Custom Mold Inc

Case Study Background Custom Molds Inc produces custom made molds for plastic parts and manufactures connectors for the electronics industry. The father founders of Custom Molds Inc are father and son, Tom and Mason Miller, in 1987 which is located in Tucson, Arizona. Tom Miller who is a mechanical engineer, had vast experience in the connector industry with AMP. Mason Miller is a double degree holder in chemistry and chemical engineering, a graduate from Arizona State University.Originally, the company manufactured electronic connectors with source of high quality, custom made molds for producing plastic parts. They worked closely with their customers so that they can meet the customers’ requirements and their mold have to meet the exact standards and have to be unique. Once the customers have moved from the design and pilot-run stage of development to large-scale production, they will place orders for multiple molds. Custom Mold’s reputation grew with the years as a d esigner and fabricator of precision molds.With the reputation, the Millers decided to expand into the limited manufactures of plastic parts and new equipments were added such as ingredient mixing facilities and injection molding equipment. In the mid-1990s Custom Mold’s reputation grew to include being a supplier of high quality plastic parts. Due to limited capacity, the company decided to concentrate its sales efforts on supplying parts that were used in limited quantity for research and development efforts and in preproduction pilot runs. Production ProcessesBy 2000, Custom Molds operations involved two distinct processes which are fabricating molds and producing plastic parts. Both the processes are inter-connected for an instance, when a customer places an order, Custom Molds both fabricate a mold and produce the necessary parts to support the customer’s research and design efforts. All fabrication and production operation were housed in a single facility. Fabrica tion molds requires a skill-oriented, craftsman-driven process. When an order is received, a design team, consisting of a design engineer and one of 13 master machinists, reviews the design specification.Working with the customer, the team comes up with the final specification for the mold and passes it to the master machinist for fabrication. At the same time, the specification is given to the purchasing department, who orders the required raw materials. It usually takes about three to four weeks for the raw material to arrive. Once the materials have been received, the plant master scheduler reviews the workload of the assigned master machinist and schedules the mold for fabrication. Fabricating a mold usually takes up to two to four weeks, depending in the amount of work the machinist already has scheduled.The fabrication process takes only three to five days. Once completed, the mold is tested and inspected, where it is used to produce a small number of parts on one of the injec tion molding machines. If the mold passed the required specification, it is then sent for cleaning and polishing, and then packed and sent to customers. If at all the mold fails, it is sent to the maser machinist for retooling and the process starts all over. Currently, Custom Molds holds a lead time of nine weeks for delivery of the molds. The manufacturing of the plastic parts is different from mold fabrication.An order for parts may be received in conjunction with an order for a mold to be fabricated. For instances, if the Custom Molds already have made the molds, an order may be jus for parts. If the mold is already available, the order is reviewed by the design engineer, who verifies the part and material specifications. If the is any doubts, the design engineer will contact the customer and clarifies the doubts. Once the parts and raw materials are accepted, orders are placed for the raw materials and production in scheduled for the order. Chemicals and compounds used for the manufacturing are ordered and received within a week.When received, the compound is dry-mixed and blended to achieve the correct composition. Then the mixture is wet-mixed to the desired consistency, called slurry, for injection into molding machine. When ready, the slurry is transferred to the injection molding area by an overhead pipeline and deposited in holding tanks adjacent to the injection machines. The whole process takes only one day. When the slurry is staged and ready, the proper molds are secured from the inventory or from the clean and polish operation if new molds were fabricated for the order and the parts are manufactured.Although different parts require different temperature and pressure settings, the time to produce a part is relatively constant. Custom Molds has the capacity to produce 5000 parts per day in the injection molding department; historically however, the lead time for handling orders in the department has averaged one week. Once molding is completed, t he parts are taken to the cut and trim operation, where they are disconnected and leftover flashing is removed. Once inspection is completed, the parts are either taken for assembling or transferred to packing and shipping area for shipment to customer.If assembly of the final parts is not required, the parts will be sent to customer within two days after being molded. Sometimes the final product needs assembling. Typically, this entails attaching metal leads to plastic connectors. If assembling is need, additional three days are required before they can be sent to customer. Customs Molds currently have a lead time of three weeks for parts not requiring fabricated molds. The Changing Environment In the early 2009, Tom and Mason Miller realized that the electronic industry they supplied and their own business was changing.Electronic manufacturers have decided to make their own components to reduce cost and ensure timely supply of parts. By the 1990s, this trend has changed. Manufactu ring were developing strategic partnerships with the parts suppliers to ensure the timely delivery of high quality, cost effective parts. This has allowed for other funds to be used on other uses with larger return on investment. During the same period, Custom Molds started to have issues with delivery. Customers were complaining to delay in the delivery of the parts instead of the promised dateline.When asked about the situation, the master scheduler stated that it is difficult in determining when a particular order will be delivered. Bottlenecks were occurring during the production process, but where and when it will occur cannot be predicted. The bottleneck started to move to other operations. Tom Miller thought that that he had excess labor capacity in the mold fabrication area. He came up with a solution to push through the schedule by assigning one of the master machinist to identify the expediting those late orders. However, the tactic wasn’t effective. Complaints abou t late delivery were still coming in. o add on to the problem, two defective parts were returned. Tom Miller knows something has to be done. 1. What are the major issues facing Tom and Mason Miller? The Electronics industry to which they supplied was changing very rapidly The millers are facing the shrinking size of their core market; traditionally fabrication. These changes impact both the fabrication and the manufacturing sides of the business. For fabrication, although the number of orders remained around the same, the market for multiple molds was shrinking, so the absolute number of fabricated was reducing.The Demand for multiple molds is declining Earlier Custom Molds used to produce custom designed molds in majority but through the data provided we can analyze that in the last 3 years, the company has been getting more and more orders in the production of plastic parts consistently and the orders for custom molds have been decreasing. This calls for a mass production of plast ic parts. Inefficient Testing and Inspection Process It has been mentioned in the case that two orders were returned recently because of number of defective parts in those batches.This can be attributed to the inefficiency of the testing and inspection team. The transportation, packing, shipping etc. costs have to be incurred by the company and could have been avoided if the testing and inspection been rigorous. Increase in order sizes for plastic parts There has been a shift in demand from custom molds to plastic parts. Therefore there is a need to change the layout of the plant to something more suitable for mass production. Difficulties Meeting Quality Objectives As demand characteristics increased for manufacturing parts, there was consequent increase in lead time on parts.Customers are complaining about the late delivery of the products. This will lead to loss of credibility in front of their customers. Bottlenecks were occurring throughout the manufacturing process and quality issues were increasing. There was unplanned growth beyond the available capacity given the process issues. There were numerous non-value-adding processes throughout the workflow including delays, many inspection steps, storage and transport. Parts were not being manufactured at optimum speeds and as pressures of late deliveries and mounting backlogs built up. Thus, the quality of finished goods suffered. . What are the competitive priorities for Custom Mold’s Processes and the changing nature of the industry? Previously a. High quality product Custom Mold previously strive for top quality product for their customers and grew reputation of one of the most consistent company that strive for quality products b. Flexibility in customer orders Customization was their priorities. They fully concentrate on customers orders requirements and needs and try their best to meet those requirements. c. On time delivery Custom Mold managed to deliver all of their products to the customers w ithin the required timeEarly 2009 Due to changing nature of the industry, more customers are making strategic partnership with supplier to ensure the timely delivery of high quality and cost effective parts. As we can see, the competitive of the industry, the demand is changing and Custom Mold also must be aware of this. They must change their competitive priorities to continue compete in the industry. They might have to change their layout for molds from job shop to small batch process in this changing process. Below are the suggested competitive priorities: a. Consistent quality productsThey should maintain the quality of their products b. Cost effective They might achieve this by changing the layout from job shop to small batch process. Small batch process allows products to be made in larger volume and low variety from the job shop process. High volume tends to reduce cost per unit and can directly lowered the operation cost. c. On time delivery With customers focus on on time s hipment for their products, Custom Mold cannot simply overlook to this competitive priority. On time delivery ensure the customer trust to them and they have to be excellent on that. 3.What alternatives might the Millers pursue? What key factors should they consider as they evaluate these alternatives? Short term alternatives a. Layout of the plant should be changed Custom Molds need to change the plant layout from job shop to assembly line. This is because the company is getting more orders for manufacture of plastic parts consistently over the last three years. The demand form from the customers changed from highly customized and high quality to cost effective and timely delivery of high quality products are the strongest proof why they need to change their argument. . Identify bottlenecks in production process This is important in order for Custom Molds to retain their clients. The bottlenecks might be due the process layout in the company. Two different process for a different p roduct might overlap each others and create confusion to the process. c. Improve the efficiency of Testing and Inspection Team As has been mentioned in the case, two orders have been rejected by the customer. For this not to happen again, the efficiency of Testing and Inspection team needs to be improved. Long Term Alternatives a. Investment in Research and DevelopmentCompany would be better off to invest in R&D in order to stay ahead of its competition. R&D can often show ways to reduce costs by maintaining the same quality. b. Expansion Plans As the orders increase, company should plan for some expansion plans or some new plants to cater to increasing demand. c. Phase-out the production of Custom Molds As the numbers of orders for Custom Molds are decreasing consistently over the last 3 years, the company should look out for phasing out the production of custom molds as the company may start losing out money.Recommendations 1. Shift to Assembly Line As the number of orders for big order sizes are increasing for plastic parts, the plant layout should be changed from job-shop to an assembly line production. 2. Operational Excellence The company should focus on overall efficiency in terms of process, movement and inter-department communication. 3. Market Research The company should do extensive market research to ascertain customer’s needs and use it to determine the needs of facility and human resources.

