Helping Todays Youth Essays - Criminology, Criminal Law, Probation

Helping Today's Youth In today's society, a troubled teenager or mischievous adolescent is labeled a juvenile delinquent. Yet the current definition of a juvenile is based solely upon, most of the times, on stereotypes. A delinquent may be a troublesome teenager with complicated problems at home, school, or with friends. He may have extreme physical and/or emotional needs, or he may just be a child who committed a simple mistake. ?Was he unlucky to get caught doing something foolish? Did he run away from home because of family troubles or to demonstrate independence? What kind of help does he need and exactly how much (Erickson 126-127). At this point, a probation officer helps in making decisions that have an important and beneficial impact on the lives of those called ?delinquents? (Erickson 7). Probation can be defined in two different ways: as an organization or a process. As an organization, probation is ?a service agency designed to assist the court and execute certain services in the administration of criminal justice.? As a process, probation is ?an investigation for the court and the supervision of persons in the community? (Carter and Wilkins 77). Considering the diverse definitions on the subject of probation, the myths and truths about the juvenile justice system can also be found. Although juvenile crime is a serious national problem, Marcia Satterthwaite, a social worker, criticizes the effectiveness of the legal system as a whole. She claims that the system has been losing its confidentiality between the officer and the client, that it does not discourage crime effectively, that punishment should be more stringent, and that there is a ?lack of focus? on the need to protect society from the juvenile (61-63). According to Satterthwaite, dangerous children are released to commit even more acts of crime. Ron Boostrom, a probation officer working for the city of Los Angeles, agrees that in the end, ?the delinquent is dumped back into the same family, the same community, and the same problems that existed before the ?rehabilitation'? (246). Boostrom believes that the juvenile system teaches these youngsters the trade of crime, to hate, and even become dedicated to getting even with the society that excluded them in the first place (238). The truth is that the major cause of low self-esteem is due to the juvenile's surroundings. In most cases, discipline, supervision, and affection tend to be missing in the home itself (Satterthwaite 180). If probation officers would not be able to communicate to others about the juvenile, the officer would have no sources of information and would be left without an idea as to how to approach a goal for the child. If punishment were to be harsher and juveniles were to be treated and sentenced as adults, taxpayers' expenses would increase. Longer sentences for juveniles cost taxpayers more but do not necessarily give better results, while prevention programs work more efficiently than imprisonment and cost much less. To keep a teenager locked up for a year cost more than $30,000. According to Mike Males, this amount of money is able to cover ten adolescents' part-time jobs, a probation officer to work with twenty-five juveniles, tutor one hundred children falling behind in their studies, or provide ?recreational alternatives? for two hundred children with nothing to do after school (1). Delinquents are children who ?have been pushed beyond the limits of their abilities, desires, and expectations? (Erickson 127-129). Usually, they seem to want and need discipline and direction and commit the crime either for attention, curiosity, excitement, revenge, or peer pressure and acceptance (137). Over time, these juveniles tend to mature and grow out of their delinquent phase to be able to get away from a life of crime (140). Although probation can be exciting and fulfilling for the probation officer, Erickson states that it can also be very frustrating and discouraging because of the clients and the system (vii). At the beginning of the job, officers are committed and very dedicated to helping troubled children become successful adults. They visit the offender's family, they interview and communicate with school administrators, and they become extremely involved in the everyday lives of those juveniles (Satterthwaite 53). With one client, officers have a great amount of work to take care of, but when the probation departments assign an average caseload of about forty juveniles per officer, it becomes more difficult to devote a sufficient amount of attention to each individual child. ?While most probation officers have master's degrees and can provide both family and group therapy... probation

Interpreting Statistics and Political Polls

Interpreting Statistics and Political Polls At any given time throughout a political campaign, the media may want to know what the public at large thinks about policies or candidates. One solution would be to ask everyone who they would vote for. This would be costly, time-consuming and infeasible. Another way to determine voter preference is to use a statistical sample. Rather than ask every voter to state his or her preference in candidates, polling research companies poll a relatively small number of people who their favorite candidate is. The members of the statistical sample help to determine the preferences of the entire population. There are good polls and not so good polls, so it is important to ask the following questions when reading any results. Who Was Polled? A candidate makes his or her appeal to the voters because the voters are the ones who cast ballots. Consider the following groups of people: AdultsRegistered votersLikely voters To discern the mood of the public any of these groups may be sampled. However, if the intent of the poll is to predict the winner of an election, the sample should be comprised of registered voters or likely voters. The political composition of the sample sometimes plays a role in interpreting poll results. A sample consisting entirely of registered Republicans would not be good if someone wanted to ask a question about the electorate at large. Since the electorate rarely breaks into 50% registered Republicans and 50% registered Democrats, even this type of sample may not be the best to use. When Was the Poll Conducted? Politics can be fast paced. Within a matter of days, an issue arises, alters the political landscape, then is forgotten by most when some new issue surfaces. What people were talking about on Monday sometimes seems to be a distant memory when Friday comes. News runs faster than ever, however, good polling takes the time to conduct. Major events can take several days to show up in poll results. The dates when a poll was conducted should be noted to determine if current events have had time to affect the numbers of the poll. What Methods Were Used? Suppose that Congress is considering a bill that deals with gun control. Read the following two scenarios and ask which is more likely to accurately determine the public sentiment. A blog asks its readers to click on a box to show their support of the bill. A total of 5000 participate and there is overwhelming rejection of the bill.A polling firm randomly calls 1000 registered voters and asks them about their support of the bill. The firm finds that their respondents are more or less evenly split for and against the bill. Although the first poll has more respondents, they are self-selected. It is likely that the people who would participate are those who have strong opinions. It could even be that the readers of the blog are very like-minded in their opinions (perhaps it is a blog about hunting). The second sample is random, and an independent party has selected the sample. Even though the first poll has a larger sample size, the second sample would be better. How Large Is the Sample? As the discussion above shows, a poll with a larger sample size is not necessarily the better poll. On the other hand, a sample size may be too small to state anything meaningful about public opinion. A random sample of 20 likely voters is too small to determine the direction that the entire U.S. population is leaning on an issue. But how large should the sample be? Associated with the size of the sample is the margin of error. The larger the sample size, the smaller the margin of error. Surprisingly, sample sizes as small as 1000 to 2000 are typically used for polls such as Presidential approval, whose margin of error is within a couple of percentage points. The margin of error could be made as small as desired by using a larger sample, however, this would require a higher cost to conduct the poll. Bringing It All Together The answers to the above questions should help in assessing the accuracy of results in political polls. Not all polls are created equally, and often details are buried in footnotes or omitted entirely in news articles that quote the poll. Thats why its important to be informed on how a poll was designed.