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American Civil War

It comes as a surprise that all young northerners oppose slavery mostly to southerners as you cousin. However, I believe that there are many ways to justify to this belief. In your question concerning whether it is true there has been a change of heart on my part, it is true .Abraham Lincoln is the best candidate to reflect ideas I currently support hence the widely spread support in the north especially by the younger generations. Cousin there are many events that led to my sudden change of heart. However, Convincing people from the south to adapt to abstinence of slave trade is at the moment difficult given that most slave-owners come from the southern states (Stowe, 89). I will try my best to answer your queries as much as possible in the view that you will understand my stand and possibly join in the conquest to free black people. Most of the things that led to this change of heart revolve around religion, morals, politics, literary, and finally economics.

The first event leading to my sudden change of heart is the newly formed organization the wide awake. Our constitution is clear that it is good to allow people to exercise their democratic rights. However, the situation that prevails is that segregation is on basis of color. According to research (Stowe, 25), there is lack of humanity in denying other people the right to engage in politics. Wide awakes is currently advocating for a politician to who will steer this country from the current situation. Sincerely speaking cousin they have made me dream of a country where there was no discrimination and black people. As much as I understand your surprise you of all people ought to know that I listen to reasoning. Right now wide awake through their constitutional campaign of a country free of slavery are making me realize that we have been wrong all along. It is not good to stand aside and do nothing while our country weathers away. Through this is not the exclusive reason it is one of the many reasons that made me change my mind.

On the other hand, religion teaches that people should be just and fair. Hence, it is hypocrisy to preach that we ought to be just to all of people while on the other hand black people are under oppression. Hence, it is not out of the blues that the concept of anti-slavery is dear to most religions at this particular time. I know that you believe in the values of respecting humanity according to Christian teachings. Most southerners believe that the force driving northerners is the fact that slavery is not a practice in most of the states. Nevertheless, even though this might have some truth in it, it is the love for humanity that id driving most young people like myself. The thirst to see fellow young people from the southern states enjoy rights like those living in the north is the reason that is changing many hearts. Some few months ago most people from the north had no stand on the issue but with religion taking root in the area rights for all people are fundamental.

In his work about civil war, Catton (100) indicates that maintaining slave trade is uneconomical and is retarding the growth of this county. Currently, Black people are starting to riot in the southern cities causing damage to most cities. Eventually according to statistics, there will be no southern cities. Accordingly, though the southern states are maintain their stand about slavery, eventually they have to change owing to the damage it is about to cause the country. Further studies (Bruce et al 22) indicate that black people are of more value to the country free than under slavery. Furthermore, with the current state the country is unstable owing to the divided opinion on the issue. This is causing the possibility of secession, which will hurt the economy of the greater United States of America (Catton 93). While it is true that slave, owners will bear the burden of allowing slaves to work on their own free will, the larger benefits a more and are not possible to ignore.

You sought to know my expectations of Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency. Though I know that once in office he is likely to face opposition regarding his stand on slavery, I believe that he is the right man to bring sanity to this country. Currently I feel that it is my mandate to make the make moves that will enable this country to move in the right direction and the only possibility of achieving this is by voting for a president sharing the same sentiments. Given that, many young Americans oppose slave trade it is not difficult to understand the reasons as to why most support Abraham Lincoln. Hence, most young people in this side of the country expect a better future for the black population to come from Lincoln upon assuming office.

Accordingly, supporting Abraham Lincoln means voting for change in the country. Change from a country that denies citizens their rights to a country giving each national all liberties. Furthermore, removing slavery from this country means removing possible economic downpour to a county of sound economical opportunities (Bruce et al 24). Hence, black people from the south will live their happily without the current victimization and segregation. Laws that suppress these humble creations of God like the Jim the crow policies will not see the light of the day. Finally, the United States of American will be a just and fair country.

Works Cited

Stowe, Harriet. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. chapters 1, 5, 9, 1819.Catton, Bruce. “Civil War”, pp. 6—171 (chapters 1—11).Berlin et al., “Free at Last, Phelp’s letter”. pp. 21—25.

American Criminal Justice and War on Drugs

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American Criminal Justice and War on Drugs

James P. Gray, a California based trial court judge in his book Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It: A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs believes that war on drugs has been a subject of failure. This regards its impact on society and on its own terms mainly on the stopping of use of illegal drugs. As a former federal prosecutor and an experienced trial judge who briefly held a record for the largest drug prosecution in the Central District of California, he authoritatively speaks about the issues related to the drugs war. He uses a compelling language to describe the war on drugs as exemplified in the opening words of his book. He states that that it is inevitable that the drug policies will eventually change. However, when this happens, people will be left back looking astonished that the former policies had prevailed for the extended period. He compares it to Jim Crow laws, slavery, or the days when women never voted.

In the United States the raging debate on the criminal law proper role in drug control does not centralize around the usual political geography left verses right divisions. A civil war of ideas for generations has been waged between the libertarian and their American right opponents of state drug control and more order conservatives and traditional law. Around 1990 at the zenith of the American drug war, prominent libertarian and conservatives intellectuals provided extreme state control leadership example Milton Friedman who came to be known for his radical deregulations and William Bennett for being the first drug tsar and based on their ideas the deprofitization proposal stated by James P. Gray finds its basis.

The current American treatment of drugs in the criminal justice mainly the surrounding events on the issue reveal that the fear centralizes largely on the notion that many people would support taking the drugs under a legal and supervised regime. However, this presumption may not be correct since there is no direct correlation between the drug-trafficking incidence and the harshness of drug laws. If considered from this aspect legalization that Judge James P. Gray proposes in theory might be able to regulate and even reduce both supply and demand of the drugs (Gray, 2001).

The impact the implementation of the legalization would have on the drug control would be to transform the drugs issue from a law and order related problem to a public health issue. It would also help drive away the gangsters. In addition, the regulated drug tax implemented by the government will ensure that raised funds are effectively redirected into other economic sectors like education, which focus on public education and the risks and treatment of addicts of the substance abuse. The government will also realize that different drugs need different levels of regulations and taxation. The difficulty in this system would be imperfect and fiddly that would require monitoring constantly hard to measure tradeoffs and constant monitoring. Other levels of post-tax prices should be set as a means of striking a balance between discouraging desperate acts and a black market in which prostitution and thefts in which addicts often resort to maintain their habits and damping down use (Gray, 2001).

The main arguments that Judge Gray offers center on utilitarian aspects that go against prohibition of drugs. He states that the enacted laws that should address the prohibition of drugs are not effective, but instead help in the eroding of civil liberties, and the prohibition of drugs is a leading cause of democratic debate stifling mainly over the drug policies, and in this manner increases the danger to the users. In summary, the author stops short of advocating for full implementation of drug legalization through his preferred solutions of a combination of treatment programs, realistic education, punishment for harm to others, regulated sales of drugs (Hakim, 2011).

Thinking of this, proposed notion of legalization requires thinking on the possible issues associated with drug use. Under the influence of the drugs, some users tend to harm possible third parties an example is on marijuana users. A well-established principal of criminal law and tort exists to handle such harms. Reviewing the response of how the principals of legal drug market would apply include seeing advertisements that would support responsible drug use. In addition, there would be a clear incentive for the drug manufacturers to directly invest in the drugs developing mainly on substances that provide lesser risks and short-term high effects that would not impair its social application. This would also be an incentive to the vendors since out of lawsuits fear they would be careful to see that there is a safe behavior by their patrons.

By comparing the present situation to the foregoing hypothetical scenario that the book proposes, drug users search for longer lasting highs due to the fact that the possession of the drugs if done in large quantities mainly by weight increases the stipulated penalties and also they are aware that the drugs purchasing also presents a threat. There is no incentive to the drug dealers to have closer relation or contact with their clients and as such, they centralize on this to avoid chances of being captured. This implies that their cannot be a legal advertisement by the drug manufacturers the issue here is not that there is no profit to the participants in the drug industry, but that the legal system prevents them to effectively participate in the market (Gray, 2013).

