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Critical Analysis of Death and Justice
Critical analysis
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Critical Analysis of Death and Justice
The subject “death and justice” will be scrutinized in this critical essay. The “death and justice” writer Edward I. Koch is a controversial and outspoken anti-spending and anti-crime individual. He worked in New York as a mayor from around 1976 to 1988 (Koch 1). Working for 22years in the public service as a mayor, councilman, congressman, and district leader, he represented liberal constituencies; this offers Edward all the credits to talk about the issue. I did pick this theme for analysis for the reason death and justice has been a vital social concern that many scholars have debated for a long. The scrutiny of the essay informs the audience successfully the right viewpoint of tackling this matter amicably.
In writing, (Koch2) makes an effort to back up capital punishment as a way to make everybody cautious with law enforcement in the community. An instance is given by Koch of joseph Carl and Robert Lee’s executions after they were ascertained to have taken part in either murder or rape disputes. Prior to their killing, Carl and Robert supported that murder is wrong, immoral, and must be dealt with. (Koch 2) sees life as precious and thinks that capital penalty could assist in confirming this fact. Hence the author tries to convince the community of the advantages of the death penalty and the way it would make everyone moral and responsible.
The major issue of the writer is that life is valuable and hence must be honored by everybody. (Koch 2) annotates in the article, “life is for sure precious and I trust the death sentence assist confirm this truth.” The method in which the death sentence is being implemented contains no prejudice, discrimination, and bias because even the criminals affected have been tolerant of their wrongs and puzzling the community to stop murdering.
All through the article, the writer starts with the conflicting opinions and then forms his own counter-arguments to each key idea. This technique makes the reader recognize their inaccuracies and further convinced by him. He goes on with the enormous statistics “In USA the murder percentage elevated 122 percent between 1964 and 1981” and “at the same time, the murder percentage in New York City amplified by 400 percent”. With these community statistics, the author defines the cumulative danger around the readers with no death punishment enacted for offenses of murder. Moreover, he devotes the next paragraph revealing official figures that this reveals the degree to which the community is at risk and will be huger unless the answer for the homicide is handled radically.
I trust that the writer productively uses all three pathos, logos, and ethos to back up his argument in his article. Though the ethos method doesn’t occur much through his article, he uses it to gain and establish the credibility of the readers. Koch (1985) notes his career profile working for 22years in the public service as a validation that he is highly conversant about political matters capital punishment included. Founded on the given data, the readers develop their confidence in him, which aids him to get their approval more effortlessly.
Ethos aside, Koch forms appeals to emotion over the pathos technique so that to attract substantial readers’ sympathy. First of all, Koch stated two events of “Richard Biegenwald, aka “the Thrill killer” and Lemuel Smith as instances of offenders who re-offend numerous times. However, the first one wasn’t hanged because “there was no death punishment statute in New York,” the other one even “has efficiently been offered a license to murder. The unjust truths harbor the person who reads grievances against strict discipline scarcity for extreme wrongdoings, precisely no capital sentence also compassion for the victims mistakenly killed. Koch’s successively using the latest cases as evidence enables the readers to understand the seriousness and urgency of the matter, which raises his argument effectiveness.
The notion that “the death punishment is barbaric” (Para 5) is a weakness that Koch discloses when he verifies it is barbaric to not utilize Death and Justice Analysis by Edward Koch. The strength of that the article is that, in some way, it’s able to win the readers’ emotions on how the death sentence can be effective. The article’s audience is aimed towards individuals, who aren’t for capital punishment, persons who do not have a view on it, and for anybody else concerned about the topic. All through the text, regardless of abundance, there is some sense of (pathos). An emotional appeal Even though Koch’s main tone throughout the article is aggressive, he succeeds in appealing to emotions in certain contexts.
In conclusion, though the death sentence appears inhumane, it stands to the most operational deterrence and the reasonable justice that can be administered to serious victims of offenses like murder. It is obvious that the extra sentences utilized by many criminal justice systems are not effective at stopping offenders from engaging in the same crimes. If these methods were operative enough, recurrence criminals would be a past thing. My opinion in this is that I think death sentence is an effective way to deal with serious offenders and an effective way to terminate crime
Reference
Koch, E. I. (1997). Death and Justice. Selzer, 1997, 904-9.
