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Challenges Prosecutor’s
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Challenges Prosecutor’s Face When Implementing New Reforms
Introduction
In criminal justice, a prosecutor is an attorney representing the state or government responsible for trying and charging law offenders. They are powerful actors in the corridors of criminal justice. For many years, prosecutors have been labeled supervisors of safety and administrators of justice. Prosecutors’ discretionary powers range from deciding the charges to purse, the witnesses who will be interviewed, bail recommendation, to the kind of sentences to recommend. Additionally, prosecutors are also in charge of the process of plea bargaining which resolves about 95% of criminal cases. There are 2,300 prosecutors’ offices in the United States that house the custodians of the criminal justice system. Over the years, prosecutors continue to face various challenges in their mandate of implementing new reforms. The purpose of this essay is to assess the challenges that prosecutors face in their line of work including struggles with accountability issues, data organization, admissibility of digital information, and staff retention
Staffing and Resources
First, hiring staff members that are qualified can limit the ability of a prosecutor’s office to implement reforms. This is the case especially when there are limited resources to support the prosecutor’s work. Retaining staff requires not only hiring the right people but also identifying their skills and training them to support their advancement (Arnell, and Laura 89). Further, it requires developing incentives to caution workers from searching for better opportunities elsewhere. In essence, it requires offering them attractive and completive remuneration packages. There is a lot of competition from the private sector and other agencies hence the need for prosecutors to be creative in compensating and awarding staff performance as well as to give employees opportunities to develop themselves. Worth noting, prosecutors have the responsibility of educating new attorneys and law students concerning the role of prosecutors in boosting recruitment efforts in the community. There is a perception that the only role of the prosecutor is convicting offenders and ensuring they stay in prison for as long as possible which is not true. As such, young advocates and law students should be exposed to the work and impact of prosecutors through clinics, presentations, courses, and externships. While these practices are well reputable in the field of criminal defense, they can also be used as a model for the prosecution field. In so doing, they will be preparing them for their future roles as they will serve as members of staff in the prosecution offices of in the criminal justice field in general.
Admissibility of Digital Information
Second, prosecutors face the challenge of the diversity of data available for prosecution functions and in particular digital information. This is owing to the emerging trends and advancements in technology. Technology has made it possible for the collection of evidence such as body-worn cameras and social media content (Green, 589). However, this presents a question of its admissibility and authenticity of such evidence in a court of law. This kind of evidence is different from the physical evidence and much is at stake because it can easily be doctored. Additionally, as regards digital information, there is also the challenge of how to store and manage it particularly when the case is ongoing and during case disposition. Although digital evidence is admissible, it can be disadvantageous because it is time-consuming and overwhelming to review. In some cases, the data can be in form of video footage that is hours long. As digital evidence continues advancing, prosecutors with reviewing it accessing funds to store the bulky data. Sometimes the amount of digital data that prosecutors should review can be managed through the use of data reduction and mining solutions, steep learning curves, and high costs are involved making it impossible for a prosecutor’s office to adopt the technologies. Additionally, in the cases of video evidence, prosecutors will be required to secure an appropriate location to redact this information because at times it can involve sensitive evidence such as sexual assault of identities of underage victims of sexual assault. The process can be labor and time-intensive.
The Challenge of Data Organization
Another issue that prosecutors have to contend with is how to manage and organize data. The cases that prosecutors deal with cover various complex issues. To properly manage this kind of data requires a data management system to make it easy to access and understand the various cases. Notably, understanding cases goes beyond looking at conviction rates. A prosecution that is intelligence-led employs predictive analytics among other analysis techniques as they have the potential of attaining, fairer, more sensible and more efficient criminal justice outcomes. Worth noting, technology advancement has raised a question of the availability of large data and ethical concerns including raising legal concerns over the right to privacy of the witness and defendant. Additionally, a prosecutor can be impacted by the ability to give complete and accurate data in the cases posing a financial effect. There is a need to provide quality and transparent data not only in the criminal justice spectra but also across agencies and to members of the public. There is also a need for uniformity to a great extent.
Accountability Issues
In addition to constitutional requirements, prosecutors are held to high ethical standards that inform how they should approach and perform duties. These standards are important as they protect prosecutors through supporting their decisions and also holding them accountable for their mistakes. Historically, the district attorney was tasked with prosecutorial accountability to sanction them when they misbehave (Sarma, 573). The Supreme Court states that district attorneys and prosecutors are exempted from civil liability. Although the decision by the courts was impeding efforts of holding prosecutors to account in the past, the office of prosecutor has recently managed to implement wrongful convictions. Moreover, prosecutors stand the risk of overseeing wrongful convictions which tends to raise questions about their integrity. Instituting conviction integrity units can go a long way in eliminating the risk of wrongful convictions occurring. Such units are instrumental in pointing out the common causes of wrongful convictions among them the discovery of exonerating DNA evidence and evidence which was mishandled. Additionally, with a well-functional and well-organized data management system, organizations’ operations are set to improve which makes it easier to share information and hold employees accountable for integrity issues.
