Crime in Human nature

Crime in Human nature Introduction I believe that some humans are born inherently good and are all born with a clean slate. I believe that some people commit crimes because of biological, psychological and sociological reasons. I also believe that environment causes people to change and become evil over time. This change can be from good to bad and can be temporary or permanent. In essence, you might have committed a violent crime in the past and now have become a born again Christian. There is also the population that never commits a serious offense but will continue to break minor laws. And last but not least are those who are good and continue to be good throughout life with little or no deviation. These are all reasons of why I believe humans are born inherently good. As I stated, events throughout ones life can cause them to change and go bad. For example, if your father abused you when you were a child and that transposed in to you abusing your child. Then there is a high probability that your child we grow up to abuse his children. In regards to the example, some theorists would argue that this family has criminal genes and that this type of abuse is hereditary. Not all child abuse victims grow up to abuse. In rehabilitation, a child could be removed from an abusive situation and overtime heal not go on to repeat abusive acts. So, I do believe in rehabilitation. In this research paper I will be discussing some of the many theories of crime to support my opinion of why I believe people are inherently good, not evil. The first school I will use to support my opinion of why people are inherently good is the positivist school. The positivist school began in the late nineteenth century and ignited a scientific revolution in criminology. It was founded by Cesare Lombroso and his students Enrico Ferri and Raffaele Garofalo. These were known as the founders of positivist criminology. They focused more on the actual criminals and not the crimes themselves Summary Classical criminologists focus on the crimes themselves and not the actual individuals who commit crimes. Positivist criminologists stress the causes of criminal behavior, such as causation and multiple factor causation. Just like I suggest, positivists agree that ones individual behavior is more or less determined by factors with the individual or in his or her external environment (Curran Renzetti, p. 16). The positivist school uses the scientific method in order to find the reasons and causes of criminality. Through history, human behavior has been measured and recorded and used to make important theories of why crimes are committed. Classical criminologists believe that crime is committed by offenders and that decision to commit crimes is not a result of rational decision and that it is out of their control. If that were to be true, then what good would punishment do? If crimes are committed because people are inherently evil, then punishment would be ineffective. Positivists and I believe that offenders should be committed to treatment in order to have a chance at being rehabilitated and that people are inherently good. With the strategy of rehabilitation, criminologists can measure multiple offenders progress from intake to release. This provides positivist criminologists a starting and ending point for measurement comparing offenders and rehabilitation. Criminologists can also conduct ongoing evaluations over one individuals life and recommend certain treatments to continue the rehabilitation process after initial release. For some, the rehabilitation process can take a lifetime, for others it could be quicker, depending on ones condition. Unlike the Classical School, the Positivist School believes that strict standard sentences are detrimental to the rehabilitation process. Positivist School believes in indeterminate sentencing for offenders. This type of sentencing allows for more flexible correctional strategies to aid in offenders rehabilitation into society. This would allow for each offender to be sentenced to just the right amount of time in a correctional facility that would aid in his or her rehabilitation. Thus, determinate and or mandatory sentencing policies are not part of the Positivist School and are of the Classical School. Opposed to the classical school, the criminal justice system has a duty to treat offenders of all types of crimes and to rehabilitate them back in to society Conclusion Next, the Chicago school will be discussed to support my opinion of why external factors cause humans to commit crimes. The Chicago school looks at crime and individuals from the sociological perspective of external factors. Unlike theorists that see internal factors such as biological, physiological and psychological as reasons to support theories of why people commit crime. Those internal factors mentioned would belong to the classical school of criminality and theories of crime not in favor of my opinion of why people are inherently good. The Chicago school was founded in 1892 at the University of Chicago. Many members of the facilities had similar upbringings and beliefs. They were children of skilled parents, born in small rural towns and lived on acres of land. Well in the 1900s a surge of immigrants, mainly from African American