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Article Summary From sickness to badness
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‘From sickness to badness: The criminalization of HIV in Michigan’ is an article by Trevor Hoppe and to which tries to explain the criminalization of sickness. Sociological approaches regarding social control of illness tend to emphasizes on the process by which the social phenomena get controlled by medicine. Very little is known regarding how criminal law came to regulate the social problems that were previously known as medical. According to Hoppe, 33 States in the United States have enacted criminal laws requiring all the individuals who are HIV positive to disclose their infections to their partners before engaging in sexual practices.
The article follows the development of the criminalization of the illness through the moralization narrative of HIV infection. Criminalization of illness serves to construct HIV as a kind of wringness that deserves the intervention of legal entities and thus able to have HIV socially controlled. Trevor Hoppe, through a case study of Michigan’s criminal law, traces the mandatory disclosure of a person’s HIV status through a 20-year conviction to illustrate that the move from sickness to badness is grounded on panic and fear, to the public health’s detriment.
Trevor Hoppe goes ahead describing the legislative history of Michigan’s HIV disclosure law of criminalization as a punishment, despite the warnings that the spread of HIV could be fostered and as well the criminalization of sickness would impede public health efforts. The law entirely mandates the disclosure of the HIV status for a wide range of activities that include some with low or no risk of real transmission, leaving out the actual transmission as an essential component of the crime. Portrayals of the same nature of nondisclosure as bad and to which deserves to be punished are evident throughout the case. The article draws evidence from 58 felony nondisclosure convictions based in Michigan. Individuals with HIV routinely get characterized as reckless AIDS carriers that need to be restrained, the carriers of death and a warrant to death to the innocent third parties as they are placed under the medication of the ARVs for the rest of their life. The HIV-virus was perceived as a weapon that needed to be controlled to minimize the impacts of HIV infections. The virus is likened to a harmful biological device, which according to the definition is a toxic substance that is derived or produced from an organism to which can be used to cause death, disease or injury to humans, plants or animals and therefore, HIV-virus fits in that category. Being a weapon, the virus needs legal intervention and that is the main reason for criminalizing nondisclosures.
The study assists in the explanation of the underlying causes for as well as the sociological mechanisms through which the criminalization of HIV remains prevalent despite the inadequacy of the epidemiological support. Hoppe points out that the sociological arguments have limited application as a direct challenge to criminal law. He argues that the enforcement of Michigan’s HIV disclosure law wasn’t driven by medical reasons or public health considerations but rather is a reflection of the pervasive moralization narratives which frames HIV as a moral infection that requires interdiction and punishment to the offenders.
Discussion questions
1. Should HIV nondisclosure be criminalized?
2. Is there any relationship between HIV nondisclosure and legal interdiction?
Article Summary Conformity to Peer Pressure in Preschool Children
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Article Summary: Conformity to Peer Pressure in Preschool Children
Throughout the years, scientists have been puzzled by the tendency of human beings to conform even when they are faced with wrong information. This conformity has been maintained through ages. People living in the same environment and with similar genetic composition often show differences in their traditions. Even as they interact with other people, these differences are maintained through time, primarily due to strong conformity to a group. This conformity begins from early childhood with children trusting adults they see as conformers. Children conform to adults ideas mostly due to fear of punishment. Peer pressure has also been exhibited by preschool children changing their behaviors to adapt to that of their peers (Haun & Tomasello). The current study aims at studying strong conformity among peer groups in children.
The first experiment included 96 participants, all four years of age and mixed genders. The children were grouped in fours, with one of them being the minority in and the other three forming a unanimous majority. The exercise involved showing pictures of three animals of different sizes; large, middle or small. On the opposite page, one of the animals was on their own. The children were required to identify which of the animals had moved to the other page, be it, mommy, daddy or baby. For the majority, the animals were arranged in order while for the minority the order was changed at some intervals (Haun & Tomasello). In the first instance, the children responded by pointing while in the second they would identify the correct animals aloud. The target child was found to answer last. The minority child gave the right answer when tested individually.