Human Development & Learning/ Personality & Emotional Development Essay

There are different skills that are important and which contribute to positive social development in life. These skills help a person to be able to carry out social roles and responsibilities. Children need to learn all these skills both in school and in their homes so that they are able to handle life situations. Conflict resolution skills are very necessary for children. This is because conflicts are always present both at home and at school. Therefore, they need skills on how they can handle these skills. This helps further in building of healthy social relationships, which are necessary in life. Conflict resolution skills not only helps children to social problems but also conflicts they may be experiencing within them (Baker& Myles, 2003). Caring skills are also crucial to children. It is very important that children should be trained to be caring from the time they are young. This helps them to care and assist each other both in the classroom and in the community. Caring skills also help them to become caring citizens in the future. Teaching children to be caring means that the society has caring members in the future. It acts as a foundation of a community that is able to assist each other during times of needs. It is also important that children should be taught to be responsible. Responsibility is a key skill that children need in order to handle their social roles at home and in school. Being responsible in whatever they do would assist them be able to attain their self-actualization in the future. There are various qualities of a family environment that are necessary for the development of the above skills. A peaceful environment at home is very essential for a child to be able to solve problems. This is because a child will learn how to solve conflicts from home in a non-violent way. A family that is inclusive in its roles make children be able to be responsible in their social roles. This is a situation where children are incorporated when sharing role at home. Being given roles makes them become responsible in their capacities. This also allows them to become managers of their time and in making plans on how to accomplish their roles. They also develop a feeling of belonging in the family. Irresponsibity in the family contributes to under development of social skills in children. If parents do not take their roles well then it means that the children also learn to be irresponsible in their duties as a result of the example they learn from their parents. They develop the feelings of being insecure, as they feel neglected in their families. They grow being irresponsible citizens in future. (Damon & Lerner, 2006). A Classroom, which is inclusive, allows children to be caring and responsible. For example, a classroom whereby children are given various roles to play enhances their responsibility skills (Damon & Lerner, 2006). A classroom where children are engaged in-group work allows them to learn how to work with others and learn how to solve problems, which may arise when working as a group. Therefore, the classroom environment gives them an opportunity to develop these skills. The classroom also helps them to develop friendship and respect for the others. However, a classroom environment that promotes individualistic work may hinder children from attaining various social skills. This is because that kind of classroom will only make children to be locked in their own cocoons without much consideration of their social roles and responsibilities. Children in such a classroom do not develop a feeling of belonging, which is essential for social development. (Baker& Myles, 2003).

Butch and femme roles of lesbians

Butch and femme roles of lesbians Butch and femme roles were extremely important to the community in the forties and fifties; it was the butch role that was the most visible, and therefore the most likely to cause public scorn (Weissman and Fernie). The two sources, The Reproduction of Butch – Femme Roles by Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Forbidden Love by Aerlyn Weisman and Lynne Fernie focus particularly on the function of the butch role among working class lesbians in Buffalo. These sources draw on articles, oral histories and interviews of lesbians from the early twentieth century. Both the resources state that, although â€Å"gender-appropriate† styles and behaviors were rigidly enforced in order to maintain a clear distinction between the sexes, butch women’s choice to not only reject traditional femininity but to also actively adopt masculinity was perceived as a threat to the very order of society and a prelude to social chaos. Despite the fear, and likelihood of haras sment by police and other straight men, the courage of butches to claim their identities in many ways prepared the way for later generations of lesbians to break free from the narrow conventions of socially constructed womanhood and claim access to a kind of power traditionally held only by men (Weisman and Fernie). As a result, male representations of lesbian sexuality have had the most influence in shaping attitudes towards butch and femme identities throughout the twentieth century. Such representations have almost always assumed the lesbian role -playing is an imitation of heterosexuality. The main theory underlying the feminist disregard of role – playing is that roles depend on sexual difference, which is naturally hierarchical, polarizing, and oppressive. Sexual difference is the grounds on which heterosexual roles are built, and thus contains within it an inherently unequal distribution of power. In the relationship of a butch and femme, since the identities of both a re built on popular cultural stereotypes of male and female behavior, they tend to reinforce the inequality in power inherent in this dichotomy. In addition, in most cases one of the partners is active, strong, dominant, and initiating whereas the other partner is passive, weak, submissive, and enduring. The partner who is dominant in this equation mimics the role of a male in a heterosexual relationship, whereas the passive, weak and submissive characteristics belong to that of the female. Thus, because the butch- femme roles have the potential for being just as sexist as heterosexual roles, they imitate the latter, especially when talking about power relations between two partners. (Weisman and Fernie) According to Judith Roof’s article, â€Å"The Match in the Crocus: Representations of Lesbian Sexuality,† the representations of lesbian sexuality in the dominant discourse often evoke the phallus by calling attention to its absence or substitution in sexual relations between women, so that it appears and seems necessary, at least symbolically, because of the inconceivability of sexuality without a phallus present. Therefore, lesbians are often depicted as having appropriated the penis, masquerading as though they really had it, and thereby assuming male privilege and acting upon it. This evokes the stereotypical image of the lesbians by phallocentric discourse and is seemingly embraced by the lesbian community in the form of butch roles. What Roof’s analysis makes possible is an understanding of the ways in which the dominant ideology has a vested interest in making the butch – femme role playing appear to be a mere replica of heterosexuality, as a way of calming male anxiety over the threat of female appropriation of male dominance. Thus, because the absence of the phallus requires them to achieve the balance through role playing, they merely are merely imitating the heterosexual norms.

Make vs Buy Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 2

Make vs Buy - Assignment Example The restaurant is intended to sell diverse products, which include buffet, pizza, soup, sauces and desserts. In addition, the restaurant will have a self-service soda bar. Although there are other companies such as McDonalds serving the area, the prices of their products are not affordable to most people in Florida. Moreover, these companies do not have physical locations in the area but rely on suppliers. This means that Papa Geo has the potential of competing effectively in the market and possibly gaining competitive advantage (Jeffries & McGrath, 2008). The fact that the products of the company are rare in the market consequently highly demand makes the company more competitive. This will ensure that the company records high sales volume. Moreover, the company will register high sales volume because they produce variety, which gives consumers the ability and freedom of choice. Finally, the company strategy is effective because it attracts children too, which will boost sales since it will be assumed to a family restaurant (Jeffries & McGrath, 2008). The offers given by financial lending institution will be enough in setting up the business and repayment period is reasonable, which will grant the owner the opportunity to repay comfortably. Therefore, the business can be set up but it requires effective analysis and forecasting due to uncertainties in the business environment. Proper financial budgetary planning is fundamental in achieving the company’s strategy. Sale forecast forms the most critical part of this budget proposal because, it is through proper and accurate forecasts in sales that the entrepreneur would be able to determine the amount to repay either in monthly or annual basis. The above sales forecasts are made with the assumptions that one unit in the company goes at $7, and each individual in the 15-minute area purchases one unit

Ethnographic Review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Ethnographic Review - Essay Example The complexity of the issues discussed with regard to women in pain is also clearly explained. Finkler’s objective in writing the book was to deepen our understanding of human sickness through what she termed as life lesions. In addition, biomedicine has without doubt made incredible advances and has succeeded in treating difficult medical impairments. Nonetheless, at times biomedicine fails to lessen patients routinely experienced symptoms because of the restrictions of the biomedicine script, a script that fails to understand life’s lesions. Finkler develops life lesions in an outstanding symbol of how wounds imposed on people that is women during their lives are narrated in the concept of life lesions in the reflection of a sense of loss of control, or the life of a person being out of control. Finkler analysis of the Mexican gender role outlook makes it understandable why women with little control of their lives would convey chronic and unexplained physical pain. In case, readers would presume that all Mexican women are trapped in similar gender roles and experience the type of life lesions described by Finkler, she warns against stereotyping the whole population of Mexican women. The women discussed in her book, are a specific set of women. She chose them as a subset from a sample of 205 women she interviewed earlier at the hospital, of which 161 were later interviewed at the comfort of their homes. The 10 case studies in the book were drawn from the 161 women interviewed both in the hospital and at home. The book is divided into three parts: the first part evaluates the literature with regard to the nature of sickness, nature of gender and the connection between gender and sickness. The second part puts out a good review of gender roles in Mexico, historical associations between men and women and the place of spiritualist or evangelical movements in the lives of poor men and women. Additionally, Finkler also incorporate an overview profile o f women in her chosen population. The longest section of the book is left for case studies. The reader is expected to meet with â€Å"Juana who is in search of dignity amid a garbage dump, Susana a woman who has ventured into the public domain, Carlota who changed from proletarian to a housewife, Maria whose life experiences have changed from bad to worse, Norma who claimed to have found God, Josefina who narrates that she has dedicated her whole life to working very hard. Rebecca on the other hand is a woman at the verge of disintegration, Julia who struggles to live with a drunken husband, Alicia who is a mother and a mistress and Margarita a woman in such of individualism†. With regard to nature of sickness, women and men have differing health needs and outcomes. This is because of biological differences, especially â€Å"sex-connected biology such as genital secretions, secondary sex characteristics and reproductive events like pregnancy and menopause†. Finkler not ed that gender affects the risk of mortality and morbidity through diverse exposure and helplessness, the harshness and consequences of illness and access to health care services (Finkler 5). In most of Mexican cities, there exists biasness when it comes to gender and healthcare. Most men are given priority than women therefore putting the women under the risk of further complications and stress. Moreover, the existence of socioeconomic inequality has been the main reason for health biasness in Mexico.

UK Property Price Volatility Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 7000 words

UK Property Price Volatility - Term Paper Example In the Interim Report no. 91 of the Miles review, The bank borrowers consider the bank mortgage interest rates, mostly short-term interest rates,   when applying for bank loans. This is the reason why short-term interest rates have higher volatility rates than long-term loans.  Ã‚   Starting thirty years ago, the United Kingdom housing market has been very volatile. The factors affecting the volatility of the house prices are the level of bank loans and the related loan interests and the sudden increasing trend of housing transactions. There is now a move to transit the variable rate mortgage basis in housing loans tot eh fixed rate mortgage basis.   The volatility of the housing market can be decreased if longer term, fixed rate mortgages will be implemented to replace the more delicately sensitive current variable charge housing mortgage rates. The short-term or variable mortgage interest rate basis, according to the findings of Meen(2002) has resulted to short-term sensitivity analysis of house prices of six times the elasticity of United Kingdom market as compared to the housing price industry of the United States.   The structure of the housing finance industry has contributed to the macroeconomic volatility. Based on Chart   6.1, The house prices are affected by the Gross Domestic Product and the Consumption in the United Kingdom. This only proves that when consumption increases and the gross domestic products increase, the house prices will follow behind as the house prices also increase and decrease to keep in step with the two variables mentioned. The three variables (GDP, consumption and house prices) in turn act as a major push on the United Kingdom economy. The Oxford Economic Forecasting and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research did a study on housing prices.   Chart 6.2 shows that as the growth rate increases, house prices also increase to keep in step thereby contributing to the macroeconomic volatility.