Some of Judge Gray’s biggest critics state that his approach had flaws in three main areas. First, he exclusively and heavily relied on popular press accounts as basis to support his factual claims. Even though this view seems baffling, it helps stress the fact that Judge Gray is well conversant on the subject and is aware of the wide professional literature and journals on divergent angels of the war on drugs and the many governmental reports on the matter. If the opinion being expressed had been his own personal account and position the relevance of the citation would not matter, but since he tries to document the drug prohibition failures the lack of better sources of quality undermines his overall message. Critics find the fact that he over relied on popular media as his main source is frustrating since Judge Gray according to most of them was in a strategic position to offer new material on that area that few other authors could provide mainly data on what judiciary thought on the drugs issue.

Judge Gray is also criticized for considering the drug policy in a vacuum, without trying to frame it on a broader aspect. Critical civil liberties questions are raised by the drug policy, but this is similar to other policies within the government mainly the state and federal government’s rights violation in connection to the divergent volume of drug policies but not from their rights violation in connection with gun laws and tax laws. Since there is no rights based analysis that is offered by Judge Gray on the antidrug laws impact, his account however offers no means of a possible consistent approach to the issue. In addition there is also an issue with how Judge Grey proposes to solve the drug issue mainly that of de-profitization that could be brought by a regulated distribution system which his solution revolves on the statement that states that it is much easier to regulate, control and police a legal market as compared to an illegal one (Hakim, 2011).

The author as a long time judge has spent many years imposing compulsory drug court regimes rehabilitation on the offenders and due to this he strongly believes on the efficiency of the drug court system. His acknowledging of the fact that addicts have to be coerced in order for them to receive and be kept in treatment makes it hard for them to be helped this is in unison with the capability of the criminal justice system of coercing into productive and meaningful sobriety the drug users. There are challenges to this proposal like the difficulty of finding candidates to enroll for the abstinence programs due to the many experiments being carried out currently on policies, and the 29-points plan proposed by Judge Gray that may strike many as unprincipled and incoherent for the orthodox libertarians.

In conclusion, through the provision of honest information on different drugs prices and their related health issues, consumers can be steered by the government towards the ones with least effects. In addition, designer drugs proliferation cannot be prevented by prohibitions thought of in laboratories. However, the legalization can also be used as a means of enticing and encouraging legitimate drug companies to try to improve the substances that people partake. The resources saved on repression and the resources would allow the guarantee of treatment by the governments to addicts as a way of making the legalization process more politically palatable.

Reference

Gray J.P. (2001). Why our drug laws have failed and what we can do about it: A judicial indictment of the War on Drugs. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Gray, J. (2010). Why our drug laws have failed: a judicial indictment of war on drugs. Temple University Press.

Hakim, P. (2011). Rethinking US Drug Policy. Beckley Foundation.

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Evolutionary Cooperation overtime

Evolutionary psychology concentrate on understanding of human conduct focused around evolutionary science and cognitive neuroscience drives new understandings with respect to the premise and inspiration for good conduct. Along these lines, morals have been comprehended and taught expecting that people are by nature social and naturally narrow-minded.

Morals are reflection on goodness and disagreeableness, good and bad, uprightness and bad habit, ought’s and should not be. The refinement in the middle of morals and profound quality is the qualification between the object of study and the study of morals. Morals are eventually about standards for human social collaboration.

Contemporary moral hypothesis is progressively getting to be “naturalistic,” established in the understanding of evolutionary science and cognitive neuroscience. However, moral hypothesis situated in people’s natural nature can be followed to present ending with Charles Darwin from Aristotle, Adam Smith, and David Hume.

Our sociality originates from our requirement for each other with a specific end goal to survive and flourish. The proclamation of our species obliges a substantial interest in youngster raising the participation of folks in the raising of posterity. It is because of our substantial brains and the expanded time of reliance essential for physical and cognitive development. Participation with different people is a necessity for social living. For Darwin, the profoundly withstanding social senses give a premise whereupon discerning, ordinary standards are accordingly.

To comprehend human profound quality as focused around evolutionary science, it must be recognized that, from an absolutely natural viewpoint, the objective of the human living being is to have its qualities communicated in an alternate generation. Natural determination thinks basically not about us, yet about our qualities being proclaimed. The detainee’s quandary exhibits that fruitful participation in a social setting is the consequence of proportional compassion.

A conceivable clarification of compassion is given by the hypothesis of gathering determination as recommended by Darwin himself while pondering issue of social insects which contends that characteristic choice can follow up on gatherings: aggregates that are more fruitful – for any reason, including scholarly practices – will advantage the people of the gathering, regardless of the fact that they are not related. It has had a capable claim, however has not been completely powerful, to a limited extent in light of challenges in regards to con artists that partake in the gathering without contributing.

Robert Trivers showed how corresponding unselfishness can advance between inconsequential people, even between people of altogether distinctive species. Also, the relationship of the people included is precisely undifferentiated from the circumstances in a certain manifestation of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The Randian add that the speculation toward oneself is fundamental is generally unchallenged, yet turned on its head by distinguishing of an extensive, and significant perspective of what constitutes venture toward oneself.

Specialists choose to coordinate as per what number of cooperators there are in the gathering, and their technique is characterized by the quantity of cooperators they require to choose to participate.

Modern understanding of evolutionary science and human neuroscience are transforming understanding of human conduct, particularly moral conduct. As an outcome, morals is beginning to be seen as having an exact science measurement a science base that is testing large portions of the philosophical points of view that have been held for a considerable length of time. Understanding a definitive causation of human conduct is established in mankind’s evolutionary history. Evolutionary science shows that people created the characteristic of compassion as an aftereffect of the parental holding that happened as a consequence of a developed outset of human posterity. From it, the empathic men to family and others developed. An appreciation of the needs of others situated in relating in helping practices, practices that would be responded if an agreeable relationship were to be kept up. Such collaboration improved survival and multiplication. Ethical quality developed as compassion based arrangement of reasonable participation.

Compassion is a vital quality for an individual entering a helping calling, for example, dentistry. It is of identical significance to brainpower and perceptual engine expertise. Sympathy shifts in the populace as do these other two vital human characteristics and can be measured too. Dental instructors ought to consider evaluating compassion in the confirmations process, and pioneers in dental instruction ought to work to make schools of dentistry that are good communities in which concern is a fundamental attribute

The moral rules give a record of ethical quality that clarifies and defends the keen good choices and judgments of good specialists. The records of fair-mindedness and levelheadedness are additionally accounts of these ideas that clarify their focal and rational use by keen individuals in ordinary life. The fact of the matter is to portray these ideas, not to change them. These depictions of the ideas of unbiased attitude, profound quality, and rationality likewise demonstrate the nearby and perplexing relationship. It is the genuine cognizant business of these ideas, not what logicians say in regards to them that is imperative.

Profound quality’s nearby connotation with fairness and reasonability gets to be apparent just when an objective individual uses just those convictions that are imparted by all reasonable persons (sanely-obliged-convictions). Indeed with this constraint to rationally obliged convictions, not all fair-minded normal persons will concede to the majority of their ethical choices and judgments, however they will all concur on the general good system or framework that they use in settling on these ethical choices and judgments. Nonetheless, if a fair, reasonable individual uses particular convictions, for instance, religious convictions, there may be no real way to achieve understanding about ethical quality. Any case about all normal people concurring ought to be seen as a claim that all rational persons who utilize just judiciously obliged convictions.

Examination of Attitudes to Cosmetic Surgery

Beauty is perceived variedly among various age-groups, which makes the respective attitude analysis among various ages taking up cosmetic surgery an important topic of highlight. Alternatively, attitude assessment among the genders can be used to reveal the apparent distribution of perceptions between females and males regarding plastic surgery. According to ASAPS (2009, para. 1), different age-groups have different preferences regarding physical beauty perceptions, with young people having more than preferred attributes than the old. In terms of the best features and attributes that a particular age-group desires can be relied upon to illustrate the ease with which beauty enhancement can become an option. Cosmetic surgery to enhance beauty can be expected to be high among the young, which is however subject to attitude concerning such level of enhancement. On the gender front, women are likely to be under pressure to feel attractive and young than men (Frederick, Lever and Peplau, 2007, p1408). However, research needs to be conducted to reveal the exact patterns based on recent changes of uptake of cosmetic surgery across gender and age giving attention to attitudes as this study attempts to highlight.

