Downsizing Of The American Penal System - 1474 Words

Literature Review Downsizing From the 1920s to the early 1970s the United States was experiencing a state of stability when it comes to the American Penal System. Murayama (1970) speaks on the American penal system, her main focus when taking a look at the system was the issue of mass incarceration. Murayama (1970, pp 629) states that since 1970 the number of people that are incarcerated has quadrupled. As a result of this corrections experts that were both inside and outside government began to emphasize two major goals for the American penal system. First was to address the concern about rehabilitation and second was to find a way to stabilize the size of the U.S. prison system. A National Advisory Commission report from 1973 was†¦show more content†¦The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 was signed into law President Clinton in an attempt to reduce crime. The Act called for 100,000 new officers, $9.7 billion budget for prisons and $6.1 billion in funding for programs that are des igned for prevention of crimes which were designed with significant input from experienced police officers. (1998) Currently there are 2.2 million adults in the U.S. penal population which is the largest in the world. Slightly under twenty-five percent of the world s prisoners are held in American prisons. The rate that americans are being incarceration is 5 to 10 times higher than the rates in areas Western Europe and other democracies. (2014, pp 3) Travis states that the American prison population is mostly composed of individuals that are consider â€Å"disadvantaged part† of the nation s population. These type of people included men under age 40, minority, and poorly educated. (pp 6) The growth of incarceration in the United States during four decades has prompted numerous critiques and a growing body of scientific knowledge about what prompted the rise and what its consequences have been for the people imprisoned, their families and communities, and for U.S. society. (p p. 11-12) Types of Crimes Brown states that people are deeply concerned that the Justice system is locking individuals up for petty crimes such as jaywalking. Brown made it clear that he was against the use/need for