Connections in Middle Eastern Music and Religion Research Paper

Connections in Middle Eastern Music and Religion - Research Paper Example The use of music in the Jewish theory made profound success as a means of attracting youths into the synagogues. This led to creation of folk, jazz and rock forms of music. Jewish women participated in music either as composers or cantors and brought new dimension on ancient view points of the Jewish religion. The role of sacred music led to greater flowering of the music theory, which had been initially thought to be immoral .Middle eastern Jewish folks majorly used the maqam system, which was Arabic classical music (Randel, 550). (Isaacson, 185) notes that when individuals think about Jewish music, what comes into their minds are hymns, holiday songs, and prayer settings that are associated with synagogues. Modern cantors acquire their nusach in sacred music schools from 19th and 20th century cantor educators such as Katchko and Baer. Word painting was carried out by cantor, who learned different modulates, one after another. Two cantors chanting similar prayers using the same nusa ch created contrasting emotional responses in formation of the song. They also employed the use of Scarbova or Misinai, that meant anonymous; unattributed folk melodies. These melodies were well versed by the members of the congregation and in fact believed to descend from Moses in Mount Sinai. Scarbova Is Latin for Sacred. Songs were the essence of tradition and culture and comfort of hearing them had strong ties to the Jewish religion. Traditionally Yiddish music was played by use of string instruments.

Philosophy of education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Philosophy of education - Essay Example Though there is only a scrappy access to his work On Education, still it is possible to construct a working knowledge of Aristotle’s ideas on education by correlating it to his other existent works. Aristotle considered education to be a Central aspect of human life (Dovre 2007). Aristotle placed education and human fulfillment side by side and believed that an educated person happened to be a fulfilled person (Palmer 2007). In that context, I do believe that the purpose of education is to bring about a measure of stability and poise into the human life, thereby allowing the young minds to be able to deal with the challenges and resentments brought about by the current socio-economic environment in a balanced and restrained manner. Aristotle put forth the argument that the thought and philosophy of educators need to be marked by a clear philosophy of life (Bergman 2007). In that context, it needs to be mentioned that Aristotle never considered a viewpoint to be monolithic and believed that a philosophy of life essentially happened to be an approach towards life which happened to be able to pursue an ever-evolving course in tandem with the actual life that happened to be fluid and ever-changing. I thoroughly agree with this premise in the sense that it is my firm belief that in today’s globalized world when the emerging technologies are leading to a scattering of the local employment opportunities around the world, the students of today are more than ever required to grapple with change.

International Money and Finance (Final stage 3) Essay - 1

International Money and Finance (Final stage 3) - Essay Example This is the second consecutive downgrade in our US forecast, which came into the year at 3.1%. We are clearly less optimistic now than we were even a few months ago, but the overall view is the same as it has been for the past three years: the US recovery will be characterised by fairly weak and erratic growth and low inflation, but we do not expect a double-dip recession. We continue to expect growth between 2.5-3.5% over the coming couple of years, which is way below where it 'should' be coming out of such a bad recession. Occasionally, the US economy may post some great quarters, and may post some really poor ones. The Q111 real GDP growth estimate, of 1.8% q-o-q annualised (as per the second estimate released on May 26), could be lumped into the latter category. Deceleration Across The Board In Q1 US - Real GDP Growth By Expenditure Category (q-o-q SAAR) Source: BEA, BMI Below Trend, Par For The Deleveraging Course Growth really should be somewhere north of 4.0% just to get the o verall level of output back to trend. Without faster growth, the unemployment picture will remain bleak. With such a disappointing pace of growth recovery, the US economy is roughly tracking the trajectory of other countries that experienced a major financial crisis and a prolonged period of deleveraging. We see some similarities in this respect to Japan, Sweden in the mid-90s, South Korea post-Asia crisis, etcetera. There is a rebalancing going on in the US away from consumption and housing and toward manufacturing and exports. We reiterate that this makes it an unusual US recovery, if only because American recoveries typically consist of residential investment and consumption picking up the slack, and this time around it is going to be, and has been, net exports and business investment. Not only was Q111 data pretty poor, it also revealed a downward revision to private consumption, and a boost from inventories, making the composition of growth pretty poor as well. This was especia lly a disappointment because the payroll tax cuts announced in December were expected to give a strong boost to consumption in the first quarter, but it looks like their effect was offset in part by higher oil prices. The house price double-dip and high unemployment obviously haven't helped. Our new forecasts have lowered our expectation for private consumption in 2011, if only modestly (from 3.1% to 3.0%; we had already revised down our estimate earlier in the year). On the upside, credit growth is showing some signs of life, and the labour market is slowly healing, so we do not believe that there is sufficient reason to get too pessimistic on the consumer. If oil prices drop in H211, and this is reflected by lower prices at the pump, real private consumption could get a boost. But if oil prices head higher again, expect more bad news from the consumer. High Oil Prices Remain A Risk US - Real Retail Sales (% chg y-o-y) Source: BMI Investment: Healthier, Ex-Housing Residential const ruction remains a drag on overall growth (just under 0.1pp in Q111), and data since then have not been good either. We would expect at least some contribution from residential investment later in the year, however, if only because the homebuilding industry cannot mathematically sink too much lower. Non-residential structure investment is also very weak (subtracting 0.48pp from growth in the quarter). We see few prospects for improvement in this sector in this environment. On the upside, though, equipment and software investment contributed 0.81pp

Trickster Tale Essay Example for Free

Trickster Tale Essay In ancient India, there used too live a Bengal tiger in the jungle of Sundarban. He was the king of the jungle. He was very cruel and used to treat his animals harshly. Once he ordered that he would not go for hunting and assigned duties to animals to provide him large quantities of hunted meat bring hunting meat on daily basis. One day, it was the turn of one rabbits, Harry, to bring hunted meat for him. He was very disappointed when his fellow, John, met him in the way. John was blessed with certain supernatural power, the power of prophesy and to see the past events. He was very sharp minded also. Due to his excessive pride in his supernatural powers and intelligence, he desired to become the king of the jungle. He used to intermingle with other animals at parties occasionally and used to propagandize against king. But his desire only remained a dream. John saw Harry as worried and gloomy. He asked the cause of his gloominess. Harry replied; ‘em! Nothing’, ‘Then why are you worried’, said John. ‘Hoon, but you can not help me’. John insisted and Harry told, â€Å"I have to hunt for king today but being a meager creature, I can not hunt an animal to provide meat to the king.†   John mocked him and said ironically, â€Å"Kill hundred thousands of ants and insects, make mince meat of them and provide that to the king. Ask him that you killed an elephant for him†. Harry started moving when John said, â€Å"Listen†¦I have an idea.† Harry turned and John said, â€Å"Leave the matter to me and I will go to the king in your place. Go and hide yourself somewhere.† They leave and John went to the King empty-handed. When King enquired what he has brought for him. He started weeping and crying. King thought that due to his little stature, he was unable to hunt. King started laughing at him and said, â€Å"Not to get worry†¦Not to get worry†¦.I am going to have your own meat for my dinner†. Harry stopped weeping and said to King, â€Å"I killed a 2000 KG elephant for you but transportation was a problem. And when I arranged that, another Lion came in the way and warned me that it is for him. I was left with no option †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..I came empty handed.† King became furious at this and asked him to lead that way. John led the king to the well and asked him that other lion lived in this well. When King looked down in the well, he saw his own reflection in the water of the well. He took it as the other lion. As he was furious, he jumped into the well and drowned. He started shouting aloud. When other animals gathered around him, He said that Harry has thrown king into the well and has escaped. He further informed that while King was taking his last breathe, he appointed him the new king. By using his supernatural power, he showed animals where Harry was hiding. Furious animals went there and killed Harry without seeking explanation. John was appointed king. Although his lust for power and wealth was unlimited but he did not harmed his animals. He served his animals by using his intelligence and supernatural powers. One day, Powell, a donkey came to him and asked that his daughter was missing. John used his prophetic powers to know the location of his daughter. He found that Powell’s daughter has been abducted by neighboring jungle kingdom. This provided him to prepare his people against that kingdom. His real motive was not to get free Powell’s daughter but to capture the wealth of that kingdom. He attacked with full force. Kings of the neighboring jungle was quite of the greediness of John. So he prepared a deep ditch and covered with a jewels and gold. When John saw abundance of wealth, he jumped over it and was thrown into the ditch. Armed animals bruised him with their arms. When he was taking his breathe, he realized that positions gained through wrong means had no permanence and greed only brings misfortune.

