Pictures of Meerkats

Death Of Black And White Penal Hell Hole, Popular Media,...

Kids can no longer play outside; people lock their doors at night. People fear daily whether they will make it back to their house at night. Some leave in the morning in a suit and tie off to their nine to five jobs, others go off into the streets, trying to make the best they can with what they have. America is the leading nation of individuals in prison, representing almost a quarter of the worlds imprisoned population. Over the years, the number of incarcerated individuals has increased as well as the length of the criminal’s sentence. Sadly, this is a dynamic that is not changing anytime in the near future. According to Yvonne Jewkes in â€Å"Punishment in Black and White Penal ‘Hell-Hole,’ Popular Media, and Mass Incarceration,†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦show more content†¦The United States prisons have â€Å"more than 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 942 juvenile correctional facilities, and 3,283 local jails and 79 Indian Country jai ls as well as in military prisons (Wagner, Rabuy). The United States comprises 4.4 percent of the world population, but accounts for 22% of the world’s prison population. Referring to Jewkes, â€Å"young men of African American or African Caribbean descent have borne the brunt of racist and stereotypical news reports about crimes ranging from offices involving drugs, gang membership, guns, homicide, and sexual violence† (54). The high drug problem is part of the reason for Americas high levels of lethal crime. According to Lopez â€Å"unlike regimes like China, it makes use of less punitive punishments like the death penalty (#). The Correctional system is comprised of state and federal county and local institutions. Inmates are detained in the local jails until sentencing. Upon sentencing, the individuals are moved to more permanent housing to serve their time. The two main prison systems used in the United States are state and federal. Although both facilities are serving the same purpose of keeping criminals confided, they still differ. State prisons have a higher capacity and house more violent offenders, and these state inmates are convicted of blue collar crimes. Blue – collar crimes are

Night World Secret Vampire Chapter 3 Free Essays

string(46) " Night People could fall in love with ahuman\." All Poppy could think of was the pretty bald girl inthe gift shop. Cancer. â€Å"But-but they can do something about it, can’tthey?† she said, and even to her own ears her voice sounded very young. We will write a custom essay sample on Night World : Secret Vampire Chapter 3 or any similar topic only for you Order Now â€Å"I mean-if they had to, theycould take my pancreasout†¦.† â€Å"Oh, sweetheart, of course. â€Å"Poppy’s mother took Poppy in her arms. â€Å"I promise you; if there’s some thing wrong, we’ll do anything and everything to fix it. I’d go to the ends of the earth to make you well. You knowthat. And at this point we aren’t even sure that there issomething wrong. Dr. Franklin said that it’s extremely rare for teenagers to get a tumor in the pancreas. Extremely rare. So let’s not worry about things until we have to.† Poppy felt herself relax; the pit was covered again. But somewhere near her core she still felt cold. â€Å"I haveto call James.† Her mother nodded. â€Å"Just make it quick.† Poppy kept her fingers crossed as she dialedJames’s apartment. Please be there, please be there, she thought. And for once, he was. He answered laconically, but as soon as he heard her voice, he said, â€Å"What’s wrong?† â€Å"Nothing-well, everything. Maybe.† Poppy heardherself give a wild sort of laugh. It wasn’t exactly alaugh. â€Å"What happened?† James said sharply. â€Å"Did youhave a fight with Cliff?† â€Å"No. Cliff’s at the office. And I’m going into thehospital.† â€Å"Why?† â€Å"They think I might have cancer.† It was a tremendous relief to say it, a sort of emo tional release. Poppy laughed again. Silence on the other end of the line. â€Å"Hello?† â€Å"I’m here,† James said. Then he said, â€Å"I’m coming over.† â€Å"No, there’s no point. I’ve got to leave in a minute.† She waited for him to say that he’d come and see her in the hospital, but he didn’t. â€Å"James, would you do something for me? Wouldyou find out whatever you can about cancer in the pancreas? Just in case.† â€Å"Is that what they think you have?† â€Å"They don’t know for sure. They’re giving me some tests. I just hope they don’t have to use any needles.† Another laugh, but inside she was reeling. She wished James would say something comforting.†I’ll see what I can find on the Net.