Conclusion
Prosecutors are deemed administers of justice and supervisors of safety. Their powers range from deciding the charges to purse, the witnesses who will be interviewed, bail recommendation, to deciding the kind of sentences to recommend. In their attempt to implement reforms prosecutors go through challenges including accountability issues, data organization, admissibility of digital information, and staff retention.
Works Cited
Arnell, Paul, and Laura Sharp. “Challenges to prosecutorial discretion.” Scots Law Times 21 (2016).
Green, Bruce A. “Prosecutorial Discretion: The Difficulty and Necessity of Public Inquiry.” Dickinson L. Rev. 123 (2018): 589.
Sarma, Bidish. “Using Deterrence Theory to Promote Prosecutorial Accountability.” Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 21 (2017): 573.
Mountains beyond mountains
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Argument: Mountains beyond Mountains
Mountains beyond mountains is a book that talks about farmer, the beginner of Partnership in Health, which is an institution that battles poverty and diseases among the world’s sickest and poorest in nations such as Rwanda, Peru, and Haiti. The book is very education, engaging and inspiring as it tries to bring out the quest for Farmer to treat patients, improve their living standards and battle for world health equivalence.
Farmer’s work with his organization Partnership In Health showcases that human beings are congenitally good; he is selfless. The author of the book, Tracy Kidder highlights that it was never Paul’s intention to adjust to the founded norms of the society of whom a doctor should heal. While working in Boston, Farmer managed to stand out of his peers. The author of the book witnessed his treatment of a homeless alcoholic with pneumonia and HIV/AIDS. As Tracy puts, Paul never made his aid public. He not only succeeded in treating the patient, but also made sure that he had a place to call home to avoid often falling heal. Further proof of Farmer’s saintliness is highlighted in stories such as his tenacity to handle Father Jack, a person who suffered from drug-immune tuberculosis. Even after, Jack’s death, he furthered his research on the cause of the disease, which eventually leads to his cure of the disease. He serves as an epitome of selfless human beings.
Mountains in this book can signify hardships that arise in life. Therefore, mountains beyond mountains imply that once a person solves an issue, another bigger issue manifests; the hardships of the globe will never end. However, this does not imply that all good acts are useless. From Farmers experiences, one can term his benevolence as a long defeat but not futility. The first mountains of farmer while in Haiti were poor patients with curable and incurable diseases; Aids, ulcers, malaria. He worked on those cases individually and quickly went on to tackle larger and larger mountains; drug-immune tuberculosis. His beliefs on change around the world were very optimistic and went on to establish an institution helping the downtrodden. Therefore, to tackle mountainous problem of inability among the poor to access treatment, leaders must emerge and stand their ground.
Although Farmer never provided best qualities to found himself as a pioneer in anthropology, such big characterization could have happened in the absence of Tracy’s descriptive and simplistic style of writing. Paul knew he could not shape what Tracy would write in his biography and portrayed this by saying that he did had not done much for Tracy to write citing misgivings given by people about his quest. Such a statement shows that he cared less about people’s comments as long as he treaded his path.
As the author accompanies Paul’s travels across the globe, one feels some sense of respect or both the narrator and the doctor, through their dialogues and interactions. Farmer tries to give the most engaging anecdotes of Paul, such as Farmer’s unfortunate experiences. Many exchanges between the two, especially when Tracy says that there was no couch potatoes in the family bring some degree of personalization to the book. Kidder depicts Farmer as a lover of science and medicine as well as interest in patients. When Paul realized that some of his patients had developed a number of drug resistance tuberculosis after improper treatment, he developed a bad taste about his triumph. Like any other real scientist, he is excited by his discoveries, but his excitement is overwhelmed by the discovery that it was unhelpful to his patients.
Instead of just giving stories to show the character of the doctor, the narrator gives extra clue on his actions and decisions. Such a profound analysis of Farmer’s traits provides thee book readers with a cornerstone to draw more conclusions. Placing Paul’s actual words with Tracy’s conclusions established a logical flow of thought. For instance, the doctor says that he had never known the meaning despair and thought he would never will. The narrator follows these words with his though saying that it seemed that in Farmer’s bid to cure suffering among the poor, he was becoming more immune to such issues. This form of writing allows the book to expose duality in genre; it is both a social commentary and a biography.
By using many statements to describe farmer, the narrator builds on his theses that it is not useless to battle a long win and that equivalence in medical treatment is indispensable towards eliminating poverty. Little in the book is fictional as the narrator places both the doctor’s suitable and unsuitable characteristics and does not indicate some level of bias in his character. In fact, the bias that only exists in his book is Paul’s contempt for class bias and the effect it had on the treatment of the poor. Since the narrator does not attacks a specific individual, policy, group of persons or those in authority, it is not possible to paint an image of controversy when speaking about mountains beyond mountains.