Literature Review

Increased demand for appearance enhancement procedures shows that more men are taking beauty enhancement to an all-time high level. According to recent popularity surveys, the society has increasingly become open and less judgmental to cosmetic surgery (Delinsky, 2005, p2013). An improvement in medical technology applied in the surgical procedures can be attributed to the increased numbers, but changes in attitudes among men also play an important role. The modern society has experienced dramatic changes in the perceptions held about beauty among the genders, making it easy to adopt appearance enhancement than it previously was (Tiggemann and Slevic (2010, p67). Apparently both genders have changed their attitudes over the years to the extent that beauty can be applied in lifestyles. According to ASAPS (2009, para. 6), the reasons of uptake of beauty enhancement have evolved beyond low self-esteem to include factors such as career.

According to Crerand and Sarwer (2004, p100), while there is a significant increase in general demand for cosmetic surgery among women, there is a relatively higher demand among the middle-aged women (those who fall under the 40-55 years bracket). Tiggemann and Slevic (2010, p66) reckon that several factors affect the attitude that middle-aged women have towards cosmetic surgery. Among the most disturbing factor among the younger ages is the fear of aging and the portrayal of appearance enhancement in the media. The authors also attach an increase of demand of general beauty enhancement products and procedures over the last decade, a factor that has contributed to significant increase in demand for surgical procedures of enhancement.

Favorable attitudes on cosmetic surgery can be attributed to changes in lifestyles, media popularization and advancements in technology, which make traditionally uninterested groups change attitudes (Barrett and Robbins, 2008, p40). The effective drivers for different genders and cohorts preferences to cosmetic surgery are varied across the categories. Among the men, social factors carry more weight in influencing the specific attitude towards embracing cosmetic surgery (Bazner, 2002, p14). The author reckons that the most applicable explanation for men to continually easily embrace cosmetic surgery is purely on personal development for instance for career. On the other hand, there are several appearance considerations in women alongside career or social reasons. Women consider social reasons less importantly than men, despite the fact that other body appearance reasons may cut across social factors as well. Among the most prevalent reasons for appearance consideration leading women to cosmetic surgery include; aging anxiety, body image and appearance investment. The role of cosmetic surgery in women is largely attributed to the general attractiveness and the fear to become unattractive (Brooks and Henderson-King, 2009, p134).

According to (Markey and Markey, 2009, p169), negative feelings about self-esteem, body as well as face satisfaction have been major concerns among women which contribute to influence apparent perceptions on cosmetic surgery. The author associates the impact of media to the apparent improvement in attitudes among women and explains that there are indications of increased influence among men. Different ages among female cosmetic customers have different drives for appearance but beauty is equally important among women of all ages. Brooks and Henderson-King (2009, p135) highlight the differences of men and women in uptake of cosmetic surgery, where it is reported that men are likely to be attracted to social reasons of acquiring the procedures unlike in women who have a host of other reasons.

Materialism which guides the capitalist cultures has influenced consumer behavior around the cosmetic market which has an efficient marketing campaign to paint cosmetic surgery as a pleasant beauty option (AARP, 2007, p13). As observed earlier, very young women do not have several complicated issues with their appearance to warrant procedures such as cosmetic surgery. Middle-aged women are the largest cohort of beauty products consumers with under the largest pressure to enhance their appearance than any other group across the genders. Aged women have least appearance and beauty concerns since they are more concerned with their health issues before others (CPA, 2011, p2). It therefore follows that beauty procedures likely to compromise the health status of the aged are less likely to be preferred by many in this cohort. A few isolated cases have however been reported involving the old women categories.

Attitude differentiation across men cohorts illustrates higher preference among the middle aged men and little uptake among boys (Cash et al, 2011, pp472). Due to the social attachment particularly on the career front, young adult males are more involved in appearance enhancement than younger groups for other purposes. However, increased celebrity profiling of appearance is likely to attract higher following and change of attitude towards cosmetic profiling in the future (CPA, 2011, p3). The role of the media cannot be underestimated in the apparent transformation of attitudes among male cosmetic customers. On the other hand, a spirited campaign by the commercial sector on the popularization of cosmetic products and procedures is likely to target the consumer for the lucrative returns attached to the untapped male market. Medical reasons have equal importance across the sexes due to the life changing impact accorded to the reconstructive surgery patients (Griffiths, 2010, para.1).

References

AARP (2001) Public Attitudes Toward Aging, Beauty and Cosmetic Surgery. [online] Available from <http://assets.aarp.org/rgcenter/consume/cosmetic.pdf> [accessed 31 October 2011]

AARP (2007) Focalyst Insight Report: Getting Older and Looking Good. [online] Available from <http://calbooming.sdsu.edu/documents/AgingNaturally.pdf> [accessed 31 October 2011]

ASAPS (2009) How Do Our Attitudes about Beauty Change As WE Age? [online] Available from <http://www.surgery.org/media/news-releases/how-do-our-attitudes-about-beauty-change-as-we-age> [accessed 31 October 2011]

Barrett, A. E., & Robbins, C. (2008) The Multiple Sources Of Women’s Aging Anxiety and their Relationship with Psychological Distress. Journal of Aging and Health, 20, 32–65

Bazner, J. (2002) Attitudes About cosmetic Surgery: Gender and Body Experience. McNair Scholars Journal vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 10-16

Brooks, K. D. & Henderson-King, D. (2009) Materialism, Sociocultural Appearance Messages, and Paternal Attitudes Predict College Women’s Attitudes about Cosmetic Surgery. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 33, pp133-142

Calogero, R., Diraddo, A., Harwin, M. & Park, L. (2009) Predicting Interest in Cosmetic Surgery: Interactive Effects of Appearance-Based Rejection Sensitivity and Negative Appearance Comments. Body Image, 6, pp. 186-193

Cannold, L. (2007) Our Attitude Towards Cosmetic Surgery Needs A Sharp Facelift. [online] Available from <http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/our-attitude-towards-cosmetic-surgery-needs-a-sharp-facelift/2007/08/19/1187462081028.html> [accessed 31 October 2011]

Cash, T., Menzel, J., Sarwer, D., Small, B., Sperry, S. & Thomson, J. (2011) Internalization of Appearance Ideas and Cosmetic Surgery Attitudes: A Test of the Tripartite Influence Model of the Body Image. Sex Roles, vol. 65, no.7-8, pp. 469-477

CPA (2011) Attitudes to Ageing and Older Age. [online] Available from <http://www.cpa.org.uk/information/readings/attitudes_to_ageing.pdf> [accessed 31 October 2011]

Crerand, C. E. & Sarwer, D. B. (2004) Body Image and Cosmetic Medical Treatments. Body Image, 1, pp. 99–111

Delinsky, S. S. (2005) Cosmetic Surgery: A Common and Accepted Form of Self-Improvement? Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 35, 2012–2028

Frederick, D. A., Lever, J. & Peplau, L. A. (2007) Interest in Cosmetic Surgery and Body Image: Views of Men and Women across the Lifespan, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, vol. 120, no. 5, pp.1407-1415

Griffiths, K. (2010) Attitudes to cosmetic Surgery: US versus UK. [online] Available from <http://www.cosmeticsurgerytoday.co.uk/features/view/10324/attitudes-to-cosmetic-surgery-us-versus-uk> [accessed 31 October 2011]

Heyes, C. J. & Jones, M. (n.d) Cosmetic Surgery in the Age of Gender. [online] Available from <http://www.ashgate.com/pdf/SamplePages/Cosmetic_Surgery_Ch1.pdf> [accessed 31 October 2011]

Markey, C. N. & Markey, P. M. (2009) A Correlational and Experimental Examination of Reality Television Viewing and Interest in Cosmetic Surgery. Body Image, 7, pp.165-171

Tiggemann, M. & Slevec, J. (2010) Attitudes Toward Cosmetic Surgery in Middle-Aged Women: Body Image, Aging Anxiety and the Media. Psychology of Women Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 1. Pp.65-74

American Domestic Policy

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American Domestic Policy

Illegal Immigration

Illegal immigration in the United States has become one the topics of greatest concern to the American public in recent years. This has resulted into examination of the costs and benefits of illegal immigration on unskilled works as well as the ultimate impact on the U.S economy in a number of studies. The costs include the effects of the effects of illegal immigration on unskilled workers, the property damage caused by the immigrants sneaking into the United States, the expenditure on the health care for immigrants at emergency clinics and hospitals, which are legally bound not to deny care to anyone or inquire whether someone is a legal resident, expenditures on public education for the children of the immigrants who attend public schools and burglaries and other crimes committed by illegal immigrants (Levy, 2010). Americans affected by the benefits want immigrants to have a way to take a job, whereas those most affected by the costs propose that immigrants should be kept out of the country at whatever cost.