† His voice was unemotional, almost expressionless. â€Å"And then you can tell me later-they’ll probablylet you call me at the hospital.† â€Å"Yeah.† â€Å"Okay, I have to go. My mom’s waitin†Ã¢â‚¬ Take care of yourself.† Poppy hung up, feeling empty. Her mother wasstanding in the doorway.†Come on, Poppet. Let’s go.† James sat very still, looking at the phone withoutseeing it. She was scared, and he couldn’t help her. He’dnever been very good at inspirational small talk. It wasn’t, he thought grimly, in his nature. To give comfort you had to have a comfortableview of the world. And James had seen too much of the world to have any illusions. He could deal with cold facts, though. Pushingaside a pile of assorted clutter, he turned on his lap top and dialed up the Internet. Within minutes he was using Gopher to search theNational Cancer Institute’s CancerNet. The first file he found was listed as â€Å"Pancreatic cancer-Patient.†He scanned it. Stuff about what the pancreas did,stages of thedisease, treatments.Nothingtoo gruesome. Thenhewentinto â€Å"PancreaticcancerPhysician–a file meant for doctors. The first lineheld him paralyzed. Cancer of the exocrine pancreas is rarely curable. His eyes skimmed down the lines. Overall survival rate †¦ metastasis †¦ poor response to chemotherapy, ra diation therapy and surgery †¦ pain †¦ Pain. Poppy was brave, but facing constant painwould crush anyone. Especially when the outlook for the future was so bleak. He looked at the top of the article again. Overallsurvival rate less than three percent. If the cancer had spread, less than one percent. There must be more information. James wentsearching again and came up with several articles from newspapers and medical journals. They wereeven worse than the NCI file. The overwhelming majority of patients will die, and dieswiftly, experts say†¦. Pancreatic cancer is usually inoperable, rapid, and debilitatingly painful†¦. The averagesurvival if the cancer has spread can be three weeks tothree months†¦. Three weeks to three months. James stared at the laptop’s screen. His chest andthroat felt tight; his vision was blurry. He tried to control it, telling himself that nothing was certain yet. Poppy was being tested, that didn’t mean she had cancer. But the words rang hollow in his mind. He had known for some time that something was wrong with Poppy. Something was-disturbed-inside her.He’d sensed that the rhythms of her body wereslightly off; he could tell she was losing sleep. Andthe pain-he always knew when the pain was there.He just hadn’t realized how serious it was. Poppy knows, too, he thought. Deep down, she knows that something very bad is going on, or she wouldn’t have asked me to find this out. But whatdoes she expect me to do, walk in and tell her she’s going to die in a few months? And am I supposed to stand around and watch it? His lips pulled back from his teeth slightly. Not anice smile, more of a savage grimace. He’d seen a lot of death in seventeen years. He knew the stages ofdying, knew the difference between the moment breathing stopped and the moment the brain turnedoff; knew the unmistakable ghostlike pallor of a freshcorpse. The way the eyeballs flattened out about five minutes after expiration. Now, that was a detail most people weren’t familiar with. Five minutes after you die, your eyes go flat and filmy gray. And then your body starts to shrink. You actually get smaller. Poppy was so small already. He’d always been afraid of hurting her. She lookedso fragile, and he could hurt somebody much stronger if he wasn’t careful. That was one reason hekept a certain distance between them. One reason. Not the main one. The other was something he couldn’t put intowords, not even to himself. It brought him right up to the edge of the forbidden. To face rules that had been ingrained in him since birth. None of the Night People could fall in love with ahuman. You read "Night World : Secret Vampire Chapter 3" in category "Essay examples" The sentence for breaking the law was death. It didn’t matter. He knew what he hadto do now.Where he had to go. Cold and precise, James loggedoff the Net. Hestood, picked up his sunglasses, slid them into place. Went out into the merciless June sunlight, slamminghis apartment door behind him. Poppy looked around the hospital room unhappily.There was nothing so awful about it, except that it was too cold, but †¦it was a hospital. That was thetruth behind thepretty pink-and-blue curtains and the dosed-circuit TV and the dinner menu decoratedwith cartoon characters. It was a place you didn’t come unless you were Pretty Darn Sick. Oh, come on, she told herself. Cheerup a little.What happened to the power of Poppytive thinking? Where’s Poppyanna when you need her? Where’sMary Poppy-ins? God, I’m even making myself gag, she thought. But she found herselfsmilingfaintly, with selfdeprecating humor if nothing else. And the nurses were nice here, and the bed wasextremely cool.Ithad a remote control on theside that bent it intoevery imaginable position. Her mother came in while shewas playing with it. â€Å"I got hold of Cliff; he’ll be herelater. Meanwhile,I think you’d better change so you’re ready for the tests.