were so common that they became coffee-table discussion. My focus is, in fact, on the subject of ghosts. After reading James’s work, I believe that the governess and her ghost incidents were actually a figment of her imagination, based largely on her unstable mental health. I will offer my reflections as to why our governess was tripped-up and tricked into believing she saw phantoms. The main thrust of her disillusionment came from her mental illness. The history behind The Turn of the Screw is woven to the argument between the apparition-believers and the non-apparition traditionalists. The phenomenological spirit-hunter controversy has been wide spread, even in this day and age of the 21st century. In order to stay true to Henry James, it is important to define what I mean by apparition and non-apparition. According to James’s time period—which I will be true to in my assessment—I will clarify that an apparition refers to explanations in which ghosts are seen to be very real figures or a manifestation of paranormal activity existing in a person’s field of vision. Non-apparition, instead, infers that the explanations in which ghosts are viewed are actually hallucinations of the mind. This is the standard terminology used in The Turn of the Screw. From the beginning, although James has a captive means of expressing himself through story-telling, one major criticism is that the stories he creates are too far-fetched. He misses out on incorporating the essence of reality into his story, which immediately sends reads on a downward spiral away from realism. The story does not tell about life and the journals of the governess. Instead the governess and the supporting characters (which includes ghost figments) are not people we’d easily associate with in life. James has a focus in his novella, but the thematic structure is too narrow in the sense that he ignores incorporating daily-life experience and background structure—both in characterization and scenery. Readers cannot truly take his account as a subject of realism. When we look at his characters and plot-structure, it becomes clear that James excluded huge segments of society. He was not concerned with low-class families or even the middle class. He wrote of nothing in regards to the common man. Instead, his interest lie solely in envisioning a class of people devoted to the luxuries of high class status. So, in order to follow along with Henry James, we must pay a ticket, so-to-speak, to enter his special world of an elite cast from another planet of thinking. First, we must agree to the boundaries of his world. Then, and only then, can we consider him to be a realist. However, it’s important to point out that James is true to his characters. He never violates the laws of his reality. His is, in effect, a faithful storyteller and his characters are always understandable. Robert Lee Wolff, for instance, in his published piece, The Genesis of The Turn of the Screw, points out that there were many skeptics who felt that readers who believed in this supernatural tale were, in effect, caught in the trap of Henry James. It was viewed as a â€Å"cold artistic calculation† on the part of its highly entertained author (Wolff p. 125). As we look at the governess in the first few turns of the story, we see how James very deliberately and carefully sets up the machinery where the governess first witnesses the ghosts. The governess believes in these ghost-incidents but refuses to investigate the situation. It’s difficult to believe our governess would not be shaken by curiosity in hopes of validating her visions. It’s also apparent that the governess takes a liking to her employer and she wants him to go on these walks with her, in hopes of them both seeing the ghosts. But she does not. This is very uncharacteristic of a mentally stable person. James leaves room for the reader to decide whether or not it’s her infatuation or psychotic visions that has a hold of her. It seems, to me, that her imagination, along with her mental fragility, are the keys that lead her to imagine the ghosts, instead of actually seeing them. To back up my claim, Francis Roellinger cites the following, If James emphasized the artistic limitations of the â€Å"recorded and arrested† ghosts, it is chiefly to make clear to the reader his reasons for ignoring these limitations in the construction of his own phantoms† (Roellinger 135). With working with children during the day, the governess discovers the magic within the children—and their own individual gravity toward curiosity and uncovering the truth of situations. Yet, her state of mind seems to cloud her vision. This further strengthens my plea that these ghosts were actually figments of her imagination. The governess does spend time discussing these apparition sightings with Mrs. Grose. They learn that the man died after falling on the ice after a drunken evening at a tavern. The history of recent dead individuals includes the previous governess who died last year. Are these dead the ghosts she sees? We then discover that the children know of these ghosts, but are hiding this information from the adults. James has a spine-tingling means of crafting his story, yet the believability fall short with his lack of realism and superficial details. Later, other critics saw his work lacking realistic integrity. Robert Lee Wolff added that Henry James