The views on dealing with illegal immigration in United States range from using the military to guard the borders and the construction of a fence along the borders to amnesty for illegal aliens already in the United States. The US governments has taken several steps to curb the problem of illegal immigration including Operation Wetback as the one of the first response to what was perceived as an alarming level of illegal Mexican immigrants as well as enactment of several legislation as such as the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) (Boyes & Melvin, 2010). The purpose of IRCA was to decrease the number of illegal immigrants by limiting their flow and the legalization the status of the illegal aliens. However, application of the domestic policy has been affected by the experience with international terrorist attacks being associated with immigration and illegal immigration flows into the country.

This paper will explore illegal immigration as one of the most contested issues in the American politics and recommendation of ways to deal with the issue.

Factors Leading To Illegal Immigration Being Viewed As a Major Problem in America

The skyrocketing number of illegal immigrants in United States has triggered great concern among the American citizens over the last few years. As of 2010, about 11.2 million illegal immigrants were living in the United States and despite this being a reduction the populations in previous, the high number has raised great concerns to the Americans owing to the impact such numbers have on the state well-being (Passel & Cohn, 2011). The increased number of illegal immigrants has been associated with significant negative impacts including job pressure especially in unskilled labor, increased expenditures on health care for immigrants at hospitals and emergency clinics, pressure on public amenities, increased expenditure in the public schools, property damage cause by the immigrants and increased insecurity in the country. The problem of illegal immigrants has been exacerbated by the increased terrorist threats which have been strongly linked with the issue of illegal immigration into United States.

Although migration between Mexico and the United States goes back to the nineteenth century and has ebbed and flowed for more than a century, U.S. citizens and politicians have been entirely comfortable with immigrants in general or Mexicans in particular. There are and always have been people who view illegal immigrants as a thread to the United States, who blame them directly for economic ills as well as presenting a danger to American modern society. Large companies might benefit from cheap, immigrant labor, because of the low wages paid to the immigrants. However, the low wages contribute to driving the general wages offered to the Americans. The issues of job loss associated with immigrants particularly for unskilled labor has contributed immensely to the heated debate against immigrants among the Americans. The competition with illegal immigrants who are ready to work for less money makes Americans unable to compete effectively for the available job opportunities in the American job market. The public has become more united against the issue of illegal immigrants with majority favoring increasing penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants as well as increasing number of border patrol agents.

According to Polyanichko (2010), about two-thirds of Americans support the idea of denying social services to the unauthorized and propose that illegal immigrants should not be eligible for social services provided by the state and local governments. One of the main arguments leveled against illegal immigrants is that they receive government benefits and don’t pay taxes with education and unpaid healthcare being among the highest costs attributed to problem of illegal immigrants.

As result of the increased illegal immigration, the amount of uncompensated care has continued to grow as more and more unauthorized immigrants seek for health services. In addition, increased crime has been associated with increase in the number of illegal immigrants, a factor that undermines the security of Americans as well as costing the government huge budgetary costs at both federal and local government levels in attempts to curb insecurity in the country. The burden of illegal immigrants has become worse with the laws that require children born in America be recognized as American citizens thus increasing the burden as the government is obliged to cater for such children.

Some of the Attempts Made To Arrest the Increase in Illegal Immigrants and Their Failures

In a move to control illegal immigrants in United States, the government introduced employer sanctions prohibiting employers from hiring illegal immigrants. Through this strategy, employers have been expected to verify employees before hiring them to ensure that illegal immigrants do not gain access to employment. However, employer sanction strategy has turnout to be ineffective due to lack of reliable mechanisms for verifying employment eligibility, lack of political will due to some of the benefits accrued from illegal immigrants such as labor, and lack of enough funding towards interior immigration enforcement (Boyes & Melvin, 2010). The governments has also enacted various reforms in its domestic policy on illegal immigration including the Immigration and Control Act (IRCA) whose main purpose was ostensibly to attack the problem of illegal immigration and reign control over the borders.

Among the solutions offered through this reform included a generous amnesty to illegal aliens and creation of a Special Agricultural Workers program (Polyanichko, 2010). However, these strategies emerged to be a flop by further contributing to the influx of immigrant workers into the U.S. labor market. In this case, IRCA was seen as an attempt to reconcile the rising political clamor for border control with continuing demand for cheap immigrant labor rather controlling the increasing of illegal immigrants in the country. Some of these immigration measures have resulted into increased gap between the goals and outcomes of U.S. immigration policy. According to Cornelius, Martin and Hollifield (1994), the greatest challenge in the U.S. immigration policy has been the failure to recognize the key problem facing its implementation as the lack of recognition of illegal immigrants as the main problem.

Another failure in attempts to control illegal immigration emerges from the lack of consensus on policy options, which consequently results into general lack of concern or benign neglect. United States still perceives itself as a nation of immigrants, a tradition that obstructs efforts to restrict or control any type of immigration. Another key factor undermining efforts by the U.S. government to control illegal immigration revolves around the lack of understanding of the root cause of illegal immigration. Some the root causes of the increased illegal immigration include, poor verification mechanisms applied by employers, inadequate channels to ensure legal economic immigration, changes in the global economy particularly globalization and finally inefficiency in the border patrols. The government has in the past introduced border patrols to ensure that all people entering and leaving the American territory are well vetted through presentation of proper document as provided by the U.S. laws. However, limited political will in supporting implementation of such policies thereby rendering such strategies ineffective.

The government has failed to provide adequate resources to ensure effective and efficient verification at the borders of the country as well as in job places and other areas such as health care institutions (Fix, 2004). Some of the factors exasperating the illegal migration that must be put into consideration in any attempt to curb the problem include demand-pull factors, migration networks, and supply-push pressures. The strength of these forces lying behind illegal immigration, coupled with the political, legal, and institutional constraints facing the domestic policy on immigration, have all contributed to what most observers view to sanctions’ modest and declining impact on immigrant flow to date. Controlling illegal immigration to the United States emerges to be more difficult logistically than controlling illegal entry to Europe, owing to the access afforded by the country’s lengthy land borders. Efforts to control illegal immigration in U.S. are further undermined by the nation’s long dependence on illegal foreign labor, its comparatively short history of immigration controls, and the social commitment to civil liberties and anti-discrimination norms.

Recommendations to Avert the Problem

One of the strategies that can deal with the problem of illegal immigration amicably entails strengthening the border control through prevention by deterrence. In this case, the government should raise the risk of being apprehended for illegal immigration to a situation where they would consider it futile to attempt to sneak into United States at whatever cost. The government should concentrate additional resources on the patrol along the borders. In order to strengthen the border control, the Border Patrol should concentrate personnel and technology resources at hot points with the highest level of illegal immigration activity as well as tightening security at areas with the least activity to avoid shift of the entry points to other sections along the border (Grans, 2007). In addition, the Border Patrol should also capitalize on physical barriers to deter entry along the border, increase vigilance along the border, and identification of the right technology and personnel to increase efficiency along the border.

The patrol should also on ensuring flexibility to respond to changing patterns in the alien traffic. In order to facilitate the implementation of the employer sanctions strategy, the government should invest in providing employers with reliable mechanisms for workplace verification including tools and legal responsibility to determine someone’s eligibility to secure a job or to be employed (Grans, 2007). The government must therefore invest immensely in the implementation of this strategy through availing the necessary mechanisms to ensure effective verification by employers. Availability of the correct mechanism for verification will play a critical role in the realization of the employer sanction provision in the control of illegal immigrants. This strategy addresses the main reason behind illegal immigration which is the search for employment in which unavailability of jobs will deter the immigrants from sneaking to the country. In line with the verification mechanism, a tamper-proof social security card for every American can be used as a sure prove to work eligibility (Fix, 2004). Nevertheless, the government must also enact stringent measures alongside this strategy to crackdown on people involved in forgery of documents, which has undermined implementation of the employer sanction requirement.