and European descent came to live and work in Chicago and other industrialized cities like it. Many of them had no money at all, and their cultural and religious beliefs were different than that of contemporary America at the time. In response to the increase of population, especially from immigration, the Chicago sociologists decided to bring on a social transformation. Social deviance was studied to see whether inner cities have higher rates of crime than that of urban areas further away from the center of the city. Robert Park from the Chicago School found that the further one moved away from the center of the city, the less chance of being involved in a crime. So for individuals living in the center of the city, social disorganization would occur. This is a result from their study in Chicago in 1928. Inner cities were mixed with different groups of people that had different beliefs and values, there were no social norms and it was a socially disorganized area. All of the social external factors such as values and norms created a break down since no two groups could agree on a common social goal. These external factors brought a breakdown in the inner-city and several forms of social deviance occurred, the end result was crime. Like Shaw and McKay, I believe that the best way to control crime is to prevent juvenile delinquency. Juvenile delinquency is a major course of concern because many juvenile delinquents become career criminals. A study by Shaw and McKay showed that external factors in inner-city life caused higher juvenile delinquency rates. They actually concluded that race or ethnicity were causes of crime. Shaw and McKay also found that it was the neighborhoods themselves that caused one person to become a delinquent and the other not to be. Those neighborhoods in the city were in poor condition, with sub standard living arrangements. Based on my opinion from the above studies, I would suggest some changes for the criminal justice system. For example, police departments could focus more of their efforts on community policing and some of their efforts on hard nose policing. I believe that a mixture of both policing strategies has to be used in order to reduce all types of crimes. For example, hard nose policing should be introduced into the neighborhoods that consistently have high crime rates. Like in the study by Park in Chicago, neighborhoods with little to no crime would probably not need such a hard nose policing strategy and be better suited for community policing and mild patrols. But the inner city or Zone 1 as in their study would need a harder nose policing strategy. Community policing would not work well in the inner-city or Zone 1 because many of the individuals did not communicate or reside in that loop. The court systems use a combination of indeterminate, determinate and mandatory sentencing policies depending on what State and crime you are talking about. They use different sentencing policies to ensure the safety and welfare of the public and to keep repeat and violent offenders behind bars. We cant just have a bunch of convicted violent offenders with ankle bracelets all over the streets, one could say. Lesser offense non violent crimes are better applied to indeterminate sentencing. Indeterminate sentencing believes in rehabilitation and treating offenders to ensure that they will not repeat or commit a new crime. Some states have a combination of indeterminate programs and indeterminate sentencing systems in their courts. For example, when the judge says 5 to 10 years, he is giving a range, this is indeterminate sentence. If the judge were to say ten years, then that would be determinate or mandatory based on the crime. If it were California, then it would be a mandatory third strike and youre out policy. In Utah indeterminate sentencing is used, allowing inmates a chance to be released early from prison. Inmates might have a sentence reduction if they show good behavior. In the above example which takes place in Utah, an offender can get out in five years instead of the full ten, if he or she completes all necessary programs, shows good behavior and has been rehabilitated. Different statutes have different sentencing ranges for crimes committed. When it comes time to get released, the Board of Pardons and Parole will decide on when you will actually leave prison. Indeterminate sentencing gives hope to offenders and a chance for them to take responsibility for their actions and lives. This is because their release dates from prison are on how well they behave in prison and what positive changes they have made in life. This type of sentencing gives a different board a chance to see the validity between the actual crime and the person themselves. Indeterminate sentencing is one method that the criminal justice system uses to help in controlling and preventing crime. In regards to the death penalty, I think that we should continue to use it. Certain criminals should not be allowed to be rehabilitated. Rehabilitation is a privilege and should only be given to those who have committed murder or some other type of heinous crime. If people are inherently good, can the death penalty be legitimately used?

Discuss the Aphorism “Small Firm Growth Being the Only Measure of an Entrepreneur’s Success”.