Causes And Effects Of Land Pollution Environmental Sciences Essay

Causes And Effects Of Land Pollution Environmental Sciences Essay The object of this project is to gain a more a holistic and deep understanding of the Legal and Regulatory framework governing Land Pollution in India By looking into the origin of Environment we understand how the society till date has shaped and what is the Causes and Effects of Land Pollution and what contribution the Law has given . Another very important object of this project is to understand what the need of Environmental Law in the society was. The method of research adopted is doctrinal in nature. I have referred sources on the net as well as a few books on Environmental Law available in the university library besides adding my personal views and knowledge of the topic. Land pollution is the contamination of the Earths land surface through misuse of the soil by poor agricultural practices, mineral exploitation, industrial waste dumping, and indiscriminate disposal of urban wastes. It includes visible waste and litter as well as pollution of the soil itself. Soil pollution is caused by chemicals in herbicides and pesticides for agricultural activities as well as littering of waste materials in public places such as streets, parks and roads. The accumulation of waste is a threat to the health of people in residential areas and waste decays also encourages household pests and turns urban areas into unsightly, dirty and unhealthy places to live in. These problems result in the loss of 6 million hectares of land each year. It also results in the loss of 24 billion tons of topsoil each year and a loss of at least 15 million acres of prime agricultural land to overuse and mismanagement every year. Some measures of land pollution are through the education of people through campaigns, recycling to reduce wastes. Laws have also been passed by governments to deal with land pollution. When we hear a person describe a place as dirty, what usually comes to our minds is the bad condition of the place. The place, which could be your bedroom, is imagined to have clothes scattered on the floor and books unarranged on the shelf. However, I define the word dirty in a more specific manner. Dirty in my definition, means that there are rubbish or litter on the floor. This makes the atmosphere of that certain place unpleasant not only to the eye, but also to the mind. Land pollution is therefore the dirtying of the land. It comes about due to inconsiderate dumping of waste, littering and ineffective waste disposal methods. Mixing of harmful substances with soil is called land pollution. When the natural soil gets mixed with the harmful and toxic elements due to various means, it pollutes the soil and alters its original physical and chemical characteristics. Animals waste too pollutes land. The effect of such soil pollution is quite harmful and dangerous on human life as well as on plants and animals. Soil pollution slowly and steadily causes environment and air pollution as well by vaporization of various harmful chemicals from the contaminated land. Polluted land results into further pollution of plants and ground water resources which ultimately leads to polluting entire web of food chain in the ecosystem. Chapter 1 Causes and Effects of Land Pollution People across the globe have been facing a number of health problems caused due to the pollution of land, water and air. Talking about land pollution, it has some of the most devastating effects on both nature and living beings. Land pollution is characterized by the contamination of Earths surface, where humans and other creatures live. One of the major causes of land pollution is human activities. Given below is complete information about the main causes and harmful effects of land pollution.    1.1 Causes of Land Pollution The disposal of non-biodegradable wastes, including containers, bottles and cans made of plastic, used cars and electronic goods, leads to the pollution of land. The process of mining leads to the formation of piles of coal and slag. When these wastes are not disposed through proper channel, they are accumulated and contaminate the land. Industrial wastes are major contributors of land pollution. Dumping of toxic materials such as chemicals and paints makes the areas surrounding the industries, look very filthy. Improper treatment of sewage leads to the accumulation of solids, such as biomass sludge. These solid wastes overflow through the sewage, making the entire area look dirty.  [1]   Population India is the second most populous country in the world with more than 1 billion people.  This large population is also an environmental challenge for the world. Soil Erosion This is the biggest problem. Wind also aids in expanding the ever-increasing desert conditions of the Rajasthan desert.   Similarly, many ports are now covered in sand for the same reasons. Deforestation Although the British started deforestation in India, the pressures to modernize since the partition of 1947 have only increased the rates of deforestation.   The mercurial growth of cities and the rapid construction of factories to help feed the thirst for economic growth have come at the cost of Indias woodlands.   These policies not only harmed the trees but the indigenous peoples that had long thrived among the trees throughout India.   2. Effects of Land Pollution   Tonnes and tonnes of domestic wastes are dumped every day. Since people do not follow proper methods for the disposal of such wastes, it leaves the places look dirty and makes them unhealthy. Land pollution indirectly affects the respiratory system of human beings. Breathing in polluted dust or particle can result in a number of health problems related to the respiratory system.  [2]   Skin problems are often diagnosed due to land pollution. It is said that the improper disposal of household wastes leads to allergic reactions on the skin. Land pollution has been found as one of the leading causes for birth defects. Pregnant women living in unhealthy and dirty environment can incur breathing problems and a number of diseases, which may affect the health of the baby as well. Land pollution has serious effect on wildlife. Flora, which provides food and shelter to wildlife, are destroyed. Land pollution often disrupts the balance of Nature, causing human fatalities. Chapter 2 Legal framework governing Land Pollution in India 2.1 Policy under the Five-Year Plan. Indias development plans balance economic development and environmental concerns. The planning process is guided by the principles of sustainable development. There has been an evolutionary process for mainstreaming environmental protection in Indias planning process. The first formal recognition of the need for integrated environmental planning was made when the Union Government constituted the National Committee on Environmental Planning and Coordination (NCEPC) in 1972. The concern for environmental harm came to the fore especially during the Sixth Five-Year Plan (1980-85), which contained a separate provision for environmental degradation. Steps were also taken for water, air, noise, and land pollution.  [3]   2.2 Constitution of India a) The States responsibility with regard to environmental protection has been laid down under Article 48-A of our Constitution, which reads as follows: The State shall endeavour to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wildlife of the country. b) Environmental protection is a fundamental duty of every citizen of this country under Article 51-A(g) of our Constitution which reads as follows: It shall be the duty of every citizen of India to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wildlife and to have compassion for living creatures. c) Article 21 of the Constitution is a fundamental right which reads as follows: No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law. d) Article 48-A of the Constitution comes under Directive Principles of State Policy and Article 51 A(g) of the Constitution comes under Fundamental Duties. e) The States responsibility with regard to raising the level of nutrition and the standard of living and to improve public health has been laid down under Article 47 of the Constitution which reads as follows: The State shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among its primary duties and, in particular, the State shall endeavor to bring about prohibition of the consumption except for medicinal purposes of intoxicating drinks and of drugs which are injurious to health. h) The 42nd amendment to the Constitution was brought about in the year 1974 makes it the responsibility of the State Government to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wildlife of the country. The latter, under Fundamental Duties, makes it the fundamental duty of every citizen to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wildlife and to have compassion for living creatures. 2.3 The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 was introduced as an umbrella legislation that provides a holistic framework for the protection and improvement to the environment. In terms of responsibilities, the Act and the associated Rules requires for obtaining environmental clearances for specific types of new / expansion projects (addressed under Environmental Impact Assessment Notification, 1994) and for submission of an environmental statement to the State Pollution Control Board annually. 2.4 Hazardous Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989,as amended in 2000 Waste refers to a material that has no utility for a person. Although natural waste can be disposed off and recycled or composted, it is the toxic, non-degradable waste of plastic and electronic goods that is becoming a mounting problem for India and other developing nations. Besides the contribution of households, garbage is also generated by industries, agriculture and mining.  [4]   The Hazardous Waste Rules applied to Management and Handling of 18 categories of wast like: Cyanide wastes Metal finishing wastes Waste containing water soluble chemicals compounds of lead, copper, zinc, chromium, barium, and antimony Mercury, arsenic, thallium, and cadmium and antimony Non-halogenated hydro carbons including solvents Halogenated hydro carbons including solvents Wastes from paints, pigments, glue, varnish and printing ink Wastes from dyes and dye-intermediates containing inorganic chemical compounds Wastes from dyes and dye-intermediates containing organic chemical compounds Waste oil and oil emulsions Tarry wastes from refining and tar residue from distillation or pyro lytic treatment Sludge arising from treatment of waste water containing heavy metals, toxic organic, oils, emulsion and spent chemical and incineration ash Phenols Asbestos Wastes from manufacturing of pesticides and herbicides and residues from pesticides and herbicides formulations units Acid wastes Off specification and discarded products Discarded container liners of hazardous and toxic chemicals and wastes.  [5]   The Problem of Disposal of Hazardous Waste and its Dangers The sharp increase in waste generation is not matched by facilities for disposal of hazardous waste. In India, waste is either burnt or just buried at a place. The sharp increase in the quantum of generated waste and the inadequate space for its disposal has led to improper methods of disposal. Consequently, problems like contamination of ground water and increased air pollution have emerged as serious threats to general health and life. The municipal workers are most affected people by the occupational danger (hazard) of waste handling; they suffer from illness like eye problems respiratory problems, gastro and skin problems.  [6]   While the improper disposal of solid waste can result in environmental and health problems, the growing quantum of electronic waste poses a massive risk to our ecological system.   Electronic equipment waste ranging from personal computers, optical disc players and mobile phones contains toxic materials like lead, cadmium, mercury, flame retardants and leaching plastics. If this waste is left untreated in landfills or dumps (as is the case in India), it will result in irreparable loss to the life in the soil, water and the atmosphere, thus adversely impacting human health and ecology. People working in areas close to these landfill areas or areas where electronic waste is stored are in danger of severe health problems like damage to the kidneys, swelling of the brain, interference with regulatory hormones, skin problems, cancer and neurological and respiratory disorders. Indian Laws relating to Disposal of Hazardous Waste In India, the Environment Protection Act, 1986, authorizes the central government to take all measures deemed necessary or expedient to protect the quality of environment and prevent any type of pollution. Hence, the Government of India has framed the Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989 and Hazardous Waste (Storage Export and Import) Rules, 1989 to regulate the disposal of hazardous waste in India.  [7]  These rules make it mandatory for any organization to seek the permission of the local state pollution control board for grant of authorization for carrying hazardous substances in the form of collection, reception, treatment, transport, storage and disposal of such wastes. In recent judgement of Rajasthan High court in the Suo Motu action taken against the administration of Jaipur city, Justice D. V. Singh held that right to life includes the right to food, clothing, shelter, right to reasonable accommodation to live in, right to descent environment and also right to live in clean city. Even in the case of Municipal Council, Ratlam V. Vardichand  [8]  , the case which was the beginning point of environment jurisprudence in India in which justice Krishna Iyer attributed the pollution free environment and public health with that of Human right aspect. Judgment and decisions of the judiciary have proved that pollution free environment and clean city is facet of Right to life. The Basel Convention Which was signed by India on 22 September, 1992, sought to regulate the garbage imperialism or toxic terrorism, as it was called, indulged in by the Organisation for the Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries towards Non-OECD Countries. The Basel Convention envisaged that in the beginning of year 1998, there will be complete ban on exports of hazardous waste but it could not materialize for obvious reasons. Besides so many important clauses in the Basel Convention, the most important one is that the country which is importing hazardous waste should have facilities to dispose of the waste in an environmentally sound manner. Final Legal Take Away Tip The government of India has proposed a new set of rules called the E-waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2010. This provides for making the producer of electrical and electronic equipment responsible for the collection and appropriate disposal of e-waste generated at the end of the product life.  [9]  Besides banning the import of used electrical and electronic equipment for charity in the country, these new rules also aim to regulate not only the producers, but also the recyclers and intermediaries. 2.5   Law Relating to Bio-Medical Waste Management The hospital wastes attracted the attention of the Supreme Court as early as in 1994 when a writ petition was filed under Article 32 of the Constitution against the concerned authorities to provide clean and health environment. Issue of improper hospital waste management was the crux of the case in B.L. Wadhera v. Union of India  [10]   The court gave series of directions. The most important among them are: 1. All hospitals with 50 beds and above should install incinerators or any of effective alternative method under their own administrative control. 2. The incinerator or alternative methods should be fitted with necessary pollution control mechanism, approved and confirming to the standards laid down by the Central Pollution control Board. 3. The Central Pollution control Board and the State Pollution Control Boards should regularity send its inspection teams in different areas to ascertain that the collection, transportation and disposal garbage/wastes is carried out satisfactorily. Under the Indian Penal Code, 1860 a polluter of the environment can also be punished if he does an act which causes any common injury, danger of annoyance to the public or to the people in general then the act may be treated as public as defined under Section 268 and the offender may be treated punished under Section 290 or 291 of the Code, There are also penal provision under a situation which either causes, or destroys, or diminishes the value or utility of any property, of affects the property injuriously as provided under the Section 426, 230, 231, and 432 of the Indian Penal Code. This otherwise means that if any person who generates, collects, receives, stores, transport, treated, disposes or handles bio-medical wastes in any form sh all be treated as a contravener of the above penal provisions.  [11]   There should be concerted efforts of government for spreading the awareness among the people about the importance of cleanliness and protection of environment through the communication media as well as organizing awareness camps at local levels.  [12]   Bio Medical (Management and Handling) Rules, 1998 The Bio-medical Rules came into existence in 1998 through a notification in exercise of the powers conferred by Sections 6, 8 and 25 of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. Bio-medical Rules is the first of its kind of national law in whole South- East Asian Region in relation to bio-medical waste management. The definition of Bio-medical waste is very comprehensive and extensive one. National legislation is the basis for improving health care waste practices in any country. There should be a clear designation of responsibilities before the law is enacted. Unfortunately, Indian law fails to come up to the standard prescribed by the World Health Organization. The Committee on Solid Management  [13]  recommends that bio-medical waste should be refrained from throwing on the streets or open places as well as into municipal dust bins or the domestic waste collection sites. This means majority of the institutions still managed to throw the bio-medical waste municipal bins near to their premises. So it can be said that utter failure of the law in implementing it. The Rules is very wide and includes the occupier who generates bio-medical waste. The Rules which speak about setting up of incinerator or any other alternative mechanism in a hospital. Let us presume that the all the hospitals have set up the incinerator. Has the Pollution Control Board equipped with enough infrastructures to check and each and every incinerator of a hospital in relation its operation and emission standards?  [14]   Just by imposing deadline regarding setting up of incinerator even after it has been discarded by western countries or any other methods. The incinerator should be used at it optimum level otherwise the waste may not be treated properly. In a hospital environment, technologies like incineration fail because untrained janitor staff runs them. Most of the surveys incinerators run at temperatures lower than those specified in the rules. Due to poor operation and maintenance, these incinerators do not destroy the waste, need a lot of fuel to run, and are often out of order. If every hospital has an incinerator; definitely it cannot be used its optimum level as the amount infectious waste is less. This leads improper treatment of bio-medical waste. The result is obvious causing danger to human health and the environment Generally waste is disposed through incineration by heating minimum 1000 o C. Due to failure of continue supply of electricity the heat will not raise up to prescribed level. The result is not completion of disposal of waste according to the rules. 2.6 The Municipal Solid Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules, 2000 This defined municipal solid waste as commercial and residential wastes generated in a municipal or notified areas in either solid or semi-solid form excluding industrial hazardous wastes but includes treated bio-medical wastes. According to Purden Anderson, refuse and solid waste are about the same thing, Garbage is food waste, Trash and Rubbish are roughly equivalent terms; they contain little or no garbage. Trash frequently refers to grass and shrubbery clippings, papers, glass, cans and other household wastes.  [15]  Rubbis is also likely to include demolition materials like brick, broken concrete, and discarded roofing and lumber. It has further been clarified that solid waste includes discarded and abandoned appliances tank autos, mine and manufacture waste, agricultural, lumbering, hospital, research laboratories and industries. Some industrial wastes are toxic or hazardous. It is important to ascertain the nature of waste whether it is biodegradable or combustible in handling and disposal of solid waste. Combustion and landfill method of disposal further gives rise to problems like air, water and land pollution, affecting adversely the health of the man, and flora and fauna. Apart from household, office waste, the waste from industries within the city precincts have become a threatening problem now-a-days. Waste from industries using chemicals and synthetics, biomedical waste are hazardous or dangerous waste too. The Indian Penal Code and Solid Waste Management The Indian Penal Code of 1860 has dealt with solid waste management under Chapter XIV of offences affecting the public health, safety, convenience, decency and morals. Since, solid waste gives rise to various type of diseases and is dangerous to public health, it has been treated as public nuisance and has been made punishable. But there is no direct section in the Code which deals with the problem of solid waste. Provisions under the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 Section 133 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 deals with removal of nuisance and empowers the Sub-Divisional Magistrate or any executive Magistrate, on receiving report/information, to make order to remove the public nuisance and desist from carrying any trade, business which is causing public nuisance. The Court have made use of Section 133 of the Code widely to deal with the problem of solid waste management. In the famous case of Municipal Corporation, Ratlam v. Shri Vardhichand  [16]  Justice Krishna Iyer declared that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦the guns of Section 133 go into action wherever there is public nuisance. The public power of the Magistrate under the Code is a public duty to the members of the public who are victims of the nuisance. If the order is defied or ignored, Section 188, I.P.C. comes into penal play. It was further, observed that imperative tone of S.  133, Cr.P.C. read with the punitive temper of S.  188 I.P.C. makes the prohibitory act a mandatory duty. The Court also pointed out that Article 47 of the Indian Constitute makes it a paramount principle of governance that steps are taken for the improvement of public health as amongst its primary duties. Right to sanitation, decent and dignified life The courts on various occasions have declared in unequivocal terms that maintenance of health, preservation of sanitation falls within the purview of Article 21 of the Constitution as it adversely affects the life of the citizen and it amounts to slow poisoning and reducing the life of the citizen because of the hazards created, if not checked. The court have also declared that it is a primary, mandatory and obligatory duty of the municipal corporations/ councils to remove rubbish, filth, night soil or any noxious or offensive matter.  [17]  The Pollution Boards and its officers have a basic duty under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 to stop unauthorised movement and/or disposal of the waste. They are also empowered to take action against erring industries and persons. In Virendar Gaur v. State of Haryana and in many other cases, the Supreme Court has time and again declared that right to life under Article 21 encompasses right to live with human dignity, quality of life, and decent environment. Thus, pollution free environment and proper sanitary condition in cities and towns, without which life cannot be enjoyed, is a integral facet of right to life. A Landmark Case The Supreme Court of India in Dr. B.L. Wadehra v. Union of India  [18]  , emphatically pronouncement that the resident of Delhi have a statutory right to live in a clean city. Therefore, Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and New Delhi Municipal Council (NMCD) are under a statutory obligation to scavenge and clean the city and it is mandatory for these authorities to collect and dispose of the garbage/waste generated from various sources in the city. It was further observed that non-availability o funds inadequacy or inefficiency of the staff, insufficiency of machinery etc. cannot be pleaded as ground for non-performance of their statutory obligations. 2.7 The new Plastic Waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2011 New rules in India have banned the use of plastic sachets for storing and selling food and tobacco products, and both recycled and compostable bags used for carrying foodstuffs have also been banned. The new Plastic Waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2011 have not entirely banned recycled plastic bags, but in addition to their restrictions on carrying food items, they must conform to a number of other rules laid down by the Bureau of Indian Standards, one of which states: The plastic carrying bags shall either be white or only with those pigments and colourants which are in conformity with the bar prescribed by the Bureau of Indian Standards. Bags should also be no less than 40 microns in thickness, double the thickness required under previous rules. Officials hope the new rules will achieve thickness uniformity throughout the country.  [19]   Chapter 3 Suggestions In such cases one has to adopt `cradle to grave solutions from generation to final disposal of the wastes. This is particularly essential with the waste including toxic and hazardous wastes. To contain and control the problem, there must be `awareness program to reduce solid waste, to reuse the things if possible and to recycle the wastes like paper waste. Thus, it deals attitudinal change amongst the people before we venture to strengthen the existing laws and implement them effectively and efficiently Reprocess the wastes to recover energy and material. Separate hazardous waste from other source material for efficient handling. Incinerate or otherwise convert hazardous wastes to non-hazardous wastes. To encourage recycling of material, some motivation be given. Efficient laws alone cannot solve the problem, unless we have efficient mechanism to implement, will of the government to implement and attitudinal change among the masses is needed Multiplicity of laws and multitudinous authorities cannot overcome such problem unless people are made aware of the adverse effects of this problem and they abide by laws with an aim to safeguard the present and future generation. Municipal corporation is a local authority within the meaning of `State under Article 12 of the Constitution and it is Statutory duty to collect, store, transport, process and dispose of the municipal soiled wastes and see the health hygiene of the public is maintained. Report anyone who actively dumps waste to the appropriate authorities. Reduce, re-use and recycle. Glass Bottles or jars can be reused or taken to a bottle bank for recycling. Metals: Used aluminum and steel cans can be collected as scrap and smelted for re-use. Avoid batteries. They contain a range of metals but are difficult to recycle. Plastics: Many drink bottles are made from a plastic called PET, which can be re-used. Vegetable Waste: A bucket with a lid makes a good container for vegetable waste that can be regularly added to the compost heap for use in the garden. Efforts at individual levels should be promoted. People should form the habit of storing waste at source in their own houses and deposit such waste into the municipal system only.  [20]   Conclusion   The apathetic Governmental attitude towards the disposal of waste is a problem that has led to difficulties in implementation of The Municipal Solid Waste (Management Handling) Rules, 2000 as it has led to ignorance towards uncollected domestic waste. The waste processing and disposal facility has to be set up by the Municipal Authority on their ow