created a governess that certainly suffered from mental illness. Wolff wrote, â€Å"the tortured forms and expressions, are proof positive that he regards the governess, who sees the ghosts and tells the story, as a neurotic, suffering from sex repression (Wolff p. 126). Another critic, in the same published essay by Wolff, was cited as locating several situations that carried Freudian significance, which integrated our governess’s final pedophile passion for the young boy. The governess, in the end, scares him out-of-his-mind, frightening him to death. In reading a story so heavily laced with ghost appearances, how is it that the governess is such a stoic in regards to keeping her fear-factor at bay? This question brings to mind the notion that our governess might have some secret desire for fear or even pain. How else could she perpetuate her relations with the young boy child to the point of utter contempt regarding sexual desire? The situation weighs too heavily in favor of the governess’s mental instability being a driving force that leads her to imagine that she sees these ghosts. As we consider it deeper, her illness can be paralleled to imagining some of the scenes where children—according to her—are chatting with an apparition. On top of this, her solitude and lack of having a lover or partner in her life further distresses her situation. In essence, we can view this entire tale as a battle of good versus evil—not paranormal reality. The governess could also be considered a person who created this ghost scenario upon innocent children, which would be an extremely neurotic tendency on her part. She feels so alone and, when the children are in confidence with the ghosts, she creates a scenario, through her excessive imagination that holds little remorse for the repercussions that might occur to the children or other characters in the story. In conclusion, it’s clear that this is a story of a mentally unstable woman who uses her neuroses to create this universe of ghosts. It’s her means of communicating with others, after her younger years did not lead her to love. She is a deeply unstable individual, flawed with ruin. She is not the type of person who would be able to deal with these spine-tingling events with the conviction she displayed. This character trait in the governess along with other unrealistic situations in the story, offer no other solution than to consider it as a purely fabricated and imaginary chain of events.

A Fair Trial And Punishment - 1528 Words

Throughout the years, the definition of a fair trial and punishment has changed. In some ways, our Judicial System has gotten better; however, it has also gotten worse in some cases. Our Justice System no longer has a clear understanding of whether or not capital punishment is fair, constitutional, or should be fully utilized. Some people say that the use of capital punishment is unconstitutional, ethically wrong, and extreme. However, others say that Capital punishment would honor the victims and help console grieving families. It would ensure that the perpetrators would never get the chance to commit such horrendous crimes again. It would serve as a deterrent to other people who might commit the same or similar crimes in the future causing less tragedy and heartbreak. In many cases, like Kennedy v. Louisiana, many criminals get out of capital punishment because the crime did not result in the death of the victim. In Kennedy v. Louisiana Patrick Kennedy was convicted for t he aggravated rape of his 8 year-old step-daughter and sentenced to death. The Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed the statute, rejecting the defendant s reliance on Coker v. Georgia, which prevented the use of capital punishment for the rape of an adult woman. The Eighth Amendment, which bans the use of cruel and unusual punishment, bars Louisiana from imposing capital punishment for the rape of a child because the crime did not result in the death of the victim. This is just one example ofShow MoreRelatedImportance Of The Eighth Amendment1115 Words   |  5 Pagesshall not be required, nor excessive fines are imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.† This was made to help make sure that more amounts of bail money/property are not given to by excessive amounts, and that cruel or unusual punishments are not prohibited to any person going into court. 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The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines crime as â€Å"an act or the commission of an act that is forbidden or the omission of a duty that is commanded by a public law and that makes the offender liable to punishment by that law† (2010). â€Å"One of the fundamental theories of the United States criminal justice system is that those on trial remainRead MoreJudge Court Is Guilty Of Due Process Violations1674 Words   |   7 Pagesunlike any other in the country. Judge Williams’s courts in Georgia’s Glynn and Camden Counties do not honor a major component of rule of law—due process. Due process is fair treatment through the judicial system. It includes, among a few other rights, the rights to receive an impartially fair trial and subsequent reasonable punishment, to grieve or complain against the charges and government official in charge, and to appeal. Judge Amanda William’s drug court is guilty of due process violations in