Sarbanes Oxley Act Research Paper free essay sample

Abstract The purpose of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is to protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures made pursuant to the securities law, and for other purposes. (Lander, 2004) The Act created new standards for public companies and accounting firms to abide by. After multiple business failures due to fraudulent activities and embezzlement at companies such as Enron Sarbanes and Oxley recognized a need for the revamping of our financial systems laws, rules and regulations. Thus, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was born. II. Background/Purpose The Sarbanes Oxley Act was signed into law on July 30, 2002 by then President George W. Bush. After major scandals involving multiple large firms embezzling funds, two Senators took on the task of revamping the financial system criteria to the laws in place currently. Senator Paul Sarbanes was a Democrat representing the state of Maryland in the United States Senate for thirty years. In 2002, he was the Senate sponsor of the Sarbanes Oxley Act which was unanimously passed 99-0 in the 100-member Senate. Michael Oxley was a Republican representing the state of Ohio in the House of Representatives, while a member Oxley served as the chairman of the Committee of Financial Services. Oxley was the House of Representatives sponsor of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act which passed overwhelmingly with a 423-3 vote in 2002. After the Act was put into law both retired from their positions. (Institute, 2010) The Sarbanes- Oxley Act was established to revitalize investor’s belief that the financial market is a sound body and uncorrupt. The Act focuses primarily on large public firms in light of failing corporate giants such as Enron, which incurred over 1. 2 billion dollars in debt and had to file bankrupt. Looking deeper into the Enron scandal, the company created subsidiary organizations (that were named after Star War characters) to hide its financial dismay and declining financial status. As a result of these careless gestures stakeholders for Enron suffered juristically, their stock value plummeted and anyone with an investment in Enron lost big time. The corporate level executives were aware of this upcoming judgment day and failed to report to their investors or employees. Enron’s stock price peaked at $90 per share which raised flags about there being no supporting evidence behinds these claims of financial superiority. First, Forbes released an article questioning the stock prices without evidence and then Vice President of Corporate Development blew the whistle and exposed Enron and all of its upper managements wrong doing. Parties involved lost everything, but the major players were penalized by fines or jail time. Kadlec, 2002)The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was put in place to control the public dismay along with preventing this massive injustice to Americans and our financial system from happening in the future. III. Economic Impact Our economy has become increasingly complex and is expanding beyond our country’s creators imagined. Our financial system cannot function properly without the guidelines put in place by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, it’s a wonder our economy has functioned until its creation. There is no telling what amount of fraud or embezzlement has taken place since the creation of our country’s financial structure without these guidelines. Accounting principles set in place by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act maintain the credibility of the accounting profession and financial system as a whole; it serves as a checks and balances mechanism. The biggest change in result of SOX was the creation of the Public Company Oversight Board which provides oversight for auditors of public companies establishes auditing and quality control standards for public company audits and performs inspections of the quality controls at audit firms performing those audits. Arens, Elder, Beasley, 2013) Another particular â€Å"game changing† piece of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is Section 404 which created unprecedented requirements regarding reporting internal control procedures. (Green, 2004) IV. Requirements for Publicly Traded Companies Public companies issuing securities, public accounting firms, and firms providing auditing services whether they are domestic or foreign must comply with Sarbanes-Oxley. (Sarbanes-Oxley Act Section 404, 2002) Additionally, publicly traded companies with a market capitalization greater than $75 million must comply with these new rules.(Don E. Garner, 2008) A company’s management is required to provide an external auditor with all financial statements for the current review period. Upon reviewing these statements the auditor issues a report classified as unqualified, unqualified with explanation, qualified, adverse, or disclaimer based on what they find or do not find. All public companies reports are availab le on the Securities Exchange Committees website, below is a sample of what this report looks like. You can imagine what a relief this was for investors, to be able to search any company and find statements solidifying their prospective investment. Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm The Board of Directors and Shareholders of McDonald’s Corporation We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of McDonald’s Corporation as of  December  31, 2012  and  2011, and the related consolidated statements of income, comprehensive income, shareholders’ equity, and cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended  December  31, 2012. These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company’s management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on these financial statements based on our audits. We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States). Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement. An audit includes examining, on a test basis, evidence supporting the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. An audit also includes assessing the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall financial statement presentation. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion. In our opinion, the financial statements referred to above present fairly, in all material respects, the consolidated financial position of McDonald’s Corporation at  December  31, 2012  and  2011, and the consolidated results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended  December  31, 2012, in conformity with  U. S. generally accepted accounting principles. We also have audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States), McDonald’s Corporation’s internal control over financial reporting as of  December  31, 2012, based on criteria established in Internal Control-Integrated Framework issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission, and our report dated  February  25, 2013, expressed an unqualified opinion thereon. ERNST YOUNG LLP Chicago, Illinois February  25, 2013 McDonalds Corporation  2012 Annual Report  45 Young, 2013) In its annual report, the Company must report on internal controls over its financial reporting. Four key elements must be included in this report: Statement of Responsibility by Company Management (the CEO and CFO) for establishing and maintaining an adequate internal control structure and procedures for financial reporting. Secondly, Statement identifying the framework used by management to evaluate the effectiveness of the Companys internal control over financial reporting. Managements Assessment of the effectiveness of Internal Controls over financial reporting. Lastly, Attestation by the companys external auditor on Managements assessment of the effectiveness of the companys internal controls and procedures for financial reporting. (Sarbanes-Oxley Act Section 404, 2002) V. Impact on Company Costs/Market Implementing SOX requirements can be particularly costly to qualifying companies. In addition to being responsible for the entire audit cost, they are responsible for implementing and updated an internal controls system. The Act imposes heavy penalties for all that do not remain in compliance. Slaughter, 2012) After the Enron scandal investors were extremely weary with their investments SOX had a two part effect on the market. First, the authors of the bill intended to give investors’ confidence in a previously broken market. Second, the law aimed to cut short opportunities for companies to defraud institutional and individual investors. The Sarbanes Oxley Act inadvertently may have shrunk the market, by setting these requirements they discouraged some small and medium sized businesses from going public to avoid these extra costs. Additionally, this act has kept away some of the foreign business’ because of all of the regulation associated with being a public firm in the United States. VI. Effectiveness Sarbanes-Oxley is effective as it was created to be. SOX was not created to put an all-out stop to fraudulent activity, but to monitor and control it as much as possible. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is underrated in my opinion; it put a major stop to these horrifying activities of corporate level executives thinking they can just ride off into the sunset with other people’s money. The Act holds these people and their organizations accountable and has an actual protocol how companies should be reviewed and what the consequences are for non-complying companies. Although costly to businesses this is what is best for the financial market and the investors for work together and thrive. Paul Regan, president of accountancy Hemming Morse in San Francisco and a pioneer forensic accountant, notes that â€Å"there’s still plenty of fraud. But if we didn’t have Sarbanes-Oxley, the misstatements would be significantly worse. † (Curtis C.Verschoor, 2012) Barbara Roper, director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America, expresses reservations about the law’s efficiency â€Å"Sarbanes-Oxley has clearly enhanced the integrity of the financial markets and the quality of financial reporting,† she says. â€Å"My criticism is that the reforms are being eroded. It’s chugging along but still facing challenges. † ( Office, 2006) Works Cited Arens, A. A. , Elder, R. J. , Beasley, M. S. (2013). Auditing and Assurance Services. Old Tappan, NJ: Pearson Education. Curtis C. Verschoor, C. (2012, September 05). Has Sox Been Successful?