The Human Animal Essay -- Sociology

Several things make humans different from animals. These include burying of the dead by humans out of respect, humans evolving to stop relying primarily on instinct, humans being aware of themselves, the feeling of wrong and right sense, as well as evil and moral, complex languages and methods of communication by humans, human use of the brain in exceedingly complex ways compared to animals, and human ability to advance technology. The premise of this paper is to delve into the consequences of these differences. The paper will study moral behaviour, human uniqueness, and consciousness or lack of consciousness. The first consequence of the difference between humans and animals is human uniqueness (Levinas, 2004 p48). Any attempt to answer the question of what humanness is should involve a study of the results of seeing people as lacking or having humanness. Consequences of this question include the dehumanization of groups that are despised and the excuse making to explain ones failings as being only human. This question reveals that there exist two direct consequences of humanness: human nature and human uniqueness (Jeeves, 2011 p32). Human nature refers to the attributes seen as typically, essentially, and fundamentally human. Human uniqueness, on the other hand, refers to those attributes that distinguish an animal from a human being. Differences that lead to human uniqueness are a large brain and an erect posture (Levinas, 2004 p49). Human is the only species of vertebrates that possess an erect posture and a gait that is bipedal. While birds are also bipedal, their backbone stands horizontally rather than vertically with the exception of the penguin. Despite kangaroos being bipedal, they do not possess an erect posture, a... ...uences are freely observable, and are what make a human be referred to as so. References Cavalieri, Paola. The Animal Debate: A Reexamination† in In Defense of Animals: The Second . London: Blackwell Publishers,, 2006. Descartes, Rene. From the Letters of 1646 and 1649† in Linda Kalof and Amy Fitzgerald Eds. . Oxford: Berg, 2007. Jeeves, Malcolm A. Rethinking human nature : a multidisciplinary approach. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 2011. Johnson, Clarence Sholà ©. Cornel West and Philosophy. London: Routledge,, 2003. Kant, Immanuel. Duties Towards Animals and Spirits† in Lectures on Ethics, trans Louis . New York: The Century Co, 1963. Levinas, Emmanuel. The Name of a Dog, or Natural Rights† in Peter Atterton and Matthew. London: Continuum, 2004. Nitecki, Matthew H. Evolutionary ethics. New York: State Univ. of New York Press, 2003.

Brave New World Essay -- essays research papers

Imagine living in a world where everyone is exactly the same, where there are no families, and a personal identity is regarded as a global threat. This is the futuristic society portrayed in Aldous Huxly's Brave New World. To garuntee complete happiness to its denizens, the government raises myriads of people in a single test tube, and then conditions them to conform to their assigned caste, (such as Alpha, Beta, etc.), and to behave in a "safe" manner. This method of upbringing creates a society full of clones completely lacking any personality, conditioned to love only three things: Henry Ford, their idol; soma, a wonder drug: and physical pleasure. Huxly tells the story through the eyes of several characters, but mainly through those of a deformed Alpha, Bernard Marx, and a young "savage" named John. The story's conflict begins when Bernard Marx becomes romantically involved with Lenina Crowne, and they travel together to a Savage Reservation. While at the reservation, which is one of the few remaining places in the world where people live with out modern conveniences such as soma, birth control, or helicopters, Lenina and Bernard meet a young boy, John, and his mother Linda. Linda, who was originally from the civilized world, had become pregnant several years before and had been lost on a trip she had made to the reservation. Because it was so shameful that she was pregnant, she was forced to stay. Both savages are brought to the new world, and John becomes a celebrity. At this point in the novel, Huxly uses Bernard as a paradigm to show how fickle a person can be, and how the need for acceptance can override a persons morals. Bernard, who had always been outcast, seizes the chance to take responsibility for John, therefore also becoming popular. All of Bernard's criticism of his society quickly vanished when he gained the respect he had dreamed of his entire life. He became to good for his old friends, and believed he was invincible. But, just like Caesar who thought he was "as constant as the northern Star", Bernard's overconfidence led to his downfall. On the other hand, John, who was excited about the brave new world he had entered, becomes disillusioned, and becomes torn when his values and morals clash with those of the new society. Finally, after a mad rampage, he isolates himself in ... ...se, making a society where people have no attachments to anything or anyone, and everything is replaceable. Huxly provide a strong warning against the misuse of science. Through factories that mass produce children, drugs that take the place of true passion, and conditioning that takes the place of family, technology becomes a dehumanizing force. When Huxly first wrote his novel, he projected that a society similar to the one he had described could come about in about six hundred years. Later in his life, he stated that he had overestimated, and that the horrors of Brave New World could come about in the next century. His drastically changed outlook is not so hard to believe when one looks at our modern society. For example, marriage has changed from a life long commitment, to a relationship that in about fifty percent of couples only lasts for a couple of years. Cloning, although not yet in humans, and far from being perfected, is no longer only in science fiction novels, but in our daily lives. There are many other similarities between our society and that of Brave New World, making it all the easier to accept Huxly's outlook on society's future.

The Heart Essay -- Biology

â€Å"The heart† The Heart is a very important organ in the body. It is what keeps your blood flowing and your organs going. It is a tireless muscle that pumps more than two thousand gallons of blood every day. The blood that is pumped is filled with nutrition and oxygen (Colombo 7). It travels through out your body in less than sixty seconds. So it needs to be taken extra good care of. When abuse is put on the body, the heart’s performance is not at its best. The Heart is a major organ that needs loving and care. Everyone has only one and by abusing it, they are cutting their live span little by little. People can live their lives freely but how they choose to live them could be the difference between life and death. The heart is a pump with four chambers made of their own special muscle called cardiac muscle. Its interwoven muscle fibers enable the heart to contract or squeeze together automatically (Colombo 7). It’s about the same size of a fist and weighs some where around two hundred fifty to three hundred fifty grams (Marieb 432). The size of the heart depends on a person’s height and size. The heart wall is enclosed in three layers: superficial epicardium, middle epicardium, and deep epicardium. It is then enclosed in a double-walled sac called the Pericardium. The terms Systole and Diastole refer respectively and literally to the contraction and relaxation periods of heart activity (Marieb 432). While the doctor is taking a patient’s blood pressure, he listens for the contractions and relaxations of the heart. He also listens for them to make sure that they are going in a single rhythm, to make sure that there are no arrhythmias or complications. The heart muscle d oes not depend on the nervous system. If the nervous s... ... initiative to live longer by doing a few extra steps, or eating cheerios instead of a thick juicy donut. It may not seem like much but it is. The Heart is a major organ that needs loving and care. Everyone has only one and by abusing it, they are cutting their live span little by little. People can live their lives freely but how they choose to live them could be the difference between life and death. By eating healthy, exercising, people can live longer lives. People who smoke, drink, and don’t exercise normally have to look forward to a lot of testing such as: cat scans and x-rays. They get to go through surgeries, such as: Bypasses and stents. Eventually doctors can no longer do any more for them but place them on machines that will continue the heart’s job. Why not choose to live life to the fullest and take care of one of the body’s most important organs.