INTRODUCTION Business growth is a good goal for most firms in general and is given great weight by the society. This could be seen with the list conjured up by the media, such as ‘Forbes Fast-Growing Companies’ and ‘Inc Fastest Growing Companies’ lists (Hupato 2011). The reason small firm growth has been prioritised by policy makers and the society is mainly due to its contribution to the economy (Bridge, O’Neill & Martin 2009). Small firm and entrepreneurship have so often been linked together, and it has become common to acknowledge that all small firms are established by entrepreneurs.Hence, the terms such as growth, success and performance are often linked in the research of entrepreneurial success (Reijonen & Komppula 2007). However, if entrepreneurship is defined as creation of new economic activity, the aspect of firm growth is already defined the moment the entrepreneur introduced new products or services (Davidsson, Achtenhagen & Naldi 2010). In other words, growth is not an aspect of entrepreneurship if growth is measured solely on volume expansion of existing products or through acquisitions of existing business.Schumpeter has also mentioned that one can be entrepreneurial without being self-employed and vice versa (Utsch, Rauch, Rothfufs & Frese 1999). Entrepreneurship remains an enigma till date and the assumption that all small firms are creations of an entrepreneur is arguable. Davidsson, Achtenhagen & Naldi (2010) has described, even a superficial reading on the complexity of small firm growth literature could easily leave the reader confused. Thus, the aphorism of small firm growth being the only measure of an entrepreneur’s success should be looked upon from different perspectives.The dimensions of small firm growth and also the perspectives of entrepreneurial success will be analysed to see the degree of its correlation and to judge how true the mentioned aphorism is. What is small firm growth? Generall y, growth of a business occurs in phases in a small business life cycle. A business venture would normally encounter three-stage development process, namely the ‘seed’ stage, the ‘start-up’ stage and the ‘expansion’ stage (Mukherjee 1992).The ‘seed’ stage brings a well-conceived idea into existence, while the ‘start-up’ stage included employment and accumulating business capital, and the ‘expansion’ stage involves manufacturing or service capacity increment (Mukherjee 1992). On the other hand, Bridge, O’Neill & Martin (2009) has suggested five stages of small firm growth, namely ‘existence’, ‘survival’, ‘success’, ‘take-off’ and ‘maturity’. Helms & Renfrow (1994) has supported the concept of the five stages of various developmental growth stages when they conducted a research in United States.Bridge, O’Neill & Martin (2009) defi ned the five stages as the following: the ‘existence’ stage is similar to the ‘seed’ stage explained previously, while the ‘survival’ stage involves customer familiarisation with the firm’s product or service. The ‘success’ stage is when there are options for further growth, thus the ‘take-off’ stage where the owner opted to grow the business larger. The business will reach the ‘maturity’ stage when it displays the characteristics of a large company.However, the mentioned researchers have concluded that it is difficult to clearly define the business development stages clearly during throughout the business cycle (Bridge, O’Neill & Martin 2009). Despite the challenging task to categorise growth, researchers would still generally use the small business growth as indicator of success since it is common parlance to suggest that success requires growth, to stand still is to die (Geneste & Weber 20 11). There are enormous literatures on theories of growth and are most commonly associated with generation of jobs.In the early years, entrepreneurship has been the main focus due to its significant employment opportunities that was created. This reason remained strong today thus gaining the attention from policy-makers in each country. In fact, the number of employees a firm has become an important factor for classifying a small firm (Helms & Renfrow 1994). Research shows that young high-growth firms (also commonly known as ‘gazelles’) generate a large share of all new net jobs (Roper 2012).Robbins, Pantuosco, Parker & Fuller (2000) has also confirmed in their research that a state with large quantity of small business has lower rates of unemployment compared to other states that has little quantity of small businesses. The reason employment rates are valuable in measuring growth is because each firm will grow until they reach the optimal size that corresponds to minim um average cost (Hart 2000). Thus, each firm will continue to employ during its growth stage until it reaches the efficient scale or natural decay.However, other research has proved that it is difficult to measure small firm performance by employee growth. This is due to moderating variables such as outsourcing activities, productivity changes and replacement of employees with capital investments (Fitzsimmons, Steffens & Douglas 2005). When business grow in this the rapid changing modem world, many production and service functions has been contracted out (Bridge, O’Neill & Martin 2009). In other words, a business can grow without having any increase in employment rate.Several academicians argued that sales precede other yardsticks for business growth, as pointed out that it is the increase in sales that necessitates the increase in the number of employees hired (Davidsson, Achtenhagen & Naldi 2010). Sales revenue performance is used as small firm’s growth because it mi rrors the consumer’s demand for the product or services provided by the firm (Fitzsimmons, Steffens & Douglas 2005). In this world of constant returns, the consumer’s demand for the product or services determines the limit on the firm’s growth.Sales figures easily reflect both short-term and long-term changes in the firm, hence measuring the growth and performance. However, there are two reasons that deviate sales as business growth yardstick. Firstly, the typical downward sloping demand curve is not applicable in practice. Just as a habitual entrepreneur starts more than one business, a firm can also have product differentiation (Hart 2000). Hence, it is difficult to determine the demand and cost curves in imperfect competition market condition.Secondly, sales are not an accountable measure during first few stages of the business cycle. During the seed and the start-up stage, employment and assets may grow more extensively before any significant sale has been d one (Fitzsimmons, Steffens & Douglas 2005). In this context, assets are in the form tangible ‘fixed’ assets and intangible assets such as of entrepreneur’s knowledge asset, the reputation of the firm (Bridge, O’Neill & Martin 2009) and quantity of registered patents. Hence, business growth could not be measured by sales alone.Looking from another dimension, a firm’s profitability could be suggested as an important measure of growth for the simple reason that a firm is unable to sustain without profits. The difference between maximised sales and maximised profit is that the marginal revenue is zero when sales are maximised but the marginal revenue is positive when profits are maximised (Hart 2000). A firm’s growth on profitability can be considered in term of the net profit margins, return on assets (Fitzsimmons, Steffens & Douglas 2005) or return on equity (Durguner & Katchova 2009).High profit margins, return on assets and return on equity p rovide more confidence for shareholders and potential investors to invest in the firm, enhancing business growth. However, growth rates are highly volatile over duration of time and research has shown that there is no evidence of a relationship between growth and profitability (Fitzsimmons, Steffens & Douglas 2005). In accordance, many articles have reached a conclusion that financial measures alone are not sufficient as business growth and performance measure for small firms (Reijonen & Komppula 2007).This is due to the fact that, just as entrepreneurship, small business sector is hardly homogeneous, and not all of these businesses are operating in the same direction. Some research has even shown that not all small firms are even capable or willing to grow (Papadanki & Chami 2002). What is entrepreneurial success? The capability and willingness to grow of small firms are directly influenced by the business owners’ intention to grow and their self-perception of success.In oth er words, the growth of small business is not a self-evident phenomenon, but it is actually driven by the business owner’s motivations and intentions (Morrison, Breen & Ali 2003). Most business decisions are made by owners, and their own personal judgement will impact on the business growth orientation (Geneste & Weber 2011). Consequently, it can be considered that the role of the entrepreneur should be emphasized as the dominant factor of growth (Reijonen & Komppula 2007). An entrepreneur’s motivation for business growth has to be complemented by his or her willingness to grow and assume risks.The risks involved are such as willingness to delegate control functions to others and the uncertainty to produce more output. The researchers found that due to the risks, small business owners are reluctant to grow and perceives profit-maximisation as only one of the motives for business growth (Papadanki & Chami 2002). This argument draws down to the psychological theories of motivation. The McClelland’s theory of needs defined ‘need for achievement’ as â€Å"the drive to excel, to achieve in relation to a set of standards, and to strive to succeed† (Robbins, Judge, Millet & Boyle 2011).Hence, characteristics of the business owners are linked to the business growth aspirations. In other words, each entrepreneur has their own perception of success depending on their own standard for ‘need for achievement’. To understand the business growth aspirations deeper, the owner’s clusters of traits and behaviours which affect the way they engage in their business activities are examined. The characteristic of the firm owner can be divided into three broad categories, namely ‘life-style’, ‘comfort-zone’ and ‘growth’ (Bridge, O’Neill & Martin 2009).The ‘life-style’ owners are defined to be those who establish the business to provide them a level of income and ha ve no intention for business growth. Geneste & Weber (2011) has identified owners that are not keen to expand their business due to deliberate ‘life-style’ choice, such as the small business atmosphere that engenders comradeship and job satisfaction. The ‘comfort-zone’ owners establish the business and focus on the benefits it can provide for the comfort he or she wants in life and the business growth will be stagnant once the desired comfort level has been achieved.The ‘growth’ owners are the almost ideal business person who maximises the earning potential and continue to grow the business further for the future. Clearly again, the intrinsic motivation