The U.S. government should also constitutional citizenship requirements to restrict the automatic citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal residents. This will reduce the number of aliens seeking citizenship because their children are American citizens by birth despite being born by illegal immigrants. The policy to confer all U.S. citizens the citizenship of the country regardless of the mode used by the parents to enter United States encourages illegal entry into the country and does not motivate those who seek the right means to enter the country (Grans, 2007). The U.S government should also consider introducing new legal avenues for entry into the country as well as encouraging permanent economic migration. Nevertheless, the government should be weary of notorious illegal immigrants willing to pay for any price to enter into the American territory. In this case, the government should strengthen its internal mechanisms for deterring foreigners from entering the country illegally rather focusing on stopping them from crossing the borders.

Conclusion

Illegal immigration remains one of the sensitive issues in the American politics as well as among the general public. The negative perception among the Americans on the issue of illegal immigrants has been triggered by several effects on the society including their pressure on public facilities including hospitals, clinics and hospitals, increased insecurity, and significant impact on the economy of the country. Illegal immigrants have been associated with increased unemployment among the Americans through their preference by employers due to their low wages demand. The U.S. government has taken to several measures to control the threat posed by increased illegal immigrants including introduction of reforms in the immigration Act. Such reforms have included the employer sanction, a generous amnesty to illegal aliens and creation of a Special Agricultural Workers program, and the IRAC reform in general among others. However, such strategies have failed to yield the desired results due to poor political will in its implementation, limited resources, significant negligence, and lack of understanding the root cause of the illegal immigration. Nevertheless, the situation can be averted through increase in Border Patrol vigilance, provision of necessary verification mechanisms to the employers, encouragement of permanent economic immigration, and imposition of restrictions on citizenship of children born by illegal immigrants.

References

Boyes, W & Melvin, M. (2010). Microeconomics. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

Cornelius, W., Martin, P. & Hollifield, J. (1994). Controlling immigration: A global perspective. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Fix, M. (2004). The Paper curtain: employer sanctions’ implementation, impact, and reform. New York:The Urban Institute.

Grans, J. (2007). Illegal immigration to the United States: Causes and policy solution. Retrieved from HYPERLINK “http://udallcenter.arizona.edu/immigration/publications/fact_sheet_no_3_illegal_immigration.pdf” http://udallcenter.arizona.edu/immigration/publications/fact_sheet_no_3_illegal_immigration.pdf

Levy, J. (2010). Illegal immigration and amnesty: Open borders and national security. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group.

Passel, J & Cohn, D. (2011). Unauthorized immigrant population: National and state trends, 2010. Pew ResearchCenter. Retrieved from HYPERLINK “http://www.pewhispanic.org/2011/02/01/unauthorized-immigrant-population-brnational-and-state-trends-2010/” http://www.pewhispanic.org/2011/02/01/unauthorized-immigrant-population-brnational-and-state-trends-2010/

Polyanichko, E. (2010). Weighing the costs and benefits of Mexican immigration. London: GRIN Verlag.

America Scores Program

Name

Institution

Question 1

Madsen, K., Thompson, H., Wlasiuk, L., Queliza, E., Schmidt, C., & Newman, T. (2009). AfterSchool Program to Reduce Obesity In Minority Children: A Pilot Study. Journal of ChildHealth Care, 13(4), 333-346.

Question 2

The authors of the article were:

Kristine Madsen – University of California-San Francisco, as an Assistant Professor in theDepartment of Pediatrics, Division of Community Health & Human Development.

Hannah Thompson – UCSF, Department of Pediatrics, San Francisco, CA

Lidya Wlasiuk – UCSF, Department of Pediatrics, San Francisco, CA

Emily Queliza – America SCORES Bay Area, San Francisco, CA

Colin Schmidt – America SCORES Bay Area, San Francisco, CA

Thomas Newman – University of California-San Francisco, as a Professor in the Department ofEpidemiology and Biostatistics, Division of Clinical Epidemiology.

Question 3

The title of the article is “After-School Program to Reduce Obesity in Minority Children: A Pilot Study.” The title does meet APA requirements as the total number of words are below 12, and it sufficiently conveys what the article is about, even going as far as to indicate the type of study it is discussing.

Question 4

The journal name within which the article is contained, is the Journal of Child Healthcare, volume number 13 issue number 4, from page 333 to page 346.

Question 5

The article was obtained from the National Center for Biotechnology information website, provided by the url: HYPERLINK “http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3013280/” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3013280/ although additional information is also available on the SAGE publications website url: HYPERLINK “http://chc.sagepub.com/content/13/4/333.abstract” http://chc.sagepub.com/content/13/4/333.abstract

Question 6

The article does follow APA guidelines regarding the need for an abstract, as it has an abstract. In this sense, the researchers follow APA guidelines for writing and formatting a research paper, as they provide a concise summary of what the research is about, providing its key points. The reader does not need to go through the whole article, to determine the research questions, methods employed, participants, data analysis results and the conclusions. Further, the article also provides areas for future research, by concluding that the findings indicate that it is possible to reduce childhood obesity through the use of community based programs.

Question 7

The researchers hypothesized that the SCORES program would have a positive impact not just on the cardio respiratory endurance of the participants, but it would also reduce their body mass index. Furthermore, the researchers also hypothesized that the levels of attendance as well as retention would be high enough to warrant the institution of a large randomized trial.

Question 8

The dependent variables in the study are:

The Body Mass Index

Fitness

The independent variable is the length of enrollment into the America SCORES program.

Question 9

The research study is quantitative in nature, as it mainly deals with numerical data on fitness and the body mass index. The study itself actually entailed assessing the rate of change in fitness and body mass index (BMI) over a period of one year, during which the participants were involved in the SCORES program. The findings and data sets collected are then analyzed and inferences made based on the final outcome of the percentage of children who were still overweight or obese following participation in the SCORES program. These findings were then related to attendance findings for the participants, in order for a clear conclusion over the correlation between participation in the program and weight gain to be established. All variables involved in the study are measured numerically and data analysis carried out accordingly.

Question 10

The sample contained 178 participants drawn from third grade, fourth grade and fifth graders. In terms of racial distribution, 47% of the sample was Latino, 18% African American, and 25% Asian. This was a fitting sample, considering the fact that the study mainly targeted minority groups. The group was not subdivided into any smaller groups, with the only differentiating factor between the participants being their final anthropometric measures and the levels of attendance.

As already mentioned the sample selection was done on the basis that the participant had to be a member of the minority groups, with data collection occurring twice; pre-test as well as post test. The initial data collected acted as a baseline to which the final results were compared to assess for any progress.

Question 11

Data on fitness was collected using the 20-meter shuttle test

Data on BMI was inferred from anthropometric measures collected from the children. Weight for instance, was collected using a portable electronic scale, and height measured to the nearest tenth of a centimeter using a stadiometer that was portable.

Question 12

Assessing various aspects of the APA format proved a bit difficult due to the fact that the article was an online article and not the original article itself. As such, the article did not have proper page headers or page numbers. Assessing page alignment, margins, spacing, typeface, order of pages, levels of headings as well as other format aspects was also not possible. However, the reference page failed to follow the APA guidelines, as not only were the references numbered, but they did not follow the author, date, title, place of publication, publisher format.

Question 13

Based on APA guidelines of sections of a paper, the article contained an Introduction which also contained the literature review. This was followed by the methods section, the results section, as well as the discussion section as the last part of the article. The article lacks a clearly defined literature review section, as well as a section clearly outlining the purpose of then study.

The introduction contains a succinct description of the problem, the American SCORES program, as well as the intended approach to exploring the problem and the expected results. The methods section is further subdivided into subjects, description of the program, procedure and data analysis, detailing the approaches taken at each of the 4 stages. The discussion offers a restatement of the study, its findings, as well as the implications of those findings.

Question 14

There is a reference provided for every piece of information cited, although the reference list is not formatted according to APA guidelines.