USC Receives Largest Increase in Applicants in 20 Years

University of Southern California has always been one of the most competitive universities in the US. This year, the competition got ever tougher. USC received a total of 64,000 applications for the Class of 2022. That’s a 14% increase from the 56,000 applications the university received the year before. It’s the largest applicant pool USC has ever had, and the largest percentage increase the university has seen in the last 20 years. The large applicant pool means the admissions office has no choice but to force the acceptance rate even lower. This year 8,200 students were offered admissions to be a part of the USC Class of 2022. USC acceptance rate dropped by 3% from last year to an all-time-low 13% acceptance rate. Last year, USC’s freshmen class size was 3,358 with a 37.1% yield. USC should expect a similar class size, with the hopes of boosting their percentage yield. The accepted students this year are diverse and high-achieving. The accepted students of the Class of 2022 has an average unweighted GPA of 3.86, and 1 in 7 of them are the first in their family to go to college. 26% are from underrepresented minorities (black, Latino, Native American, and some who reported multiple ethnicities), 25% Asian, 16% Latino and 6% African American. Additionally, 17% of the accepted students are international students from China, South Korea, Canada, India, Brazil and more. Congratulations to the USC Class of 2022! We’re excited to see what you do as a USC Trojan. Whether you got into your dream school or not, your admissions experience is valuable and we want to feature your application story. Join otherUSC Admitsand turn your success into insights for future applicants bycreating a profile. Plus, you get to earn some extra money!

Keep Your Body In Top Condition With Our Health And Wellness Tips

Keep Your Body In Top Condition With Our Health And Wellness Tips Freedom comes in various ways to the college freshmen and continues to reign throughout college. Students daily face new decisions, assignments writing, difficulties and problems and can quickly let their health fall to the wayside. They find it difficult to maintain healthy lifestyles that afterwards negatively effects their mental health, effective studying process and regular sleep. However, with a few simple changes in your diet, sleep and exercise habits it will become easier to preserve a healthy living. Well-being of both your physical and mental health is guaranteed! Nutrition What you drink and eat has a direct impact on your overall wellness. Most college students cannot maintain a healthy diet because of busy schedules. However, without careful attitude to your eating habits, you can easily put on that freshman 15 or even more. Keep the following healthy eating tips in mind to avoid sickness, impaired mental function and lack of energy: Dont skip breakfast. Begin your day with a balanced, healthy meal. If you are short of time, just take a granola bar or some fruit with you and eat it on your way to college. Drink enough water. It is well-known that consuming water is essential for better concentration and keeping yourself from overeating. Thats why take a bottle of water with you to classes. Limit fast food. No doubt, junk food is tasty and easy to consume when you are short of time. However, make sure that eating fast food doesnt become your habit. Drink alcohol moderately. Students are notorious for binge drinking and partying. Consume alcohol beverages in moderation to avoid a lot of calories and hangovers. Dont fight stress by eating. When youre stressed before the exam or important event, it can be yummy to eat some cookies or chips. Instead of grabbing snacks, think about having a break or working out. Exercise Sport and exercise reduce stress, boost brain function, improve mood and quality of sleep. Fitting in exercise into the busy college schedule isnt easy, but consider the following tips to make it a part of your regular routine: Walk to class. Of course, taking a bus is much quicker, but walking to college allows you to burn some calories and just enjoy the nature before a busy day at college. Visit a gym. Most college campuses provide students with perfect sport facilities. Find out what your particular college offers and get active. Ride a bike. Biking will give you a few minutes of exercise before and after classes. Its fun and active. Work out with a friend. With someone else youll be more likely to exercise. Take advantage of such opportunity and you wont be bored for sure. Invest in some low cost home gym equipment. Youd be surprised at just how inexpensive many pieces of home gym exercise equipment are. Check out a website such as HomeFitnessTalk.com for some great home workout ideas! Sleep Are you getting enough sleep? If you are like most college students, probably not. Unfortunately, a lack of sleep causes stress, depression, high blood pressure and decreases productivity. Follow these tips to ensure you are resting enough. Dont study in bed. Try to divide your sleep space from work space as working in bed can make getting to sleep harder. Keep your room quiet and dark. If you want to get asleep, make your room cool and dark. Your body will prepare to the resting time much easier. Take naps. If you have some free time during the day, take a short nap. Youll be surprised how it can boost your energy level. Discuss bedtimes with your roommate. If you share a room with someone, discuss the sleeping times as each of you have own schedules. Your health and wellness depends on how you take care of yourself. Be sure to follow our simple tips to develop better habits for a healthy lifestyle. Be happy and energetic!