† Poppy looked at the blue-and-white striped seersucker hospital robe and felt a painful spasm that seemed to reach from her stomach to her back. And something in the deepest part of her said Please, not yet. I’ll never be ready. James pulled his Integra into a parking space on Ferry Street near Stoneham. It wasn’t a nice part of town. Tourists visiting Los Angeles avoided this area. The building was sagging and decrepit. Severalstores were vacant, with cardboard taped over broken windows. Graffiti covered the peeling paint on thecinder-block walls. Even the smog seemed to hang thicker here. Theair itself seemed yellow and cloying. Like a poisonous miasma, it darkened the brightest day and made everything look unreal and ominous. James walked around to the back of the building.There, among the freight entrances of the stores in front, was one door unmarked by graffiti. The signabove it had no words. Just a picture of a blackflower. A black iris. James knocked. The door opened two inches, anda skinny kid in a wrinkled T-shirt peered out with beady eyes. â€Å"It’s me, Ulf,† James said, resisting the temptationto kick the door in. Werewolves, he thought. Why do they have to be so territorial? World. I don’t want to break any laws. I just wanther well.† The slanted blue eyes were searching his face. â€Å"Areyou sure you haven’t broken the laws already?† And when James looked determined not to understand this, she added in a lowered voice, â€Å"Are you sure you’re not in love with her?† James made himself meet the probing gaze directly. He spoke softly and dangerously. â€Å"Don’t say that unless you want a fight.† Gisele looked away. She played with her ring. Thecandle flame dwindled and died. â€Å"James, I’ve known you for a long time,† she saidwithout looking up. â€Å"I don’t want to get you in trouble. I believe you when you say you haven’t brokenany laws–but I think we’d both better forget this conversation. Just walk out now and I’ll pretend itnever happened.† â€Å"And the spell?† â€Å"There’s no such thing. And if there was, Iwouldn’t help you. Just go.† James went.There was one other possibility that he couldthink of. He drove to Brentwood, to an area thatwas as different from the last as a diamond is fromcoal. He parked in a covered carport by a quaint adobe building with a fountain. Red and purplebougainvillaea climbed up the walls to the Spanishtile on the roof. Walking through an archway into a courtyard, hecame to an office with gold letters on the door. Jasper R. Rasmussen, Ph.D. His father was a psychologist. Before he could reach for the handle, the dooropened and a woman came out. She was like mostof his father’s clients, forty-something, obviously rich, wearing a designer jogging suit and high-heeled sandals. She looked a little dazed and dreamy, and therewere two small, rapidly healing puncture wounds on her neck. James went into the office. There was a waitingroom, but no receptionist. Strains of Mozart came from the inner office. James knocked on the door. â€Å"Dad?† The door opened to reveal a handsome man withdark hair. He was wearing a perfectly tailored gray suit and a shirt with French cuffs. He had an aura of power and purpose. But not of warmth. He said, â€Å"What is it, James?† in the same voice he used for his clients: thoughtful, deliberate, confident. â€Å"Do you have a minute?† His father glanced at his Rolex. â€Å"As a matter offact, my next patient won’t be here for half an hour.† â€Å"There’s something I need to talk about.† His father looked at him keenly, then gestured to an overstuffed chair. James eased into it, but found himself pulling forward to sit on the edge. â€Å"What’s on your mind?† James searched for the right words. Everything depended on whether he could make his father under stand. But what were the right words? At last hesettled for bluntness. â€Å"It’s Poppy. She’s been sick for a while, and nowthey think she has cancer.† Dr. Rasmussen looked surprised. â€Å"I’m sorry to hearthat.† But there was no sorrow in his voice. â€Å"And it’s a bad cancer. It’s incredibly painful andjust about one hundred percent incurable.† â€Å"That’s a pity.