A Prisoner’s Re-Entry into Society

Prisoner re-entry is a vitally important issue today which has yet to reach its full impact on the minds and lives of voters. However, with every passing year the importance of this topic becomes more evident. Since the eighties, every passing year has brought more pressure for harsher and longer imprisonment and more streamlined mandatory sentencing rules. This has not only resulted in an exploding prison population, but also in a drastic increase in the number of prisoners re-released into communities. Additionally, the push towards more punitive measures has decreased educational opportunities in prisons and the availability of rehabilitation programs. This means that released prisoners are increasingly unable to reintegrate into their communities, increasingly prone to recidivism, and increasingly violent in each release and re-capture cycle. Even the conservative Bush administration has recognized the threat posed by unprepared prisoner re-entry and responded with a series of grants to private and public organizations involved in rehabilitation and easing prisoner transitions. However, merely making government money available to private, religious, or state-based programs is not enough. These funds are only likely to reach a minority of prisoners who are already being aided by the aided programs. Prisoners whose communities and systems do not already take measures to help their rehabilitation will not be seeing any increase in re-entry programs or preparation. A nationwide set of standards is needed to assure that every prisoner eligible for re-release into the community will be inoculated against recidivism and prepared to become a useful part of the society in which they will reside. It is time for the Democratic Party to back away from the conservative model of crime prevention through fear and towards social responsible model of crime prevention through the creation of healthy communities. This can be done in large part by reforming the prison system from a gulag of social control and intimidation into a truly educational experience in which prisoners are put on a moderated track towards social responsibility, respect for the rights of others, and preparation to take a beneficial role in society. Joan Petersilia wrote an insightful book on this subject documenting a series of studies in crime and public policy, When Prisoners Come Home: Parole and Prisoner Reentry. After presenting many pages of carefully documented research, Petersilia provided four suggestions for future reform which could drastically reduce recidivism and change returning prisoners from presenting a public threat to being a boon to society. These suggestions were as follows: 1. Alter the in-prison experience. Provide more education, work, and rehabilitation opportunities. Change the prison environment to promote life skills rather than violence and domination. 2. Change prison release and revocation practices. Institute a system of discretionary parole release that incorporates parole release guidelines. These parole guidelines should be based primarily on recidivism prediction. 3. Revise post-prison services and supervision. Incorporate better parole supervision classification systems, and target services and surveillance to those with high need and risk profiles. 4. Foster collaborations with the community and enhance mechanisms of informal social control. Develop partnerships with service providers, ex-convicts, law enforcement, family members, victim advocates, and neighborhoods to support the offender. (Petersilia) These suggestions represent the best Democratic policy towards reform of the prisoner re-entry system. Petersilia's book on the subject provides documentation about the efficacy of these recommendations and their necessity in the current environment. The remainder of this paper will focus on the precise laws, policies, and programs which may be recommended to promote the implementations of these suggestions. Petersilia's first recommendation is to alter the in-prison experience. This may not be the immediately evident response to prisoner re-entry, but evidence suggests it may in fact be the most important response. As Petersilia points out in a separate article on the â€Å"Challenges of Prisoner Reentry and Parole in California,† the reason that returning convicts pose such a threat is not merely that they are dangerous criminals returning to the communities that they originally victimized, but that their time in prison has in all likelihood increased the dangers they pose to civilians! It is common knowledge that non-violent and inexperienced criminals entering the prison system are likely to emerge being both violent and experienced due to the brutal conditions that exist in most prisons. Male (and female) rape is extremely common in the prison system, with estimates placed between 13-70% of inmates suffering unwanted sexual conduct. (HRW) Such brutal experiences lead many inmates to experience post traumatic stress disorder, which has been positively linked to increased violent tendencies. The degree of dehumanization and stress common in prison can cause other problems as well. â€Å"Mental illnesses, particularly chronic anxiety and depression, may be caused by incarceration. Psychologists believe that incarceration often breeds ‘global rage,' an impulsive and explosive anger so great that a minor incident can trigger an uncontrolled response.† (Petersilia, â€Å"Challenges†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ) The Human Rights Watch's report on prison rape in America recommends several measures for preventing prison rape and brutality, and it is vital that policy focus on this aspect of the prison experience. In 2003 a bill was passed establishing a National Commission dedicated to studying prison rape, and several other measures to provide information and training regarding prison rape. However, these measures did not go far enough to assure that prison rape was both prosecuted and that victims received help and counseling. Neither mandatory prosecution nor counseling was included in the bill's measures. Though some constituents might hesitate to focus on preventing brutality to prisoners (indeed, if one pays close attention to the sorts of attitudes and jokes prevalent on crime shows such as Law and Order and NYPD Blue, many consumers may think that prison rape is a justifiable punishment for child abusers and pedophiles), it is important to remember that prison rape victims are likely to emerge with HIV and equally likely to become sexual abusers after their experiences even if they were not abusers before. Thus it is a public health and safety concern to prevent prison rape and other brutality between prisoners. The following policies should be instituted nationwide: 1. Division of prison population between violent and non-violent criminals, and between those who are eligible for parole and those who are not. (Parole-eligible prisoners have more incentive for good behavior) 2. Establishment of special court systems for prison population, mandatory investigation and prosecution of all incidents of hospitalization resulting from sexual assault, availability of independent prisoner-rights advocates, and segregation of all inmates convicted of prisoner-on-prisoner sexual assault to carefully regulated wards, and automatic termination for any employee convicted of sexual impropriety or battery of an inmate. 3. Mandatory counseling and AIDS testing for all prison brutality victims and the establishment of victim-positive protective custody arrangements. (Many victimized inmates are only offered solitary confinement as a protective arrangement, which generally means loss of other privileges and any human interaction, potentially worsening the trauma and decreasing reports) Condoms and retro-virus treatment should be made available to all AIDS/HIV positive inmates, so that future consensual prison relationships will be less likely to increase AIDS transmission. Additionally, the very arrangement of prisons tends to discourage personal responsibility and the development of positive social interactions. Petersilia describes how prison systems punish individual initiative and free-thought, and fail to prepare inmates for independence and responsibility within an open society. â€Å"When personal choice is eliminated, so is personal accountability because the system makes all decisions for prisoners.† (Petersilia, 184) A nationwide study should be undertaken regarding ways that personal choice and accountability can be safely established in prisons and a set of guidelines for national and private prisons should be developed based on the results of that study. Petersilia recommends some programs which have had success in the past which allow simple personal choice from requiring prisoners to decide for themselves when/how to clean their own cells, send their laundry to the cleaners, and so forth. Involving prisoners in some of the more mundane aspects of their confinement is likely to increase the sense of personal control and encourage responsibility. These changes should not be geared so much as ameliorating the punishment of prisoners as of assuring that the incarceration does not reduce their ability to function as a free person. One more important issue regarding prison experience is the availability of vocational and academic training. It is well known by those who study these issues that prisoners who are able to be employed after re-entry to society are significantly less likely to commit further crimes. Petersilia's second suggestion was to change prison release and revocation practices. The best recommendation for policy on this issue would be to adjust mandatory sentences so that they included the completion of certain educational and behavioral requirements. These adapted sentences would require the inmate to both complete a certain length of time and a set of release requirements to be established by a panel of experts on a case-by-case basis. These release requirements must be completed before the inmate was eligible either for parole or release based on time served. Requirements should include, as determined per individual case, mandatory counseling, addiction treatment, educational attainment, vocational studies, and good behavior. Petersilia points out that, based on prison records, recidivism predictions can be made that are 80% correct. Recidivism predictors should be made clear to inmates and they should be encouraged to work towards being eligible for release and parole. A nationwide set of guidelines regarding minimum achievements requirements in addition to the current nationwide set of minimum time-served requirements would return the focus to rehabilitation rather than mere punishment. In fact, the minimum time-served should be directly related to the minimum time necessary to complete the release requirements. Part of assuring that the prison system creates parolees who do not endanger the community is assuring that it creates educated parolees. It would do well in the future for ex-criminals to speak of â€Å"graduating† from prison, as it were, and going on to lead productive lives. In 1997 the Center on Crime, Communities, and Culture reported that â€Å"inmates with at least two years of college have a 10% re-arrest rate, compared to a national re-arrest rate of approximately 60%.† This is somewhat ironic, because just three years earlier in 1994 Congress passed a bill which virtually destroyed the prison undergraduate school system. This bill eliminated Pell grants paying for the education of incarcerated individuals. â€Å"Nationally, the only higher education program that's still publicly funded is for youthful offenders.† (Banks) So it is that since 1994 recidivism has increased by almost half, going from around 60% to nearly 90%. Today a mixture of volunteers, religious organizations, and state-funded programs have moved in to provide some college education for inmates. However only slightly more than 10% of prisoners will re-enter society with a college degree. A new bill should be sponsored which would fight to prevent crime by educating prisoners and thus slashing their chances of offending again. Even if Pell Grants were not extended to prisoners, perhaps a new system of educational grants should be developed that would pay for accredited college education for prisoners as part of their pre-release requirements. Our founding fathers all focused on the necessity of a free people being an educated people, and claimed that democracy was dependent on the education of the people. If we are to prepare prisoners to reenter a democratic nation and partake in it as citizens rather than as public enemies, then a liberal arts education which both prepares them for work and prepares them to understand the rights and responsibilities of all citizens is absolutely necessary. Petersilia's third point is that we need extensive post-release services. A new set of federal guidelines should require all released prisoners to be prepared with housing and income options. Halfway housing should be arranged for those who do not have families prepared to commit to providing housing. Job-placement services should be arranged before release and continued employment should be a condition of parole with job-placement provided at any point during the parole period at which the ex-inmate becomes unemployed. Continued medical treatment and counseling for prison-related problems (including AIDS and mental illness) should be provided, as well as mandatory counseling and guidance sessions. More federal and state funding needs to be available to increase the number of parole officers and services. Nationwide there is a shortage in parole officers. In California, for example, â€Å"the ratio is now 82 parolees to 1 parole officer†¦ even parolees who are motivated to change have little opportunity to do so.† (Petersilia, â€Å"Challenges†¦Ã¢â‚¬  ) According to Petersilia's research, â€Å"most inmates have a strong desire to succeed when they are first released.