Critical Analysis of Chapter 10, 11 and 12 of Exploring Criminal Justice
Critical Analysis of Chapter 10, 11 and 12 of Exploring Criminal Justice
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Criminal justice has a lot to explore, besides the history of prisons, law society, the police and the history of courts, there is a lot to learn about criminal justice. Criminal justice involves corrections, prisons as places for corrections and how correction is done in the community. A criminal is not only punished but also rehabilitated in order to ensure he or she does not go back to the deviant behaviour. The paper will give a preview on Chapter 10, 11, and 12 of the text ‘Exploring Criminal Justice and The Essentials’ by Robert M. Ragoli, John D. Hewitt and Ann Koloski.
First, chapter ten gives the history of corrections in America. Once one has been prosecuted and convicted, getting into the correction system is the next step. According to chapter ten, correction begun as early as 1800s. By mid-19th, American correction system had reformed to an extent women and men were placed in different correction centres and given different education. The chapter tells about the vocational programs and the acts that were passed since 19th century to date in order to facilitate correction system. An example is the Hawes Cooper Act of 1929 and Ashurst Summners Act passed in 1935 and amended in 1940. The authors have given an over view of the existing correction centres, statistics of the prisons and how effective the correction system have been since 1900s to date.
In chapter 11, the authors give a detailed information on the prison systems. Prison systems have undergone revolution ever since they were established. Initially, prisons were the worst places to send criminals, characterised by mishandling the prisoners and having them in poor conditions (Regoli, Hewitt, & Kosloski, 2016). The authors give details on the reforms that the prisons systems have gone through in order to be at the state which they are today. The characteristics of persons confined in prisons today are better than those of 20th century. The book gives classes of prisons and the prisoners. The type of correctional services offered in the different classes of prisons. The authors go further in giving examples of correctional services with real life cases on how inmates were corrected and how they behaved in prisons. There is number of offenders narrowing down to the number of men and women in prisons. Further, the authors do it well in giving an overview of the activities that happen in the prisons including violence, rape, and stealing. They give examples of these activities including real life events (Regoli, Hewitt, & Kosloski, 2016). Indeed, the prisons are a place for corrections at the same time not a good place.
The third chapter on corrections that is Chapter 12, gives details on corrections in the community. A community is the best place to rehabilitate wrong doers in the society. The authors argue that corrections in the society is less expensive than correction centres such as the prisons and the vocational training centres. In the Chapter they give example of scenarios where corrections in the community has been successful. Probation under supervisions is one of the common correction which has been successful over years. Further, the authors give strengths and weaknesses of the corrections in the community.
Conclusively, the authors do a great job in presenting the history of correction in America. The information is crucial to the audience, that is the citizens, police society and the law society in general for they learn about where America has come from in order to achieve the current situation in the prisons. Also, the authors have arranged the information in a simple way that one can easily scheme and understand. The chapters are well presented and easy to understand.
References
McShane, M. D. (2008). Prisons in America. El Paso: LFB Scholarly Pub. LLC.
Regoli, R. M., Hewitt, J. D., & Kosloski, A. E. (2016). Exploring Criminal Justice. Sudbury: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Development of contemporary psychological testing techniques and how they have shaped assessment theory and Praxis
Psychological assessment
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Development of contemporary psychological testing techniques and how they have shaped assessment theory and Praxis
Psychological assessment is a building block for psychologists to understand a person and how they behave. It tends to determine the core components that entail an individual’s psychological problem (Meyer, Eyde, Kay, Moreland, Dies, Eisman, Kubiszyn & Reed, 2001). Psychological assessment in itself is a process, which is useful in identifying an individual’s strengths as well as their weakness. Such tests incorporate several tests that have been researched and proven completely, and procedures of weighing up certain aspects of an individual’s psychological makeup. Contemporary psychological testing techniques can be used to determine the IQ levels of a person, the person’s personality (Fischer, 1994). The various techniques available vary in terms of achieving the wanted results.
The Battery for Health Improvement is one comprehensive psychological testing method, which has been designed for tracking computerized progress and it uses serial administrators (Fischer, 1994). It measures an individual’s level of depression, dependency, their violent or suicidal nature, the level and extent of how a person bears pain, conflicts related to work issues, hostility and levels of anxiety in an individual, and the perception one is regarding their normal functioning’s (Meyer et al, 2001). This technique is important in engaging, applying, realizing and practicing of ideas and perceptions created (Meyer et al, 2001). The Battery for Health Improvement is a useful psychological tool, which could be effective in identifying and relating those factors, which affect pain and disabilities. Such factors include identification of social, psychological and character-logical behaviors (Meyer et al, 2001). The other importance of this test is in the assessment of patients who have been referred for further intensive treatment programs including functional restoration, treatment of chronic pains in determining the pre surgical risk implications, strong indications due to psychological factors that are brought about when the process of recovery becomes delayed (Meyer et al, 2001).