† Again there was nothing but mildsurprise in his father’s voice. And suddenly James knew where that came from. It wasn’t surprise thatPoppy was sick; it was surprise that James had made a trip just to tell him this. â€Å"Dad, if she’s got this cancer, she’s dying. Doesn’tthat mean anything to you?† Dr. Rasmussen steepled his fingers and stared intothe ruddy gloss of his mahoganydesk. He spoke slowly and steadily. â€Å"James, we’ve been through this before. You know that your mother and I are worried about you getting too dose to Poppy. Too . . . attached †¦to her.† James felt a surge of cold rage. â€Å"Like I got tooattached to Miss Emma?† His father didn’t blink. â€Å"Something like that.† James fought the pictures that wanted to form inhis mind. He couldn’t think about Miss Emma now; he needed to be detached. That was the only way to convince his father. â€Å"Dad, what I’m trying to say is that I’ve knownPoppy just about all my life. She’s useful to me.† â€Å"How? Not in the obvious way. You’ve never fedon her, have you?† James swallowed, feeling nauseated. Feed onPoppy? Use her like that? Even the thought of it made him sick. â€Å"Dad, she’s my friend,† he said, abandoning anypretense of objectivity. â€Å"I can’t just watch her suffer. I can’t. I have to do something about it.† His father’s face cleared. â€Å"I see.† James felt dizzy with astonished relief. â€Å"Youunderstand?† â€Å"James, at times one can’t help a certain feeling of . . .compassion for humans. In general, I wouldn’t encourage it-but you have known Poppya long while. You feel pity for her suffering. If youwant to make that suffering shorter, then, yes, Iunderstand.† The relief crashed down around James. He stared at his father for a few seconds, then said softly, â€Å"Mercy killing? I thought the Elders had put a banon deaths in this area.† â€Å"Just be reasonably discreet about it. As long as itseems to be natural, we’ll all look the other way. There won’t be any reason to call in the Elders.† There was a metallic taste in James’s mouth. Hestood and laughed shortly. â€Å"Thanks, Dad. You’ve really helped a lot.† His father didn’t seem to hear the sarcasm. â€Å"Gladto do it, James. By the way, how are things at the apartments?† â€Å"Fine,† James said emptily. â€Å"And at school?† â€Å"School’s over, Dad,† James said, and let himselfout. In the courtyard he leaned against an adobe walland stared at the splashing water of the fountain. He was out of options. Out of hope. The laws ofthe Night World said so. If Poppy had the disease, she would die from it. How to cite Night World : Secret Vampire Chapter 3, Essay examples

Effects of Early Deprivation on the Development of Institutionalised Children free essay sample

Early Deprivation on the Development of Institutionalised Children Abstract Deprivation is defined as a reduced fulfillment of an essential desire or need. Studies on the development of children reared in institutions and orphanages help us to look at the effects of deprivation. Institutionalised children are reported to perform poorly on intelligence tests and to be slow learners with specific difficulties in language and social development, in comparison to orphaned children. They also have problems concentrating and forming emotional relationships, and are often described as attention seeking. Children who are exposed to institutions for a sensitive period, generally being several months of the first two years of an infants’ life, show no deficit in IQ by the age of 4. Children adopted after this sensitive period show marked deficits in IQ, and the longer children are kept in these institutions, the greater their impairments. However, cognitive development for children beginning in the second year of life can be substantially improved through high-quality preschool programs. â€Å"Deprivation is the reduced fulfillment of a desire or need that is felt to be essential† (Mijolla, 2005). Studies on children reared in institutions and orphanages are natural experiments that help us to look at the effects of the social and maternal deprivation on infants. Institutionalised children would have been deprived of physical, emotional, and cognitive development. Publications on the damaging psychological consequences of institutional care by Goldfarb (1944; 1945) and Bowlby (1951) highlighted a number of emotional, behavioural and intellectual impairments in children who had been raised in residential care. Children living in institutions are reported to perform poorly on intelligence tests and to be slow learners with specific difficulties in language and social development. In addition, they have problems concentrating and forming emotional relationships, and are often described as attention seeking. The