The Debate Concerning The Age Of Sexual Consent Essay Example for Free

The Debate Concerning The Age Of Sexual Consent Essay This essay will illustrate the current laws regarding the age of sexual consent and will highlight the future plans, which the government are hoping to enforce and argument for and against these suggested laws. The current laws, which are enforced regarding the age of consent, are that boys have no age of consent and can therefore have sex at any age when they feel ready. But only if the girl is over 16 or else they will be breaking the law as girls and gay couples cannot have sex until they are 16 years old. Although many people feel that these laws are fine as they are and there is no need for change, the government believe that there are far to many people breaking these laws and that there is to many men/boys having sex with under 16 girls. The hopes to change this by tightening the current laws and introducing a male sexual age of consent of 16 and to include an extension of the laws to include more sex acts in public which is most likely to include including kissing. If these laws were to be broken the government are planning to put the offender on to the sex offenders list, which include rapists and pedos. The offender could also face which I think is a very harsh five-year prison sentence and all for what could have been an innocent kiss with your partner. A recent national survey Shows the while the current laws arent perfect they arent doing a bad job as it showed us that 33% of boys have had sex under the age of 16 and that only 25% of girl have, and this shows that the current laws are keeping at least two-thirds of boys from having illegal sex and three-quarters of girls and means that a larger percentage of teenagers are obeying the current laws and waiting until they have sex. Another survey was carried out by Bliss Magazine on its readers and showed that 32% of 12 to 17 year olds have had sex and that 83% of those reader were under 16 years old when they had sex, and that a what I though was an astonishing 12% of those readers were under 12 years old when the had sex. This survey completed by Bliss Magazine also tell us that 50% of it readers think that the current sexual consent laws are correct, but this is most properly sex mad teenagers who want the consent aged to be lowered not for the laws to be tightened. Although these figures do shows a slightly worrying percentage of under 16s having sex, and of course we would all like this figure to be lower; this amount of under 16s having sex isnt wholly due to kids and their choice to have sex as it is also undoubtedly fuelled by television and magazines. It has become more and more obvious that teenagers and now even younger kids are becoming sexualised and introduced to sexual idea a lot younger these days. This is best shown when we look in magazines, watch television and new fashions and we see idols such as Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera half naked or often dressed in way which gives their teenage fans the wrong impression of dress and act. A current argument which is a main point of the governments reasons for wanting to tighten the sexual consent laws is that they believe children need more protect than they are presently getting. This sudden desire to increase the protection of children is partly due to the increasing amount of pedos and rapist around but I think mainly because of the increase in popularity of the Internet and especially due to the increase in the amount of people using chat rooms. These concerns about using chat rooms is because of what some people call grooming often pedos pretend they are kids and gain trust of children and often arrange to meet up with them. Another argument is the amount of people who are having sex before they are 16, and also because a survey reveal that over 50% of girl regret having sex before they were legally allowed. The UKs current laws sit some roughly in the middle compared to other places, such as places like LA where the consent age is higher and places like Spain where the age is lower. At the moment LAs sexual consent age is 18 but people are still having sex a 17, and in Mali the sexual consent age is 16 and as in LA people are having sex when they are 17, Spains laws states that you have to be 13 to have sex and the average age for a person in Spain to have sex is strangely 19 years old for girls and 18 for boys. And finally in Chile the sexual consent age is 12 and the average person is having sex at around 14 or 15years old. The figures show that countries with a lower sexual consent age actually have a higher difference in the age you can have sex legally and the age people actually do. Arguments against the tightening of the sexual consent laws include the argument that the current laws doesnt stop people from having sex under the age of 16 so tightening the laws will most likely force little or no change and people will still break the law. As well as this point there is an argument that the current laws are thought to be fine as they stand, and that current laws offer a suffiencent amount of protection to children. Even now family planning centres, sex education teacher (school nurses) and any other authorities to do with sexual aspects in life tell us that alt of kids already find it hard to speak to parents or anyone about sex, and we are constantly hearing about pregnant teenagers leaving it to late before they told someone and ending up with no choice but to have a baby. This point, which is already at a bad enough state, is thought to become worse if the suggested laws pass and many fear that kids will become more detached and feel even less able to seek help of advise. This final point against the change is that the suggested laws are a muddle and all the law will do is criminalize younger people for doing something as unsubstantial as kissing. My view on this argument is that although teenagers I thin do need more protection from people like rapists and pedos the suggested rules are not the answer and are just punishing kids for what adults do. I believe the current laws provide a good template of which to follow by and the sexual consent age of 16 is accurate, as at this age the decision to have sex or not is up to you and you have reached an age and maturity where you can make the choice. I think that the suggested laws obviously have higher risks is broken and may have a little impact but there will still be teenagers who want to have sex and kiss etc and will, and all introducing these laws will do is criminalize young peoples for something a sinister as kissing. Away in which I think the current situation could be improved with out changing the laws is to improve sex education; by educating children at an earlier age, and making sex education lessons more frequent and more relevant to the students.

Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward Essay -- Looking Backward

Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward    People have always wondered what the future will be like. Certainly Edward Bellamy did when he wrote the novel, Looking Backward (1888). Bellamy uses a man named Mr. West as the main character in this novel. He opens by telling who he is and what his social standing is. West is a young man, around the age of 30, and is fairly wealthy. At the beginning, he tells us about his fiancà ©, Edith, and the house he is having trouble building for her. The trouble comes from the fact that the workers keep going on strike due to financial reasons, which prolongs the completion of the house. The biggest hint to the end of the novel comes from when he tells the reader that he suffers from insomnia. West must be put to sleep through a trance in his bedroom, which is an entirely padded room in the basement of his home. When people sleep they often dream, which leads one to believe they can predict the ending of the novel. The prediction to the ending of the novel is that the story, he is telling, is a dream. On page 11 he says, "I called in Dr. Pillsbury. H...

Death Penalty Paper Essay

The death penalty is something that many people do not have a clear decision on. Many people support the death penalty, while others wish for the death penalty to be abolished, yet there are some that support the death penalty, but only in certain cases. My personal opinion is that a person commits murder and is sentenced to death there should be no waiting. I believe 24 hours from the time the person is sentenced to death, the state should follow through with their punishment and execute. There are people in the world that support the death penalty and often say that the death penalty is a deterrent for future criminals who are thinking and plotting out their heinous crimes or murder as we sit in our living rooms right now. Capital Punishment does not act as a deterrent force. Crime rates do not decrease in states where capital punishment is used. This statement can be neither proven nor disproven. How do you measure the amount of people who have been deterred from crime? Do you take a poll? Is there a survey conducted where people voluntarily admit they would have murdered had they known they would not be executed if they were caught? No. You can’t prove that it deters crime. So, even if it does, there is not enough evidence to support this theory. Do you agree with this statement? For me, when I think of a criminal they are not thinking of consequences of their actions, they are not thinking of whom they are going to hurt, they are only thinking of getting what they want. They think in the â€Å"Now†, they simply just do not care. If they had any sort of emotion or remorse before the crime is committed then our prisons wouldn’t be so over populated as they are today. Amnesty International, which opposes the death penalty, reports that scientific studies have not produced any conclusive evidence showing that capital punishment, is a deterrent for future crimes to be committed. I believe the only deterrent for a murderer not to commit a horrific crime again would be execution. Executing a dangerous criminal ensures that he will not kill again. There have been several notable cases where men were paroled, or escaped from prison after being convicted of murder and killed again. The death penalty protects our community by eradicating a harmful criminal from society. A few good examples are Randy Greenwalt, Arthur Shawcrossm, Kenneth McDuff, and  Daniel Camargo Barbosa. Various people who are opposed to the death penalty say that Capital Punishment condemns the innocent to die. According Amendment V in the United States Bill of Rights, â€Å"No person shall be held to answer for a capital crime, or otherwise infamous crime unless on a presentment of an indictment of â€Å"grand jury†. While it is true that a few innocent people have â€Å"slipped through the cracks† of the justice system and been convicted and executed unfairly, it   is extremely rare. Usually, attorney’s find new evidence to support a criminal’s innocence by the time all appeals have been exhausted. Perhaps the most important factor in determining whether a defendant will receive the death penalty is the quality of the representation he or she is provided. Almost all defendants in capital cases cannot afford their own attorneys. In many cases, the appointed attorneys are overworked, underpaid, or lacking the trial experience required for death penalty cases. There have even been instances in which lawyers appointed to a death penalty case were so inexperienced that they were completely unprepared for the sentencing phase of the trial. Other appointed attorneys have slept through parts of the trial, or arrived at the court under the influence of alcohol. FACTS ABOUT ATTORNEY S AND THE DEATH PENALTY: †¢Almost all defendants who face capital charges cannot afford an attorney and rely on the state to appoint one for them. However, often times appointed attorneys are overworked, underpaid, lack critical resources, and are either incompetent or inexperienced. As a result when death sentences are set aside by the federal courts, it is often because among other reasons the trial attorney was so incompetent that the accused’s constitutional right to effective counsel was violated. Slipski 4 †¢In 2009, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions conducted an official visit to the United States to examine the administration of the death penalty in Alabama and Texas. Alabama has the highest per capita rate of executions in the United States, while Texas has the largest total number of executions and one of the largest death row  populations after California and Florida. The Special Rapporteur expressed concern about deficiencies in the administration of the death penalty in Alabama and Texas, including â€Å"the lack of adequate counsel for indigent defendants.† He called for the two states â€Å"to establish well-funded, state-wide public defender services† and recommended that â€Å"oversight of these should be independent of the executive and judicial branches.† The state of Alabama has no statewide public defender system even though its death row occupants are overwhelmingly poor with 95% indigent. †¢An examination of 461 capital cases by The Dallas Morning News found that nearly one in four condemned inmates has been represented at trial or on appeal by court-appointed attorneys who have been disciplined for professional misconduct at some point in their careers. †¢An investigation by the Texas Defender Service found that, â€Å"Death row inmates today face a one-in-three chance of being executed without having the case properly investigated by a competent attorney and without having any claims of innocence or unfairness presented or heard.† †¢In North Carolina, at least 16 death row inmates, including 3 who were executed, were represented by lawyers who have been disbarred or disciplined for unethical or criminal conduct. With all this being said regarding lawyers and the accused what do you think? Do you think if the accused had an expensive attorney that they would not be facing the death penalty and get life in prison instead? I guess that this is a question that we all would love to have the answer to. As they say money makes the world go round. Think of all the costs that are involved with the death penalty. Tax payers pay to house, cloth, food, and the medical bills alone for this one inmate will cost us millions. All the millions of dollars that are spent on this one life can be used to better our communities, or schools, educate our children, who are our future. We should stop wasting money on rehabilitation for these inmates, and put the money into what is important, our children, the future of The US. I fully support the death penalty, it makes me so upset to think back to the Cheshire, CT murders, the amount of money spent on two men who were caught at the scene of the crime, confessed to murdering an innocent woman and her kids, and beating her husband almost to death.  They should have been executed the day after they committed that horrific crime. Instead, the government wasted and is still wasting millions of dollars on two criminals who do not deserve to see the light of day. Something needs to change in our government. I believe Connecticut should be more like Texas. A state that enforces Capital Punishment to the fullest. Enough is enough! Criminals should not be running our lives and getting away with murder, literally! In conclusion, after reading all the facts stated above, how do you feel about the death penalty? Do you think we should be paying for these criminals to live in prison with a meal, a bed to sleep in, medical attention, and clothes on their backs? In my opinion the answer would be, no. Then again, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. The punishment should fit the crime, and I am all for an â€Å"eye for an eye†, â€Å"a tooth for a tooth†, what about you? Works Cited: Bureau of Justice Statistics. 16 Feb. 2006. The U.S. Department of Justice. 29 Nov. 2006. Texas Department of Criminal Justice www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/dr_facts.html U.S. Death Penalty Facts Amnesty International USA, www.amnestyusa.org Death Penalty Information Deathpenaltyinfo.org