When relating the psychological testing and how they affect Praxis, Battery for Health Improvement has contributed tremendously to the understanding and evaluation of psychological and social factors, which are essential in perceiving the causes of disabilities, pain reports and help in creating an appropriate design intervention (Groth- Marnat, 2009). Psychologists and medical practitioners use this test to track a wide range of variable changes that might occur during the course of treatment for a mentally ill patient suffering from violent and suicidal ideation, and at other times; hostility and anxiety (Groth- Marnat, 2009).
The advantage about the Battery for Health Improvement is that it has two profiles concerned with pain, which are of average valuation and is readily available. The limitation with this psychological assessment is that there are certain dimensions related to psychopathology that are not accessible including psychosis. The other weakness is the lack of longitudinal research, which is aimed at coming up with conclusive and predictive sincerity (Groth- Marnat, 2009).
Personality Assessment Inventory is another psychological assessment technique. This technique is used to measure anxiety, stress, drug and substance abuse, depression, paranoia, and antisocial disorders (Groth- Marnat, 2009). The Personality Assessment Inventory is useful because it is designed for the assessment of a more comprehensive mental evaluation especially the psychiatric patients (Groth- Marnat, 2009). The Personality Assessment Inventory is useful because it does not deal with pain patients therefore, the issue of bias results becomes considered fully. Such assessments are very popular with psychiatrists and medical practitioners in the same field because when using such an assessment technique as part of a comprehensive evaluation by the test users, it can provide a substantial analysis and identification of a wide range of risk factors, which could pose as a potential threat towards the medical patient (Groth- Marnat, 2009).
The good thing about the Personality Assessment Inventory is the fact that it can be administered first to a patient and then see if it has a positive or negative reaction and later, whether to continue with the test or not (Groth- Marnat, 2009). The weakness portrayed by this assessment is the fact that is has been designed for patients suffering from psychiatric disorders. This means the test user cannot use this method to assess patients suffering from pain or those who are undergoing rehabilitation (Groth- Marnat, 2009). Therefore, the Personality Assessment Inventory does not assess the factors, which are specific to the treatment of pain and in the long run, not an effective psychological assessment tool.
Humanistic analysis of psychological testing, the origins of individualized assessment and how does it deviate from other approaches
In the health care sector, it is the mandate of every mental health care profession to assess the problems, which are affecting their patients. Almost every mental evaluation is centered on unstructured interviews and other informal observations (Meyer et al, 2001). These informal interviews and observations serve as key sources of patient information. Even though such methods can become efficient and effective in terms of obtaining data, they can be very limited and conserved at times (Meyer et al, 2001). When such psychological assessments, including interviews become unstructured, most medical practitioners tend to overlook certain aspects of functioning, as they aim at shifting more towards presenting the patients’ grievances (Meyer et al, 2001). According to Hammond (1996), when healthcare professionals interview their patients using the highly structured methods, they tend to lose the main concept underlying the interviews and are more likely to make very precise but errant judgments. This may happen when the clinician shifts their attention towards one specific response without having full consideration of the salience of the responses regarding the patient’s general life background during the interview (Meyer et al, 2001). Consequently, shifting attention towards one specific direction of the patient during evaluation tends to give a biased side because the clinician does not have sufficient information on how the patient’s individual responses from the interview fits together to form a more coherent pattern (Fischer, 1994).
One way psychological assessments deals with such problems is by simultaneously measuring the large number of personality characteristics as well as the cognitive and neuropsychological characteristics (Fischer, 1994). Due to this factor, the three outcomes become included and therefore, cover a wide range of well-designed domains. Most of the well designed domains become ignored during the unstructured and informal evaluation processes (Meyer et al, 2001).
Secondly, the psychological tests provide information, which have been calculated empirically and in the process, allows for a more accurate and precise measurement that incorporate different patient characteristics unlike the other forms of unstructured interviews (Meyer et al, 2001). Psychological testing and assessment have a standardized scoring and administration procedure. Because of this, every individual patient is presented with a uniform stimulus, which serves as the common benchmark for measuring their own individual characteristics (Hammond, 1996). A clinician who has experience in this field may be able to detect even the slightest behavioral signs, which may indicate complications related to psychology and Neuropsychology (Loring & Papanicolaou, 1987).