Tips for Remembering How to Spell Wednesday and Other Tricky Words

Tips for Remembering How to Spell Wednesday and Other Tricky Words Some words are tricky to spell even when you’re an adult, so imagine being a young learner trying to remember all those spelling rules. There are many tricky words in the English language and spelling rules don’t always apply.  The old adage â€Å"rules were made to be broken† is certainly true when it comes to spelling rules. â€Å"I before e except after c† is usually true  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ except for words like weird, heist, and feisty. If your student (or you!) always has a particular word or two that prove challenging, try these tricks, a  mnemonic device, or even a rhyme to help you remember. These tips can help your students remember how to spell commonly confused words like Wednesday, weird, niece, Renaissance, dessert, beautiful, accommodate, separate, and together.   How to Spell Wednesday One of the easiest ways for remembering how to spell Wednesday is to break it down into its individual syllables- Wed nes day. Pronounce it â€Å"Wed NEZ day† in your mind so that you don’t forget the d in the first syllable or the e in the second. Another trick is to use a mnemonic memory device. A mnemonic device is a technique to improve one’s ability to remember something. A common mnemonic trick is to create an acronym with the beginning letter of each word. For example, a mnemonic device for remembering the planets might be, â€Å"My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos.† This helps us to remember Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Try these mnemonic devices to help you remember how to spell Wednesday or make up one of your own: â€Å"WE Do Not Eat Sandwiches on WednesDAY† or â€Å"WE Do Not Eat Soup DAY.† How to Spell Weird The best way to remember how to spell weird is keeping in mind that it’s  a weird word because it doesn’t follow the â€Å"I before e except after c† rule. If that doesn’t help, try this trick for remembering how to spell it: We are weird.  We is the beginning of weird. How to Spell Niece Niece nicely follows the i before e, except after c rule; but it can still be confusing. Here is a tip to help you remember how to spell niece. My niece is nice.  Ni is the beginning of nice and ni is the beginning of niece. It may also help to remember that niece is spelled like piece, so make up a sentence using those two words to help you remember. Try something like, â€Å"My niece ate a piece of pie.† How to Spell Renaissance One way to remember how to spell renaissance is to think: â€Å"Rena is sance.† This can be particularly helpful if you know someone named Rena. How to Spell Dessert Dessert is tricky because it seems that it would only have one s, making the e a long vowel sound, Similarly, it would seem like desert would need two s’s to avoid the same. These sayings are helpful in remembering which word has one versus two ss. Dessert is twice as good as the desert. Strawberry Shortcake dessert and Sahara desert How to Spell Beautiful One helpful trick is the saying it is important to be a beautiful person inside and out. That way you will remember  beautiful begins with be a. You might also try a mnemonic device such as â€Å"Big Elephants Are Under Trees In Forests Until Light† or make up one of your own. How to Spell Accommodate Remember that accommodate is a big enough word to accommodate two c’s and two m’s. How to Spell Separate Many people misspell separate because of the as and es in the word. An easy way to remember to spell separate is to remember that there is a rat in the middle of the word. How to Spell Together As a young student just learning to spell, a trick to spelling together is by breaking the word down to â€Å"to get her.†