lack of an emotional attachment to a mother figure during early childhood was attributed as the cause of these problems, which were considered to be long lasting. ‘Attachment theory’ (Bowlby, 1969) emphasised the importance of a primary caregiver for normal child development. The absence of a relationship with a consistent caregiver is reported by other studies to cause attachment disorder behaviour in children who were adequately cared for and exposed to social stimulation (Tizard Hodges, 1978). Johnson, Browne, Hamilton-Giachritsis (2006) found that 12 of the 13 studies on intellectual development of children who have been raised in institutions reported that poor cognitive performance and lower IQ scores were associated with children in institutional care, illustrating the negative effects of this environment in comparison to family based care. However, some of these studies also suggest that early removal to family based care can result in recovery and catch up. This was illustrated in the longitudinal studies of Thomas O’Conner, Michael Rutter and the English and Romanian Adoptees study team (1998, 2000). Research on these orphaned children showed that the earlier infants are removed from deprived rearing conditions, the greater their catch-up in development and the less severe their attachment disorders (Rutter et al. , 2000). This timing effect indicates the importance of early experience in laying the foundation for positive gains in cognitive development. Cognitive catch-up was virtually complete by the age of 4 for children adopted before 6 months of age (Rutter et al. ,1998). However, children adopted after this sensitive period had an average IQ deficit of 15 points at age 11(Beckett, C. , Maughan, B. , Rutter, M. , Castle, J. , Colvert, E. , Groothues, C. , Kreppner, J. , Stevens, S. , OConnor, T. G. , Sonuga-Barke, E. J. S, 2006). These adoptees were far more likely to display cognitive impairment and behavioural problems at 6 years of age than were children adopted in the first 6 months of life (Rutter et al. 1998). There was a marked catch-up in psychological functioning for these children in the first few years after adoption, however, signi? cant problems continued in a substantial minority of the children placed after the age of 6 months (Rutter, Colvert, Kreppner, Beckett, Groothues, Hawkins, O’Connor, Stevens, Sonuga-Burke, 2007a). At age 11 quasi-autistic patterns were seen in over 1 in 10 of the children who expe rienced profound institutional deprivation (Rutter, Kreppner, Croft, Murin, Colvert, Beckett, Castle, Sonuga-Burke, 2007b). The results from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP) also indicated that children removed from institutions and placed in foster care displayed higher IQ scores compared to children who remained in institutions and that those removed prior to 24 months showed sustained but not robust gains in IQ (Fox, Almas, Degna, Nelson, Zeanah, 2011). Dennis (1973) and Kagan (1979) suggested a similar sensitive period, after which the effects of institutional deprivation would be irreversible. However, in the BEIP study there were no children who were less than 6 months of age at the time of placement into foster case. Therefore, the timing (age) of intervention cannot directly be compared between these studies. However, there may be different sensitive periods for different aspects of cognition. The length of these sensitive periods depends on the severity of the orphanage experience. These studies emphasised the continued importance of early intervention and the negative effects of severe psychosocial deprivation on the development of IQ scores. Both analyses suggest that to sustain effects of early intervention it is critical to maintain the child in a stable enriched environment. Infants provided with this early experience gain more if the enriched context is maintained from the period of early childhood to the time of entry into elementary school (Fox et al. , 2011). The findings of Ramey Ramey (2004) indicate that impairments to cognitive development for children beginning in the second year of life can be substantially reduced through a high-quality preschool program. Improved performance in reading and mathematics, and also a reduction in special education placement and grade retention was experienced in the long-term for these children. Ramey Ramey (2000) indicated that the quality and quantity of developmentally appropriate early childhood experiences are strongly linked to later performance in school and society. Bierman, Domitrovich, Nix, Gest, Welsh, Greenberg, Blair, Nelson, Gill (2008) agreed with these findings, indicating