The book deserves a lot of respect for Dr. Farmer from its readers. In fact, someone recommended me to read it before I searched for it and sat down to read it. The motivation with which the recommender gave for the book included his change of mind. After the medical school, the book had inspired him to pursue a major in anthropology. This decision astonished me and went ahead to look for and read the book. Reading the book gives someone the chance to compare and contrast medicine and anthropology. The two disciplines enhance each other leading to medical ethnography, a discipline toured by Farmer. The information gotten form this book expands a person’s knowledge of humanities and natural science studies.
The book evokes the notion that in order to preserve humanity, people must start with its populace. Moreover, everyone on this planet is titled to favorable medical care, irrespective of the handiness of a person’s or a nation’s monetary resources. Therefore, people should work together in groups or as individuals towards preserving humanity.
In a conclusion, the book has explored the life of Farmer, a medical ethnographer, who contributed a lot to the lives of the poor in Haiti, Peru, and other parts of the world. The book has highlighted that in order to save this world from the normal beliefs and customs that let us down, leaders must arise and fight for a world that there is equality in treatment notwithstanding financial setbacks. Briefly, the book is very educative, engaging, and above all inspiring.
Advancement of Technology and Change of Attitude among the Elderly – Due 28042022
Advancement of Technology and Change of Attitude among the Elderly – Due 28/04/2022
The advancement of medical technology has contributed a great deal to improving the lives of the elderly, and this has resulted in longer life and good health during the final years of life. With the quality of life has changed for to better, attitudes towards aging have changed, with people developing a new mindset that aging is not associated with dependency. Current technology has the capability of enabling mobility in a person if they are unable to walk. I expect that there will be numerous changes in attitude toward and treatment of the elderly between now and the time when I am 80 years old, and this change of attitude will be based on the faith that advanced technology has provided in improving the quality of life.
The rise of technology will benefit healthy ageing and longevity, enabling people to live a healthier life that is more fulfilling at all ages (Calder et al., 2018). For example, technological innovations have been used to keep the elderly physically active and enable independent living, such as detecting falls, thus helping the elderly to avoid unnecessary injuries. Old people are unable to navigate their way, which makes them susceptible to trips and falls, which may increase the number of deaths in the elderly population. With advanced technology to help in navigation, the elderly will have an opportunity to extend their life expectancy by avoiding deadly falls. Besides, advancements in technology, especially the introduction of smart home technology, which involves the automation of homes, providing homeowners, especially the elderly, with security, comfort, convenience and energy efficiency by allowing them to control smart devices, often by a smart home app on their smartphone or other networked devices (Li et al., 2021). Smart homes will provide the elderly with an opportunity to live a decent life, and this will reduce the chances of the elderly being sent to ageing homes, which are mostly considered dumps for old people. Based on this, smart homes will give the elderly a changed perspective about getting old, knowing that they won’t be sent to aging homes and forgotten by their families.
Advancements in technology will also provide opportunities for people to connect with their loved ones (Roblek et al., 2018). Strong social connections have been found to be fundamental to physical and mental well-being. Previously, the elderly used to smoke cigarettes to kill boredom, which is not a healthy behavior since it can accelerate the chances of getting lung cancer and even dying prematurely. People are supposed to enjoy old age as it is the time for them to relax and enjoy their lifetime benefits. Technological advancements have helped make this dream possible as people have adopted a better choice of living, including adopting healthy behaviors such as using social media to connect with people. For example, older people can connect with their families and other elderly people online, and this can help change the attitudes toward ageing. According to data, the adoption and use of technology have increased tremendously, with 44% of people aged 50 and older being more comfortable with technology than before the covid-19 pandemic (Kong et al., 2021). This positive behavior is expected to continue, increasing socialization and interaction of the elderly, and this will help improve the mental well-being of the elderly.
References
Calder, P. C., Carding, S. R., Christopher, G., Kuh, D., Langley‐Evans, S. C., & McNulty, H. (2018). A holistic approach to healthy ageing: how can people live longer, healthier lives?. Journal of human nutrition and dietetics, 31(4), 439-450.
Kong, S. S., Otalora Rojas, L. A., Ashour, A., Robinson, M., Hosterman, T., & Bhanusali, N. (2021). Ability and willingness to utilize telemedicine among rheumatology patients—a cross-sectional survey. Clinical Rheumatology, 40(12), 5087-5093.
Li, W., Yigitcanlar, T., Erol, I., & Liu, A. (2021). Motivations, barriers and risks of smart home adoption: From systematic literature review to conceptual framework. Energy Research & Social Science, 80, 102211.
Roblek, V., Mesko, M., Dimovski, V., & Peterlin, J. (2018). Smart technologies as social innovation and complex social issues of the Z generation. Kybernetes.