Analysis of the U.S Sitcom Modern family from three theoretical perspectives Free Essay Example, 2000 words

Among the cultural theories that apply to the modern American families as portrayed in the comedy include functionalism and ecological theories. Structural functionalism theorists explain the role of different institutions and the influence that such institutions have on the development of families. Among the relevant institutions in the modern-day, American societies include schools, governments and families all of which play fundamental role in the interactions in the society. The comedy provides a relationship of numerous institutions including the family institution, schools and the government that influence the mindset and the development of the characters. In season four episode 23 for example stresses the interaction among families and the transfer of values from one family to another. Different families in the comedy have specific structures with the members of such families relating at various levels. When two or three of the families share a platform, the difference of the structures of the family readily manifest themselves thereby presenting the kind of conflicts in the contemporary urban American society. In the episode, Phil buys a new van with which he hopes to take his family on a trip to Florida. We will write a custom essay sample on Analysis of the U.S Sitcom Modern family from three theoretical perspectives or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now This implies that the unity of a family is a fundamental social feature in the urban American society, as the family remains the basis social institution. Phil just as any other American family man strives to keep his family united by providing his family with safaris occasionally (Althusser 77). However, the van would not serve its purpose owing to the visiting family that also insists that they must accompany Phil’s family in their family expedition. As explained earlier, culture is a dynamic social concept that explains different family values. Family trips is an essential factor in most American families, Phil strives to provide his family a coveted family trip but just as explained families trade such values as the interaction among them intensifies. Phil’s new RV becomes inappropriate owing to the blotted family as their visitors also compete for a space in the van in order to travel with the family. At the same time, Jay and Glo ria obtain a perfect opportunity to snoop around Claire and Mitchells houses in the guise of helping Manny find her misplaced rucksack. Despite their crowded settlement arrangement, the three families enjoy their own privacies. Privacy remains a fundamental cultural feature in the modern day American society. People therefore make appropriate settlement arrangements in order to overcome the challenges that may arise from such social arrangements.