that improvement in executive function skills through high-quality preschool teaching reduce the achievement gap associated with socioeconomic disadvantage. Research has documented many effects of institutional deprivation on children, including cognitive problems, speech and language delays, social and behavioural abnormalities such as attachment disorders, quasi-autism and inattention. Long-term problems are more frequent in post-institutionalised (PI) children who are adopted at older ages, and developmental catch-up and improvements are greater when children transition to families earlier. This sensitive period is generally thought to be the first several months of life. However, the length of this period depends on the severity of the orphanage experience. To maintain the benefits of intervention, children must be provided with a stable enriched environment. This can be enhanced through high-quality preschool programs. References Beckett, C. , Maughan, B. , Rutter, M. , Castle, J. , Colvert, E. , Groothues, C. , Kreppner, J. ,Stevens, S. , OConnor, T. G. , Sonuga-Barke, E. (2006). Do the effects of earlysevere deprivation on cognition persist into early adolescence? Findings from theEnglish and Romanian Adoptees study. Child Development, 77(3), 696-711. Bierman, K. L. , Domitrovich, C. E. , Nix, R. L. , Gest, S. D. , Welsh, J. A. , Greenberg, M. T. , Blair, C. , Nelson, K. E. , Gill. S. (2008). Promoting academic and socialemotional school readiness: The head start REDI program. Child Development, 79(6), 1802 1817. Bierman, K. L. , Nix, R. L. , Greenberg, C. B. , Domitrovich, C. E. (2008). Development and Psychopathology, 20(3), 821 843. Bowlby, J. (1951). Maternal care and mental health. Geneva, Switzerland: WHOHeadquarters. Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment: Attachment and loss: Vol. . London, United Kingdom: Hogarth Press. Dennis, W. (1973). Children of the Creche. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Fox, N. A. , Almas, A. N. , Degna, K. A. , Nelson C. A. , Zeanah, C. H. (2011). Theeffects of severe psychosocial deprivation and foster care intervention on cognitivedevelopment at 8 years of age: findings from the Bucharest Early InterventionProject. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 52(9 ), 919 928. Goldfarb, W. (1944). The effects of early institutional care on adolescent personality. Journal of Experimental Education, 12, 106–129. Goldfarb, W. (1945). Effects of psychological deprivation in infancy and subsequentstimulation. American Journal of Psychiatry, 102, 18–33. Johnson, R. , Browne, K. D. , Hamilton-Giachritsis, C. E. (2006). Young children ininstitutional care at risk of harm. Trauma, Violence and Abuse, 7(1), 1–26. Kagan, J. (1979). The form of early development: Continuity and discontinuity inemergent competencies. Archives of General Psychiatry, 36, 1047-1054. Mijolla A. (Ed. ) (2005). International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. Vol. 1. Detriot,USA: Thomson Gale. Ramey, S. L. , Ramey, C. T. (2000). Early childhood experiences and developmentalcompetence. In J. Waldfogel S. Danziger (Eds. ), Securing the future:Investing in children from birth to college (pp. 122-150). NY: Russell Sage. Ramey, C. T. , Ramey, S. L. (2004). Early learning and school readiness: can earlyintervention make a difference? Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 50(4),471-491. Rutter, M. , and the English and Romanian Adoptees (ERA) study team. (1998). Developmental catch-up and delay, following adoption after severe global earlydeprivation. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 39, 465-476. Rutter, M. , and the English and Romanian Adoptees (ERA) study team. (2000). Attachment Disorder Behavior Following Early Severe Deprivation: Extension andLongitudinal Follow-up. Journal of the American Academy of Child AdolescentPsychiatry, 39, 703-712. Rutter, M. , Colvert, E. , Kreppner, J. , Beckett, C. J. , Groothues, C. , Hawkins, A. ,O’Connor, T. , Stevens, S. , Sonuga-Burke, E. (2007a). Early adolescent outcomesfor institutionally deprived and non- deprived adoptees I: Disinhibited attachment. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48(1), 17–30. Rutter, M. , Kreppner, J. , Croft, C. , Murin, M. , Colvert, E. , Beckett, C. , Castle, J. Sonuga-Burke, E. (2007b). Early adolescent outcomes for institutionally deprivedand non-deprived adoptees III: Quasi autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48(12), 1200–1207. Tizard, B. , Hodges, J. (1978). The effect of early institutional rearing on thedevelopment of eight-year-old-children. Journal of Child Psychology andPsychiatry, 19, 99-118.