Legal and ethical issues that result because of unwanted biases towards the patient by a clinician can be reduced by means of standardization. Standardization is not included in an informal psychological assessment therefore, the interactions between the patient and the clinician tends to vary significantly as one function about the many factors that become available (Meyer et al, 2001). Psychological tests have been permitted and made normal and in so doing; allowing patients of the same peer group to be regarded the same. This in turn tends to allow the clinician to come up with superior conclusions concerning the strengths and the weaknesses concerning the subject matter (Meyer et al, 2001). Medical practitioners using the informal and unstructured assessment procedures have a tendency to come up with their own internal principles and ideologies over the given time frame (Meyer et al, 2001). Such clinicians are more likely to develop skewed patient outcomes.
The other factor that differentiates the various psychological assessments is based on research. According to Groth-Marnat (2009), research based on the reliability and validity of personality tests puts down a formal assessment. This varies greatly from the other sources found in the clinical information. Data from the formal psychological assessment favor the clinician to understand and make wise decisions from the strengths and weaknesses obtained from the different possible outcomes (Meyer et al, 2001). The data from the psychological assessment on the other hand boosts the practitioners’s decision making process by means of gauging the accuracy used. As a result of this, the use of test batteries becomes the final determining factor of the recognized psychological evaluation. Such tests help psychologists to utilize the wide range of different information gathering methods. The methods include use of questionnaires, reports, observations and functional assessments (Groth-Marnat, 2009). By integrating the various methods of psychological evaluation, a psychologist may be in a position to gather a wide range of information, which facilitates a patient’s understanding resourcefully.
Characteristics of the APA test user guidelines
The importance of psychological assessment is to identify the therapeutic requirements, which highlight the most probable concerns that are likely to emerge during treatment process (Meyer et al, 2001). Such assessments ought to recommend the necessary forms of intervention and then offer guidelines about the outcomes likely to occur. The other characteristic of psychological assessment guidelines is to describe the current functioning, which incorporates the cognitive capabilities, severity of annoyance and the capacity it would take in order to live independently (Meyer et al, 2001). The psychological assessment guidelines aid in the various differential identification of cognitive disorders as well as emotional and behavioral disorders that provide empathic assessment, skilled feedback as a way of therapeutic intervention by itself (Meyer et al, 2001).
According to the American Psychological Association (1992), ethical principles state that psychologists ought to provide services, which are in their patient’s best interests. This means that the psychological assessment test users ought to come up with a sound underlying principle for their practice and then be able to explain the benefits of their assessment together with the cost implications involved (Fischer, 1994). Even though understanding the benefits of the cost implications of the tests carried out is a necessity, it is also important to conceptualize how the ratio between the costs and benefits can ultimately be determined for various patients when treating them in a hospital (Meyer et al, 2001). Such tests are expected to be cost beneficial if one patient does not have the same outcome as the other patient. Treating two patients suffering from mental disorders may be cost beneficial if memory tests were taken from two patients of the same age bracket. If one patient was young and the other old, then the cost-benefit ratio becomes quite unfavorable.
Current knowledge regarding the extensive disparities that emerge between the various APA guidelines and methods of acquiring the knowledge and skills has an important effect on the healthcare system. According to a report by Meyer et al, (2001), the analytical data obtained indicates that a single clinician, using one method of psychological assessment and testing, may come up with a biased perception regarding their patient. This fact still remains the same whether or not the process may be less expensive. The biased perception becomes extended to the point that the guidelines required for the treatment of the patient including diagnosis, may become misunderstood completely and therefore; no sufficient treatment offered to the patient (Groth-Marnat, 2009). Such information becomes important to the test users because such financial implications together with the misinterpreted perceptions would be taken care of an in the end; no extra health care expenses incurred.
Reference
Fischer, C. (1994). Individualizing psychological assessment. Hillsdale, CA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Groth-Marnat, G. (2009). Handbook of psychological assessment (5th Ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons.
Hammond, K. R. (1996). Human judgment and social policy: Irreducible uncertainty, inevitable error, unavoidable injustice. New York: Oxford University Press.
Loring, D., W. & Papanicolaou, A., C. (1987). Memory assessment in Neuropsychology: Theoretical considerations and practical utility, Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 9:4, 340-358. Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01688638708405055
Meyer, G. J., Eyde, L. D., Kay, G. G., Moreland, K., L., Dies, R., R., Eisman, E., J., Kubiszyn, T., W. & Reed, G., M. (2001). Psychological Testing and Psychological Assessment. Retrieved February 11, 2013, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11279806