Question 15

One of the major limitations of the study, based on the researchers’ own admission, was incomplete data. This came about as a result of the program organizers struggling to balance between evaluation of the program evaluation and ensuring the proper delivery of the program itself. The second limitation was that all participants in the program were selected and willing. This means that the results might be different for unwilling participants.

Question 16

The researchers do mention that permission/consent was sought from the children’s parents prior to proceeding with the study.

Question 17

The importance of the America SCORES program and what it entails was very clearly explored in the study by the researchers. The intended approach to the research was also clearly outlined. However, the researchers failed to clearly provide attendance statistics, which in a way made it quite difficult to follow the link between attendance of the SCORES program and the changes in fitness levels. The attendances are actually provided in percentages, as opposed to clear figures that the reader can follow and directly relate to the provided changes in BMI scores as well as in fitness data. In fact, had the information been provided in average attendance levels for the specific groups, it would have been easier to compare these figures to the recorded changes in BMI and fitness data. However, the topic’s relevance and the contribution of the study to educational knowledge cannot be faulted or doubted, as it does serve to convince the reader of the effectiveness of the America SCORES program, and highlight the potential of community based after school programs when it comes to reducing childhood obesity.

Question 18

The researchers claim that “While physicians can provide important information and encouragement about physical activity and nutrition, when children leave the physician’s office they are exposed to environments that do not encourage healthy choices” (Madsen, Thompson, Wlasiuk, Queliza, Schmidt, & Newman, 2009).

Question 19

The researchers succinctly point out the fact that while physicians play a key role by providing essential information, as well as encouragement on the importance of nutrition and physical activity, they ultimately cannot control the degree of exposure to environments that discourage healthy choices.

Question 20

As already stated above, the authors when highlighting one of the limitations of the study, claim that “A second limitation of this study is that participants in SCORES were recruited by coaches and elected to enroll. Children who wouldn’t volunteer for SCORES might not benefit equally from the program. Nonetheless, overweight children – a crucial group to reach – were both willing to enroll and showed the greatest decrease in BMI z-score” (Madsen, Thompson, Wlasiuk, Queliza, Schmidt, & Newman, 2009).

Evolution of Health Care Systems Paper

Name:

Tutor:

Institution:

Date:

Evolution of Health Care Systems Paper

Evaluation of the health care industry prior to introduction of information technology offers a significant insight on the changes that has occurred in this field. Assimilation of technology in various operations undertaken by health care practitioners such as nurses and physicians has called for a long process. In this case, these changes can be identified by assessing the situation as it was twenty years ago in terms of data handling and analysis in health care institutions. It is evident that evolution of health care systems over the years has promoted increased in effectiveness of delivering health services. This paper will focus on exploring the evolution of health care systems by comparing a current working environment in a health institution to the condition twenty years ago. It will also seek to identify two major events and technological advantages that led to current HCIS practices. Therefore, the paper will also discuss the evolution of health care systems, thereby proving examples of changes related to factors such as external event, error, or omission in scope of the product, value added change and risk response.

Twenty years ago, the patient’s information was recorded and stored using papers and filed, which were locked in a cabinet. This led to increased difficulties in retrieving patient health records. Two events have taken place since 1980s leading to significant changes in health care industry. One of them is a call that was made by former president George W. Bush in 2004, whereby he urged health practitioners to support implementation of Electronic Health Records. The other event that contributed to evolution of health care system involves the formulation of new legislations by Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). However, over the years, the health care system developed leading to establishment of conversion projects aimed at facilitating assimilation of Electronic medical record (EMR). This project focuses on providing computerized way that facilitates the accessibility of various records about the patients’ treatment. This conversion has also enabled storing of data electronically that is considered analogous to the traditional storage of information using paper files. Evolution of health care systems, which is attributed to this conversion, is aimed at increasing the efficiency of medical services and communication among the service providers, for the plan of healthcare management.

It is evident that twenty years ago, health care institutions incurred extra costs in management of patient’s health records. In these case, expenses incurred in management of these records included hiring more personnel to facilitate recording, storing and retrieving information. Moreover, the health care institutions incurred expenses through purchases of papers and files to record information for every new patient, who visited the hospital. These organizations had to create and maintain storage space of the cabinets and lockers where these files were stored. Nonetheless, after introduction of Electronic Health Records (EMR), organization no longer store information using papers. Instead, information is recorded by keying it into a system, which in-turn stores the information in databases that are secure and less expensive to maintain compared to paper files. Moreover, this has increased the effectiveness in the process retrieving patient’s records.

Before introduction of technology in the healthcare industry, there were increased numbers of errors in processes such as billing, and coding important patient’s claims. These errors have been eliminated by template-based documentation, which has been developed through integration technology in the process of capturing information from the patients (Goldstein & Groen, 2007). Adoption of technology in the health care field has involved redesigning of workflow, thereby facilitating productivity through usage of EMR by members of staff in their routine operations. Moreover, this effectiveness leads to elimination of durations of time consumed in accessing patients’ records from different department in the health care institution. Technology in health care institutions can also be attributed to installation of remote access, which exceeds the office and it eliminates physical retrieval of paper chart. Prior to introduction of EMR, the same patients’ records could not be accessed concurrently from different locations. Therefore, this was made possible by establishment of electronic health records, which has significantly increased performance among staff members.

Evolution of the health care system has led to establishment of a need to increase the level of compliance towards standards set by regulatory agencies in the health care industry (American Nurses Association, 2001). This evolution has led to increasing need for the institution to seek a mandate permission from the federal government in order to ensure that sharing of information, through the EMR among the health care providers has met the standards. However, the other external permission has been sought from patients concerning sharing of their information, and in this way, the standards will be met effectively. Moreover, implementers of the system have been ensuring that security measures are taken to reduce chances of compromises process of data transfer through the network involved.

Evolution of health care information system can be greatly attributed to elimination of errors and omissions during the process of undertaking various operations by staff as they offer health care services to patients, thereby increasing the quality of services offered to patients. Integration of information system with information technology has significantly reduced problems that result from errors and omission of information. Moreover, this can be attributed to injunction of EMR with application such as intelligent e prescribing, and improvement of patients’ safety, since this eliminates need to interpret handwriting. Years ago, prescribed medicine was checked against the list of medication, and this led to increased chances of omission. Moreover, there were chances of interaction that considered inappropriate before the prescriptions reaching pharmacy department.

Evolution of health care systems has also improved the quality of services delivered in physicians’ offices through critical implementation of the relevant medical practices with integration of information technology. Moreover, unlike before, the physicians are able to build protocols that are evidence based in relation to medical records from the patients and other department. This evolution has also facilitated retrieval of data for assessing performance of the practices related to patients’ health care services delivery. Furthermore, current health care systems have led to improved practices such as cost control through use of effective systems in the offices. In addition, there are cost saving information technology that creates other businesses of technology as a manual work (Wang & Middleton, 2003). Increased technological advancement in the health care field has also focused on value addition through change of response towards risk. Precisely, this involves the risk that results from the delays in the administration and omission of medication. Therefore, this leads to prevention of loss incurred due inadequate measures to reduce the risk subjected to patients.

References

American Nurses Association. (2001). Scope and Standards of Nursing Informatics Practice. Washington, DC: American Nurses Publishing

Goldstein, D., & Groen, P. (2007). Medical Informatics 20/20: Quality And Electronic Health Records Through Collaboration, Open Solutions, And Innovation. New York: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Print

Wang, S. J., & Middleton, B. (2003). A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Electronic Medical Records in Primary Care. American Journal of Medicine, April 1, 114: 397-403

University Name

By

Student Name

CONSUMER PROTECTION REGULATIONS IN THE UK

Degree Title

Instructor’s Name

Date of Submission

Word Count: 2000

Literature Review

A literature-centred overview of the evolution of the United Kingdom consumer protection regime and its current status is imperative.