Quality Management and Accountability Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Quality Management and Accountability - Essay Example Key to the success of the implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) programs are seven characteristics namely, the amount of influence exerted by the change agents, their responsibility and autonomy in specific areas of assignments, space for innovative ideas, adaptability to change, satisfaction, teamwork and shared vision coupled with a benchmarking criterion towards the objectives (Weeks, Helms & Ettkin, 1995). These characteristics rest upon a common a propellant perception of agents concerning the needed change. The new millennium heralded a phase of new challenges in many sectors, and so healthcare organizations haven’t been spared either. With the expectation of taming escalating costs, pressures to modernize, harmonize and reconcile quality with the former have force their way to accreditation boards, the media and concerned agencies. Embracing partnerships becomes unavoidable under these circumstances. Quality improvement, therefore, becomes more of a â€Å"te am sport† that engages individual centered processes into a comprised common vision. Precisely, teams are collaborative integral components of quality improvement efforts involving persons operating either from the same or different disciplines but with a shared vision of optimizing patient-service outcomes (Ovretveit, 1999). Notably, success within healthcare organizations operates more or less like powerful sport cars whose quick movements depends on the engine inexistence and the control mechanics applied. Employee engagement is the hallmark of connectivity within any organization. An engaged personnel gives an organization the power it so requires to make tangible moves towards its mission with an accelerated propensity in compared to those of the competitors. From the top management down the apex of leadership role, a synergetic approach with results concerning the work load only comes with prior and proper understanding and agreement on the course taken (Weeks, Helms & E ttkin, 1995). Accordingly, success comes with assured, climatic readiness for change. The relationship between physicians directly responsible for matters of healthcare and hospital executives charged with administrative responsibilities spanning from regulatory obligations to resource control is critical to any aspect of quality improvement process. The real enemy to the process of change lies in a dysfunctional healthcare system (Fawcett, et al., 1995). As mentioned above, there needs to be commonality in values and concerns share by both physicians and healthcare executives as the basic framework for successful communication bridging the hierarchical gap towards a collaborative, as opposed to confrontational/competitive relationship (Bero, et al., 1998). A functional workforce-engagement criterion holds the key to clinical priorities with regards to useful new technologies required as well as essentiality of scientific methodologies in tandem with evidence-based decision making. Further, understanding and agreement are important planning, implementation, and assessment tools. According to the case study done by Weeks, Helms, and Ettkin (1995), the degree of understanding and agreement of the course taken by healthcare entities lacks uniformity with wide discrepancies over perceptive responses touching on matters of change. Whereas the need for change is plausible in the responses from the executive wing

Database Modeling Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Database Modeling - Essay Example It might be important to have alternative contact addresses for students in case of unexpected situations. Therefore, in order to cater for such a situation, we need to create additional tables to handle the addresses. One table named email-address will contain the following fields: id, email address and student-id. Likewise, another table named phone-number will be created containing the following fields: id, phone number, and student-id. Finally, another table will be street-details. This table will have the following fields: id, street-name, city-name, state, and student-id. The four tables created to satisfy the requirements of 1NF. They are also in 2NF since they do not contain any partial dependencies. All fields in each table are uniquely reliant on the respective primary key as 2NF requires (Buxton, 2009). The four tables also fulfill the requirements of 3Nf since all fields present depend on the primary key for their values. The next table that requires normalization is named course-information. This table contains the following fields: Course-Id, course-title, and course credit. This table is already in first normal form since it does not contain multi-valued fields. This table also fulfills the requirements of 2NF since all fields in the table rely uniquely on the primary key. This table also fulfills the requirements of 3NF since each field in that table is dependent on the primary key. The last thing now is to create a relationship between a student and the courses that they take. This can be done by employing a many to many relationships between student-information table and course-information table. In order to accomplish this relationship, another table is required.