Rehabilitation of Ex-Offenders: Importance of Employment and Societal Support
Rehabilitation of Ex-Offenders
When offenders break the law and are caught, they expect to be punished. Depending on the seriousness of the crime they have been charged with, this punishment may mean that they have to spend time behind bars. But, once their prison time has finished and they are allowed to leave their cells and return to the outside world, it’s vital that they’re given help to go straight and become valuable members of society.
Helping Ex-Offenders Find Employment
One way to do this is to help them find work, but this isn’t always easy. When employers find out that an applicant has been convicted of a crime, they’re often concerned that the potential employee will get into trouble again. That’s why, a few years ago, the government decided to give a reward to employers who offer work to ex-criminals and keep them for at least two years by giving them £5,600 for each one taken on. It’s a policy which is really making a difference.
Life Behind Bars: Reality vs. Fiction
What is life like behind bars? Do you have any idea what a prison cell looks like? What do inmates in prisons do all day? What happens to a suspect from the time they’re arrested until they’re taken to court? What happens to the offender at the end of the trial when the judge or jury decides that they are guilty?
Almost certainly, unless you yourself are a hardened criminal who has been living a life of crime for many years, your only experience of such matters is as a viewer of films and television programs. However, your knowledge is likely to be reasonably accurate because directors and actors research every aspect of the story thoroughly. To help them, organizations such as Cops on Film and TV, run by ex-detectives, now offer consultations to film and TV companies on everything from uniforms to scenery to dialogue, to ensure that everything is as realistic as possible.
The Case of the School Desk Graffiti
What would you think if you saw a student from your school being taken away by the police in handcuffs?
- “She must have done something terrible.”
- “She might have stolen something.”
- “Perhaps she hit another student.”
- “I had better not cheat in my test today if that’s what the punishment is!”
Well, this actually happened to a 12-year-old student in Queens, New York. What had she done? She had written on her school desk. Now, this is wrong. She shouldn’t have written on the desk. It must be really annoying for schools to spend money on desks and then soon afterward have to have them cleaned. Schools should be able to punish students and perhaps make them clean the desks. But surely they needn’t have called the police!
The girl was taken to the local police station and had to stay there for several hours. A spokesperson for the local education authority later admitted that the arrest probably shouldn’t have happened and that the police definitely shouldn’t have used handcuffs.
The girl’s punishment was eight hours of community service, a book report, and an essay on what she’d learned from the experience.
New Drone Laws: Ensuring Safety and Accountability
The government must have realized that drones would cause problems. Perhaps they should have made new laws about their use earlier. However, “better late than never,” as the saying goes. New laws say that owners of drones weighing more than 250 g have to register their machines before they use them. However, owners of smaller drones don’t need to do this. If drones are registered, it will mean that if there’s an accident caused by a drone, the police will be able to find out who its owner is.
The government is also going to produce a complete map of areas where drones can’t be used, including areas near airports and prisons. They should have done this much sooner, as there have been several near misses between drones and planes. It must be very frightening for pilots to suddenly see one of these gadgets heading straight towards them as they come in to land.
There are already other laws restricting where drones can be used. You can’t fly them more than 120 meters above the ground, closer than 50 meters from private buildings, or 150 meters from crowds. A lot of people who have posted drone videos on the Internet must have broken these laws because it’s obvious that these limits aren’t kept to. So, if you own a drone, you had better find out about the changes to the law before you fly it again, or you may find yourself with a heavy fine.
Give Running: Providing Shoes and Hope
I talked to a member of the Give Running campaign. I first asked her what Give Running did. She told me it was a simple idea and that people gave their old trainers to the charity and that the charity then gave them to people who needed them. I then asked if the idea was just about sport, but she said it wasn’t and that some people just needed shoes to get to school or to collect water. Next, I asked where the people lived, and she told me all over the world. She said that they helped children in Africa and also in the USA. She told me that some people went to school in shoes with holes in them or which were the wrong size and then told me about a family which the organization had helped. She told me that they had only had one pair of shoes for two children who had had to take it in turns to go to school.
Environmental Hope: The Story of San Francisco Bay
The news is full of environmental horror stories. Drought in some countries, flooding in others. We consume too much and waste ridiculous amounts of resources and energy. This year’s presents are next year’s landfill, buried unwanted in the Earth. Sooner or later, our planet will be uninhabitable… or will it? There are many inspiring stories from around the world. Here is one of them: San Francisco Bay.
Fifty years ago, San Francisco Bay was a huge mess with ports, factories, sewage plants, oil refineries, and other industries lining the coast, all of them pumping hazardous materials into the sea. The area was in danger of becoming a place to dump everything. Even worse, wildlife in the area – birds, fish, and other creatures – had become endangered due to a plan to fill parts of the bay to create more land for housing and industry. Luckily, three women decided it was now or never if they wanted to save the bay, and that’s what they called their organization: Save the Bay. And they did. Since then, the water has been cleaned up, wildlife has returned, and the area is a favorite place for windsurfers and sailors.
Peak Car: Have We Reached the Turning Point?
Americans keep a special place in their hearts for their cars. The average American drives over 13,000 miles a year – that’s more than 20,000 kilometers. It’s no wonder that America uses far more fossil fuel per person than other countries. A politician in the USA would have to be very brave to propose any changes in the law which might take away the American’s freedom to take to the highway. However, as the world is now faced with serious environmental problems caused by the greenhouse effect, itself a result of everyone having a greater and greater carbon footprint, even some Americans realize that changes must be made to our lifestyles. It has been claimed that we have reached “peak car,” i.e., the point at which the number of cars on the roads will start to decline. There are still vast numbers of cars on our roads, as anyone who has been stuck in an annoying traffic jam will know, but figures seem to back this theory up. Is this due to better public transport and new car-sharing schemes, or because more people are working from home? Unfortunately for environmentalists, the real reason is probably because of the worldwide recession, and as people’s incomes rise, sales of cars will revive once more.