Evolution and Development of Customer Protection

The advent of the United Kingdom customer protection regime is not regarded as a recent phenomenon as the development of customer protection legislation dates back to the late 17th century and mid-18th century during the pre-industrial era. Studies on the genesis and development of the customer protection regime show that since then, numerous jurisdictions have culminated in the development of a plethora of jurisprudence on the liabilities and rights that United Kingdom buyers and sellers have. Research by Muhammad Akbar concentrated on examining the origin and emergence of the customer protection regime. This work confirmed that the current customer protection legislation in the country is an outcome of imperative developments that occurred from the pre-industrial era to the post-industrial revolution. According to Muhammad Akbar, the pre-industrial period was characterised by low consumption levels within a simple social set up and fewer products than it is the case today. Later, the principle of caveat emptor within the English law was developed and incorporated to deal with this situation. This doctrine upheld the philosophy of individualism where customers had to look after themselves as laws to protect consumers were few and those that existed only dealt with measures and weights of basic commodities. With the growth in consumption and the number of services and products available for consumption, the principle of caveat emptor lost its relevance as sellers assumed greater responsibility in sales transactions. This necessitated the enforcement of specific customer protection legislation in the United Kingdom.

During the industrial revolution of the 18th century, urbanisation and manufacturing intensified, augmenting consumption. Sellers and product consumers began bargaining from long distances, with the former recognising the need for product quality to maintain market competitiveness. This furthered the need for a regime to safeguard the trading standards to ensure that they enhanced public health and customer protection, along with protecting honest traders from unfair competitor practices. During the period of the industrial society in the 19th century, more developments in customer protection laws took place in England, including case law revolving around buyer-seller relationships. However, consumer legal rights to safe products and services remained unrecognised. In the 20th century, mass production emerged, causing a consumer revolution as many products and services became available to consumers. During this time, large-scale developments occurred in consumer protection law, litigation, and the laws of negligence. Also, a movement initiated by an NGO stimulated the development of laws to protect consumers against unfair commercial and trade practices and defective services and products. This led to the development of customer protection laws used today, although they continued to undergo reforms to fit contemporary needs. From a critical stance, Muhammad Akbar’s work is valuable because it provides an informative and comprehensive account of the evolution of UK consumer protection, which enables one to grasp the changes that have occurred in consumer protection over the years.

Current Status of UK Customer Protection

Numerous researchers have focused on the current status of customer protection in the United Kingdom from different perspectives. For instance, Cliona examined customer protection from the perspective of the various reforms the regime will undergo within the context of the UK and Ireland considering the ongoing Brexit debate. According to this researcher, momentous regulatory divergences will be witnessed in customer protection before, after, and even without Brexit. Two of the most significant divergences before Brexit will be the Consumer Rights Act (CRA) 2015 and the Consumer Rights Bill 2015. The CRA 2015 was established to overhaul the contractual rights of consumers in the supply of digital content, goods, and services, together with regulating unfair contract terms in the United Kingdom. The CRA also integrated new rules relating to digital content, which the rest of the European Union is now catching up with as suggested by Taylor Wessing. On its part, the Consumer Rights Bill 2015 was published to reflect to consolidate the current customer protection law, along with endorsing new consumer rights and remedies in Ireland and the United Kingdom. As Cliona suggests, one of the divergences likely to be witnessed between Ireland and the United Kingdom as regards these two laws before Brexit include the objectives and scope of the CRA and the Consumer Rights Bill. Other divergences in implementing reforms of consumer law cover the areas of privity of contracts, jurisdiction relating to the supply of services and digital content, unfair contract terms, sale of gift vouchers, and transparency in contracts. The divergences possible after Brexit (if it happens) will include the areas of language and concepts utilised, the structure of consumer protection law, and the interpretation of the domestic provisions of the law in both the UK and Ireland. Finally, the divergences in implementing consumer law if Brexit becomes impossible will encompass the areas of the models of consumer protection adopted and modes of mapping amendments against the existing legal framework, which is the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Cliona’s research is critically valuable because it provides adequate illumination of possible differences in consumer protection likely to be experienced in Ireland and the UK if Brexit becomes effective.

Louise Nahon argued that reforms in consumer protection laws will have a significant impact in the United Kingdom, irrespective of whether Brexit is effected or not. This author suggests that some of the reforms proposed to come into effect in 2022 include the introduction of new digital consumer protection rules, revision of rules that impact digital service supply, and augmented transparency obligations on online endorsements and reviews. Also, this author suggested that changes will occur in the enforcement and penalty regime relating to unfair commercial practices and unfair contract terms within the harmonised framework across the entire EU. Wessing also acknowledges some of these consumer protection reforms that will occur in the wake of the recent Brexit referendum. These include the integration of the digital content directive and changes in consumer contracts associated with the online sales of goods. The works of both Louise and Taylor appreciate that the United Kingdom consumer protection regime is one of the most advanced regimes in Europe, which will augment consumer confidence when the proposed reforms are attained. Even so, the two differ in that while Louise believes what Brexit will have significant impacts on this regime, Taylor feels that Brexit will not cause great changes to the regime.

Malte Kramme investigated consumer protection from the perspective of the ramifications that Brexit would have on the area of consumer protection. This scholar examined Brexit consequences to consumer protection under three scenarios, namely, UK membership to European Economic Area (EEA), relationships administrated by World Trade Organisation’s rules, and relationships directed by mutual recognition rules within a tailor-made agreement. Based on the EEA model, the most favourable Brexit scenario would entail UK membership of the EEA. The eventual consequence of this membership on consumer protection would the application of high consumer protection standards in the UK. However, Brexit provisions for strengthening the sovereignty of the United Kingdom are incompatible with the EEA agreement, which compels member states of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) to adopt EU legislation strictly. This incompatibility will augment the complexity of the UK consumer protection regime if Brexit becomes effective. From a WTO-model outlook, the consequence of Brexit to consumer protection will include difficulties in interpreting EU consumer protection directives within the UK legal context and uncertainties of conflict-of-laws, enforceability, and jurisdiction associated with the applicability of EU consumer protection law in the UK. Lastly, from the tailor-made agreement model, the consequence of Brexit on consumer protection is the failure to achieve harmonisation of standards provided by both the EFTA and EU in all consumer protection areas. While Malte offers vital details of some Brexit consequences on UK consumer protection, his work has one weakness, which is the failure to identify the specific consumer protection laws directly impacted by the consequences addressed under each model.

Survey-based research by Oya Pinar, Ibrahim, and Mylenko addressed consumer protection regulations from the outlook of cross-country analysis. They examined the applicability of consumer protection principles and laws in deposit and loan services in 142 countries, including the United Kingdom. The outcomes of their study were that many countries have consumer protection legislation in place, but these laws fail to address specific issues in financial consumer protection. As regards the United Kingdom, these authors appreciated that the country has comprehensive consumer protection legislation. This is because the UK has consumer protection legislation with explicit references to financial services and consumer protection regulations outlined within the financial section legislations framework, besides having general consumer protection law with no explicit references to financial services and other forms of consumer protection legislation. The work of this scholar is dependable because it adopts a valid research instrument and is informed by a broad gamut of datasets, which reflect its reliability. The only problem with the study is its focuses on consumer protection regulations in only two financial services, which implies that its outcomes cannot be generalised to all financial services, especially in the United Kingdom.

In another research effort, Mark and Vickers furthered research on consumer protection in financial services. Specifically, these scholars explored the relationships between consumer protection and the contingent charges for financial services within the United Kingdom context. These authors established that the failure to regulate contingent charges can breed significant economic inefficiencies that compromise consumer protection. Further, they confirmed that contingent charges in conventional settings with sophisticated consumers are efficiently executed because these types of consumers are well informed about consumer protection and can hence influence prices, compared to settings with naive consumers, who are less informed about consumer protection. They concluded that sophisticated consumers use awareness of consumer protection regulation to protect naïve consumers when it comes to implementing contingent charges in UK financial services. Also, they suggested that markets dominated by sophisticated customers can perform inefficiently because these consumers can adopt socially ineffective approaches to evade the high contingent charges that naïve consumers pay. Their conclusions corroborate the claims by Matthew Hilton that the United Kingdom’s consumer protection regime is based on information, where information is provided to individual economic actors to prevent market failures. For this reason, consumer protection regulation in such a scenario would be vital in offsetting the distributional concerns. This study is important because it provides a new perspective for consumer protection policymakers that can be useful in designing policies for curbing monopoly of pricing in the financial sector in the United Kingdom towards ensuring consumer protection against exploitative contingent charges.