† (Petersilia, â€Å"Challenges†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ) Therefore it is vital that re-entry services are provided. Additionally, as most inmates are re-arrested within three years, it seems vital that such services are available for a period of at least five years as the inmates adjust to the responsibility and freedom of life outside. Homelessness, lack of income and opportunities, and a return to addiction are among the main reasons for a return to crime — proper post-release supervision, counseling, and provision of housing and work opportunities can prevent this. Though such supervision would be expensive, it will be far less expensive to provide ex-inmates with housing, employment, and services within the community than to provide them with housing, constant supervision, and services inside our prisons after they re-offend. In conclusion, it appears that a national Recidivism Prevention Bill is absolutely necessary. This bill should include: 1) a commitment to stop prison rape by means of the creation of a special court system for in-prison crimes such as rape, the mandatory investigation of prison rape cases, and special custody arrangements designed to combat rape; 2) the establishment of a study resulting in national guidelines for prison reform aimed at fostering social responsibility and accountability; 3) the establishment and funding of an accredited national university of correctional facilities which provides liberal arts, vocational, and technical degrees to inmates; 4) Creation of national guidelines for sentencing to include individual minimum release requirements including (but not limited to) successful completion of addiction or other counseling, charitable service, educational and vocational training, evidence of good behavior, and treatment for mental health problems; 5) national guidelines and funding for parole services including housing, job-placement and training, medical services , and mental health/addiction/family adjustment counseling, and a low parolee-to-officer ration allowing for adequate surveillance and regular check-ups. A Prisoner’s Re-Entry into Society Prisoner re-entry is a vitally important issue today which has yet to reach its full impact on the minds and lives of voters. However, with every passing year the importance of this topic becomes more evident. Since the eighties, every passing year has brought more pressure for harsher and longer imprisonment and more streamlined mandatory sentencing rules. This has not only resulted in an exploding prison population, but also in a drastic increase in the number of prisoners re-released into communities. Additionally, the push towards more punitive measures has decreased educational opportunities in prisons and the availability of rehabilitation programs. This means that released prisoners are increasingly unable to reintegrate into their communities, increasingly prone to recidivism, and increasingly violent in each release and re-capture cycle. Even the conservative Bush administration has recognized the threat posed by unprepared prisoner re-entry and responded with a series of grants to private and public organizations involved in rehabilitation and easing prisoner transitions. However, merely making government money available to private, religious, or state-based programs is not enough. These funds are only likely to reach a minority of prisoners who are already being aided by the aided programs. Prisoners whose communities and systems do not already take measures to help their rehabilitation will not be seeing any increase in re-entry programs or preparation. A nationwide set of standards is needed to assure that every prisoner eligible for re-release into the community will be inoculated against recidivism and prepared to become a useful part of the society in which they will reside. It is time for the Democratic Party to back away from the conservative model of crime prevention through fear and towards social responsible model of crime prevention through the creation of healthy communities. This can be done in large part by reforming the prison system from a gulag of social control and intimidation into a truly educational experience in which prisoners are put on a moderated track towards social responsibility, respect for the rights of others, and preparation to take a beneficial role in society. Joan Petersilia wrote an insightful book on this subject documenting a series of studies in crime and public policy, When Prisoners Come Home: Parole and Prisoner Reentry. After presenting many pages of carefully documented research, Petersilia provided four suggestions for future reform which could drastically reduce recidivism and change returning prisoners from presenting a public threat to being a boon to society. These suggestions were as follows: 1. Alter the in-prison experience. Provide more education, work, and rehabilitation opportunities. Change the prison environment to promote life skills rather than violence and domination. 2. Change prison release and revocation practices. Institute a system of discretionary parole release that incorporates parole release guidelines. These parole guidelines should be based primarily on recidivism prediction. 3. Revise post-prison services and supervision. Incorporate better parole supervision classification systems, and target services and surveillance to those with high need and risk profiles. 4. Foster collaborations with the community and enhance mechanisms of informal social control. Develop partnerships with service providers, ex-convicts, law enforcement, family members, victim advocates, and neighborhoods to support the offender. (Petersilia) These suggestions represent the best Democratic policy towards reform of the prisoner re-entry system. Petersilia's book on the subject provides documentation about the efficacy of these recommendations and their necessity in the current environment. The remainder of this paper will focus on the precise laws, policies, and programs which may be recommended to promote the implementations of these suggestions. Petersilia's first recommendation is to alter the in-prison experience. This may not be the immediately evident response to prisoner re-entry, but evidence suggests it may in fact be the most important response. As Petersilia points out in a separate article on the â€Å"Challenges of Prisoner Reentry and Parole in California,† the reason that returning convicts pose such a threat is not merely that they are dangerous criminals returning to the communities that they originally victimized, but that their time in prison has in all likelihood increased the dangers they pose to civilians! It is common knowledge that non-violent and inexperienced criminals entering the prison system are likely to emerge being both violent and experienced due to the brutal conditions that exist in most prisons. Male (and female) rape is extremely common in the prison system, with estimates placed between 13-70% of inmates suffering unwanted sexual conduct. (HRW) Such brutal experiences lead many inmates to experience post traumatic stress disorder, which has been positively linked to increased violent tendencies. The degree of dehumanization and stress common in prison can cause other problems as well. â€Å"Mental illnesses, particularly chronic anxiety and depression, may be caused by incarceration. Psychologists believe that incarceration often breeds ‘global rage,' an impulsive and explosive anger so great that a minor incident can trigger an uncontrolled response.† (Petersilia, â€Å"Challenges†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ) The Human Rights Watch's report on prison rape in America recommends several measures for preventing prison rape and brutality, and it is vital that policy focus on this aspect of the prison experience. In 2003 a bill was passed establishing a National Commission dedicated to studying prison rape, and several other measures to provide information and training regarding prison rape. However, these measures did not go far enough to assure that prison rape was both prosecuted and that victims received help and counseling. Neither mandatory prosecution nor counseling was included in the bill's measures. Though some constituents might hesitate to focus on preventing brutality to prisoners (indeed, if one pays close attention to the sorts of attitudes and jokes prevalent on crime shows such as Law and Order and NYPD Blue, many consumers may think that prison rape is a justifiable punishment for child abusers and pedophiles), it is important to remember that prison rape victims are likely to emerge with HIV and equally likely to become sexual abusers after their experiences even if they were not abusers before. Thus it is a public health and safety concern to prevent prison rape and other brutality between prisoners. The following policies should be instituted nationwide: 1. Division of prison population between violent and non-violent criminals, and between those who are eligible for parole and those who are not. (Parole-eligible prisoners have more incentive for good behavior) 2. Establishment of special court systems for prison population, mandatory investigation and prosecution of all incidents of hospitalization resulting from sexual assault, availability of independent prisoner-rights advocates, and segregation of all inmates convicted of prisoner-on-prisoner sexual assault to carefully regulated wards, and automatic termination for any employee convicted of sexual impropriety or battery of an inmate. 3. Mandatory counseling and AIDS testing for all prison brutality victims and the establishment of victim-positive protective custody arrangements. (Many victimized inmates are only offered solitary confinement as a protective arrangement, which generally means loss of other privileges and any human interaction, potentially worsening the trauma and decreasing reports) Condoms and retro-virus treatment should be made available to all AIDS/HIV positive inmates, so that future consensual prison relationships will be less likely to increase AIDS transmission. Additionally, the very arrangement of prisons tends to discourage personal responsibility and the development of positive social interactions. Petersilia describes how prison systems punish individual initiative and free-thought, and fail to prepare inmates for independence and responsibility within an open society. â€Å"When personal choice is eliminated, so is personal accountability because the system makes all decisions for prisoners.† (Petersilia, 184) A nationwide study should be undertaken regarding ways that personal choice and accountability can be safely established in prisons and a set of guidelines for national and private prisons should be developed based on the results of that study. Petersilia recommends some programs which have had success in the past which allow simple personal choice from requiring prisoners to decide for themselves when/how to clean their own cells, send their laundry to the cleaners, and so forth. Involving prisoners in some of the more mundane aspects of their confinement is likely to increase the sense of personal control and encourage responsibility. These changes should not be geared so much as ameliorating the punishment of prisoners as of assuring that the incarceration does not reduce their ability to function as a free person. One more important issue regarding prison experience is the availability of vocational and academic training. It is well known by those who study these issues that prisoners who are able to be employed after re-entry to society are significantly less likely to commit further crimes. Petersilia's second suggestion was to change prison release and revocation practices. The best recommendation for policy on this issue would be to adjust mandatory sentences so that they included the completion of certain educational and behavioral requirements. These adapted sentences would require the inmate to both complete a certain length of time and a set of release requirements to be established by a panel of experts on a case-by-case basis. These release requirements must be completed before the inmate was eligible either for parole or release based on time served. Requirements should include, as determined per individual case, mandatory counseling, addiction treatment, educational attainment, vocational studies, and good behavior. Petersilia points out that, based on prison records, recidivism predictions can be made that are 80% correct. Recidivism predictors should be made clear to inmates and they should be encouraged to work towards being eligible for release and parole. A nationwide set of guidelines regarding minimum achievements requirements in addition to the current nationwide set of minimum time-served requirements would return the focus to rehabilitation rather than mere punishment. In fact, the minimum time-served should be directly related to the minimum time necessary to complete the release requirements. Part of assuring that the prison system creates parolees who do not endanger the community is assuring that it creates educated parolees. It would do well in the future for ex-criminals to speak of â€Å"graduating† from prison, as it were, and going on to lead productive lives. In 1997 the Center on Crime, Communities, and Culture reported that â€Å"inmates with at least two years of college have a 10% re-arrest rate, compared to a national re-arrest rate of approximately 60%.† This is somewhat ironic, because just three years earlier in 1994 Congress passed a bill which virtually destroyed the prison undergraduate school system. This bill eliminated Pell grants paying for the education of incarcerated individuals. â€Å"Nationally, the only higher education program that's still publicly funded is for youthful offenders.† (Banks) So it is that since 1994 recidivism has increased by almost half, going from around 60% to nearly 90%. Today a mixture of volunteers, religious organizations, and state-funded programs have moved in to provide some college education for inmates. However only slightly more than 10% of prisoners will re-enter society with a college degree. A new bill should be sponsored which would fight to prevent crime by educating prisoners and thus slashing their chances of offending again. Even if Pell Grants were not extended to prisoners, perhaps a new system of educational grants should be developed that would pay for accredited college education for prisoners as part of their pre-release requirements. Our founding fathers all focused on the necessity of a free people being an educated people, and claimed that democracy was dependent on the education of the people. If we are to prepare prisoners to reenter a democratic nation and partake in it as citizens rather than as public enemies, then a liberal arts education which both prepares them for work and prepares them to understand the rights and responsibilities of all citizens is absolutely necessary. Petersilia's third point is that we need extensive post-release services. A new set of federal guidelines should require all released prisoners to be prepared with housing and income options. Halfway housing should be arranged for those who do not have families prepared to commit to providing housing. Job-placement services should be arranged before release and continued employment should be a condition of parole with job-placement provided at any point during the parole period at which the ex-inmate becomes unemployed. Continued medical treatment and counseling for prison-related problems (including AIDS and mental illness) should be provided, as well as mandatory counseling and guidance sessions. More federal and state funding needs to be available to increase the number of parole officers and services. Nationwide there is a shortage in parole officers. In California, for example, â€Å"the ratio is now 82 parolees to 1 parole officer†¦ even parolees who are motivated to change have little opportunity to do so.† (Petersilia, â€Å"Challenges†¦Ã¢â‚¬  ) According to Petersilia's research, â€Å"most inmates have a strong desire to succeed when they are first released.† (Petersilia, â€Å"Challenges†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ) Therefore it is vital that re-entry services are provided. Additionally, as most inmates are re-arrested within three years, it seems vital that such services are available for a period of at least five years as the inmates adjust to the responsibility and freedom of life outside. Homelessness, lack of income and opportunities, and a return to addiction are among the main reasons for a return to crime — proper post-release supervision, counseling, and provision of housing and work opportunities can prevent this. Though such supervision would be expensive, it will be far less expensive to provide ex-inmates with housing, employment, and services within the community than to provide them with housing, constant supervision, and services inside our prisons after they re-offend. In conclusion, it appears that a national Recidivism Prevention Bill is absolutely necessary. This bill should include: 1) a commitment to stop prison rape by means of the creation of a special court system for in-prison crimes such as rape, the mandatory investigation of prison rape cases, and special custody arrangements designed to combat rape; 2) the establishment of a study resulting in national guidelines for prison reform aimed at fostering social responsibility and accountability; 3) the establishment and funding of an accredited national university of correctional facilities which provides liberal arts, vocational, and technical degrees to inmates; 4) Creation of national guidelines for sentencing to include individual minimum release requirements including (but not limited to) successful completion of addiction or other counseling, charitable service, educational and vocational training, evidence of good behavior, and treatment for mental health problems; 5) national guidelines and funding for parole services including housing, job-placement and training, medical services , and mental health/addiction/family adjustment counseling, and a low parolee-to-officer ration allowing for adequate surveillance and regular check-ups.