In the speak-no conflict condition, the minority child performed better than when they spoke out loud. They also responded slower in the speak-conflict than the speak-no conflict conditions. Only five of the 22 minority children reported realizing that their book was different while the rest of them conformed to the majority. Girls were found to conform more than boys. The minority children performed poorly when they had to give a different answer in front of a unanimous majority. They were also slower to respond, showing a reaction to peer pressure. Thy adapted their response to fit in with the majority. This reaction is quite similar to that of adults who conform based on behavioral optimization and social approval. The motivation for the children’s conformity is unclear.
The second experiment sought to differentiate the two types of conformities, informational and social. Seventy-two four-year-old children were selected to participate. The procedure was the same as in the first experiment. The results showed that the children responded differently to conflict depending on whether the response was public or private. Minority children responded better when giving private answers (Haun & Tomasello). The results were the same as in Experiment 1 where children excelled individually but conformed when they gave a public response. The main difference is that the differences seen in experiment 1 in the conformity of boys and girls were not seen in the second experiment. There are different motivations for conforming depending on the age of the child.
The results of both experiments show that preschoolers have a high level of conformity just like adults. This level of conformity varies based on the privacy of responses. The behavior of preschool children in both experiments shows that children are subject to the influence of adults due to fear of punishment and respect. They also conform to their peers due to social pressures. Form the study; it can be said that the tendency to conform that is common to human diversity begins at a very young age.
Works Cited
Haun, Daniel BM, and Michael Tomasello. “Conformity to peer pressure in preschool children.” Child development 82.6 (2011): 1759-1767.
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This article is named “The link between mental health, crime and violence.” It aims to investigate the connection between mental health, crime, and violence. From the article, the link between these elements relies on populations that are at a high risk of criminal and criminal behavior, such as psychiatric patients and prison inmates. The writing of this writing asserts that the link between mental wellbeing, criminal, and violent behaviors is significantly overestimated, with psychological wellbeing being incorrectly related to violent and criminal behaviors. The connection between psychological illness and criminality continues to be the topic of intense debate and scrutiny in the latest past in light of numerous mass shootings in the United States (Halle et al., 2020). Whereas the media and renewed focus attention on the significance of mental health in the outcome of such tragedies is a positive development, the link between mental disorder and criminality is too every so often conflated. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between psychological wellbeing, violence, and crime in a more representative community-based sample.
This study’s participants were one hundred and twenty individuals who had and those who did not have a mental health disorder. They reported their participation in crime and completed an aggression questionnaire. The common belief is that individuals with mental illness are more prone to do actions of aggression and violence (Halle et al., 2020). The public insight of psychiatric patients as dangerous persons is normally deep-rooted in the representation of lawbreakers in the mass media as “crazy” persons. Major factors of violence continue to be economical and socio-demographic factors. Drug abuse is a leading determinant of violence, and this is factual whether it happens in the setting of a concurrent mental illness or not. As a result, early identification and treatment of drug abuse problems, and greater attention to the diagnosis and management of concurrent substance abuse disorders among seriously mentally ill, maybe potential violence prevention strategies.
This study’s results or findings suggest that certain mental health illnesses do not strongly contribute to crime, violence, and involvement. This article points out that most mental illnesses are not connected to violence for policy legislators and makers, with a number of exceptions such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and normally only in combination with drugs use. The article emphasizes that behavior disorder in adolescence or late childhood is a good predictor of violence than is a mental disorder at a later age. Empirically grounded screening methods to recognize persons with psychological wellbeing complications prone to violence seem to have limited utility. However, untreated mental illness can cause severe emotional, physical, and health complications. Problems sometimes connected to the mental disorder include family conflicts, unhappiness, and decreased enjoyment of life. A lot of criminals with mental illnesses don’t get treatment during confinement. Devoid of treatment, illnesses can deteriorate. Criminals can turn out to be a greater threat to themselves and others when they leave prison or jail. Individuals with any severe psychological ailment are likely to have a history of violence compared with individuals devoid of severe psychological ailment, consistent with other research.
It is evident that the authors’ conclusions follow logically from the results reported. The future research which can be suggested based on conclusion is the steps taken to help the criminals who have mental problems.
Reference
Halle, C., Tzani-Pepelasi, C., Pylarinou, N. R., & Fumagalli, A. (2020). The link between mental health, crime and violence. New Ideas in Psychology, 58, 100779.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2020.100779