Bibliography

Books

Ardic, Oya P, Ibrahim A. Joyce, and Mylenko N ‘Consumer protection laws and regulations in deposit and loan services: A cross-country analysis with a new data set’ (The World Bank 2011).

Journal Articles

Armstrong, M and Vickers J ‘Consumer protection and contingent charges’ Journal of Economic Literature (2012) 50 (2) 477-93.

Hilton, M ‘Consumer protection in the United Kingdom’ (2006) 47 (1) Economic History Yearbook 45-60.

Kelly, C ‘Consumer reform in Ireland and the UK: Regulatory divergence before, after and without Brexit’ (2018) 47 (1) Common Law World Review 53-76.

Khan, Muhammad A ‘The origin and development of consumer protection laws in united kingdom’ (2017) 3 (3) Journal of Asian and African Social Science and Humanities (ISSN 2413-2748) 38-52.

Kramme, Malte F ‘Consequences of Brexit in the area of consumer protection’ GPR: (2017) 14 (5) Journal of European Union Private Law 210-222.

Electronic Source

Nahon, L ‘Consumer law reforms will impact UK regardless of Brexit’ (15 Nov 2019) Out-Law Analysis Pinsent Masons https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/analysis/consumer-law-reforms-will-impact-uk-regardless-of-brexit.

Wessing T ‘UK Consumer law in the wake of the EU referendum (17 Jul 2016) University of Oxford, Faculty of Law https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/business-law-blog/blog/2016/07/uk-consumer-law-wake-eu-referendum.

Evolution of Modern Psychology

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Evolution of Modern Psychology

Psychology is a term that is used to refer to applied and academic specialization that entails the study of people’s mind and modes of conduct. This is usually aimed at giving detailed explications through feelings and deeds. It is also used in mental fitness treatment, performance improvement, self-help, and ergonomics among others (Coon & Mitterer, 2008). Psychology also involves the study of animal behavior though more emphasis has been placed on the study of people’s behavior. Generally, it is concerned at how individuals have perceptions and reactions to their surroundings, grow in it and how they strive to change these environments.

Psychology addresses a variety of issues including social knowledge, concrete knowledge, personal knowledge, general deductive principles and intuition (Vitta, 2004). This affirmation has an implication that psychology is a wide field of knowledge; with diverse theoretical and practical information on human behavior and conduct. For example, the classical conditioning advanced by Ivan Pavlov is an imperative example of psychological theories. Freudian theory on sexuality and unconscious mind is also another vital theory that helped in the advancement and development of the field of psychology (Niamh et al, 2001).

From the analysis of the diversity of information by psychological theorists, it is noticeable that psychology is a wide field that encompasses different aspects of learning. It is therefore, vital to make distinctions between key issues from trivial aspects of psychological study (Plotnik & Kouyoumdjian, 2010). By way of example, it is worthwhile to focus on behaviorism psychoanalytic theory and cognitive perspectives. Other issues such as structuralism, functionalism and birth date psychology should not be given prominence because they have contradictory views to an enormous extent and have no principal movements in the current world as they used to be many years back.

Through the analysis of human mind and behavior, the field of psychology extends to tackle issues such as ageing, burnout, compliance, death, sensations, flexibility, group thinking, hypnosis intellect, joy, love, memory, noise pollution originality, personal quantitative reasoning, repression, sexuality therapy, wisdom and vision among others. It also includes the study of hidden behaviors such as thinking, dreaming, remembering and other mental events (Russell, 1964). This wider scope of human behavior and mental activities covered in psychology present an implication that psychological studies are exceptionally vital in understanding the interactions between people within a societal setting.

The field of psychology should however, not dedicate a lot of time studying all these issues and this will be costly and time consuming. Some of the fields also tend to be narrow hence will not generate enough information (Cuoto, 2007). Scientists should therefore develop ways of determining what issues are to be tackled for example by prioritizing current and emerging issues and giving little time to those that have been there. Great weight should be given to emerging issues especially trend and behavior. For instance, the reasons for increased divorce in present marriages and the move towards single parenthood are some of aspects that psychological studies should be rooted in (Plotnik & Kouyoumdjian, 2010).

Due to its significance to the human life, psychology is noted to have developed from the main areas of study such as religion, biology, physics and philosophy. This has therefore, led to the development of issues to be addressed that are both scientific and psychological (Sharf, 2011). Among the key studies such as physiology, neuropsychology, psychological and linguistics have emerged because of this. By analyzing psychological studies we should note that a difference do exist between psychology and other theories of explaining human behavior. For instance psychology pertains to the study of human mind while sociology learns the human behavior.

Other theologies mainly deal with the society as a whole while psychology addresses an individual or a small group within the society. A major distinguishing factor between psychology and the other fields lies in the fact that psychology tends to be experimental while the other theories are observation oriented (Nevid, 2011). This assertion can be attributed to the fact that information concerned with the human mind cannot be affirmed from theoretical perspectives. Detailed research and study (analysis) of an individual or a group of people within a society is conducted so as to ascertain their behavior and then make conclusions.

Just like other forms of learning, psychological studies cannot be carried out without the application of presumptions or assumptions. Cognitive psychologists suppose that the study of internal mental processes is exceptionally vital in comprehending behavior, this means that cognitive processes actively organize the information that we receive (Myers, 2010). In reality individuals do not just reflexively act in response to the environment. Humans, just like computers are information processors. Our hardware (brain) both accept, infer and respond to information and this process can be modeled and tested scientifically. This is an evidence-based form of study as there is documented information on the same (Vitta, 2004).

Since psychology involves the study of different aspects it should employ different methodologies but among the prominent ones is experimentation, which is usually conducted in the laboratories such as memory experiments. Case study is another method; for example, the study the study of brain damage patient such as those with anterograde memory loss in memory research (Coon & Mitterer, 2008).

References

Nevid, S. (2011). Essentials of Psychology: Concepts and Applications. London: Cengage Learning

Sharf, R. (2011). Theories of Psychotherapy & Counseling: Concepts and Cases. Edition5. Cengage Learning.

Plotnik, R & Kouyoumdjian, H (2010). Introduction to Psychology. Edition9. Cengage Learning.

Myers, D. (2010). Psychology: Ninth Edition in Modules. New York: Worth Publishers

Coon, D & Mitterer, J (2008). Introduction to psychology: Gateways to mind and behavior. Belmont. Cengage learning

Niamh, S et al (2001). Theoretical Issues in Psychology: Proceedings of international society. Dunedine. Springers.

Vitta, G (2004). Contemporary Psychology. London. Rutledge

Russell, R (1964). Frontiers of Psychology. California. Scot, Foresman

Cuoto, R (2007). Reflection on Leadership. Maryland. University Press of America Inc.

Personal statement

I am applying for first focus course to return to study education and gain confidence in studying. First class course will help me develop my knowledge and skills, help me build my English and mathematics skills. The course will further help me improve my study skills. Among the benefits that I will get form the course is the enhancement of my learning skills.

I have a passion in nursing. I also intend, through the course, to improve my Mathematics and English to GCSE Level. I have realized that nursing as a profession is complex and needs some building blocks towards its achievement and thus the usefulness of the first focus course. I hope that experience gained from the course will be beneficial not only to my career but also in strengthening my academic life in general.

I am currently doing a level 2 and level 3 courses in literacy and numeracy for four weeks intended to improve my knowledge. Following that the world is the dynamic nature, I have had a passion to move with the world in most fields. In as much as the world is moving remarkably fast, I believe a little bit of running employed will undoubtedly help me realize my long term dreams of becoming a nurse. The fact that I am laying down the foundation for my career goals is a clear indication that I have a graving passion for nursing.

I have done several voluntary work in the retail sector in charity store with Age UK And Barnodos limited in the past. This has enabled me gain learn new skills and gain experience in collaborating and working with people. This has also enabled me to be independent and key skills in providing excellent customer services both through the phone and face to face. I have thus learnt how to work in a team by helping others with their duties.

I have also gained experience in child education and care where I took care of children between 3-5 years in helping them improve their spellings and gain self confidence. My duties were helping them with painting and numeracy and English and looking after them in the playground. I have thus gained experience in handling children and better communication skills with both parents and staff.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my family and friends and caring for my grandmother. I enjoy listening to music and learning new skills. I also enjoy doing voluntary work.