of the owner should be examined further in order to understand what entrepreneurial success is. There are many studies that have been conducted to explore an entrepreneur’s intrinsic motivation for his or her business. One piece of research conducted was to compare the start-up motivation s and growth intentions between African-Americans (titled as ‘black’ by the researchers) and Americans (titled as ‘white’ by the researchers).Edelmen, Brush, Manolova & Greene (2010) has conducted a research to investigate new venture among black and white nascent entrepreneurs. In their research, they have discovered three important findings related to business growth. Firstly, nascent entrepreneurs do not associate business establishment outcomes with business growth intention. Secondly, entrepreneurs are motivated to start ventures to fulfil a need for self-realisation. Lastly, it is found that whites are more strongly motivated by the desire for financial success while blacks had higher levels of personal self-confidence.Hypothetically, the findings of this research suggested that blacks inherited the ‘life-style’ motivations while the whites are ‘comfort-zone’ motivated. This research has proved that expected financial outcome s are not as important as noneconomic concern in determining the entrepreneur’s attitude towards growth. The entrepreneurial success is not related to the growth of the firm but for intrinsic satisfaction instead; hence small firm growth should not be the only measure for the entrepreneur’s success.In another piece of research, (Utsch, Rauch, Rothfufs & Frese 1999) has investigated the rapid emergence of entrepreneurs and small firms in East Germany. During the research, the role of personality traits has been clarified and the researchers found an encouraging convergence result in two areas, namely the need for achievement and need for autonomy. In other words, entrepreneurs with high need for autonomy will be more motivated to begin small-scale business ventures and will develop the business further only if they have high need for achievement as well.In parallel to that, Lee & Tai (2010) has conducted a research to investigate the motivators and success of small busi ness in Kazakhstan. Empirical evidence has suggested the entrepreneurs are motivated to achieve financial independence and also to obtain social recognition. This is due to the fact that entrepreneurial endeavours are considered as honourable and also an upgrade on social-status activities. This theory is shows that entrepreneurs in Kazakhstan are more aligned towards the ‘comfort-zone’ characteristics.The mentioned researchers have also concluded that the success of some small firm growth is contributed by the creativity and commitment of all the entrepreneurs. From these two pieces of research, it is further confirmed that entrepreneurs have their own perceptions of success but each individual has different intrinsic motivation to achieve his or her goal, albeit from different geographic locations. Another aspect to consider on perception of entrepreneurial success should be the gender of the owner. Research shows that there are differences across entrepreneur’ s gender on perceptions of success.Male and females entrepreneurs differ in the way they measure their extrinsic and intrinsic dimensions. Previous study has verified that male entrepreneurs tend to emphasize on quantitative measures and economic values while female entrepreneurs emphasize on qualitative measures and social values (Justo, Cruz, de Castro & Coduras 2006). Hypothetically, male entrepreneurs describe success in term of achieving goals while female entrepreneurs define success in terms of doing something fulfilling. The research has also iscovered that the motivation for business success is moderated by the parental status of the entrepreneur. Female entrepreneurs are more motivated venturing into self-employment if they have dependent children under their care and perceived success when they are able to fulfil the need of independence. This hypothesis has been confirmed by Ahmad (2011) when he conducted a research on female entrepreneurs in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In this piece of research, female entrepreneurship has proved to be influenced by the female entrepreneur wanting to spend more quality family time.For these female entrepreneurs, the perception of success was when the desire for autonomy, independence, self-fulfilment and wealth has been achieved. In short, the gender status of the entrepreneur significantly impact on the perceptions of entrepreneurial success where female entrepreneurs depict more on social values as success. Conclusion In conclusion, the dimensions of small firm growth and the perspectives of entrepreneurial success have been discussed to judge how true the aphorism of entrepreneurial success can only be judged by small firm growth.The different stages of business cycle have been identified and the growth of the business occurs in almost all the phases in the five stages of small firm growth in their own way. Growth is included in many aspects, such as growth of the idea, or the growing numbers of customers, or gene rating more returns from the business. Generally, the measurement of growth is mainly based on quantitative values such as employment rate, business sales and profitability among other yardsticks. However, research shows that small firm growth could not be measured on financial and economical terms only.The rate of employment becomes insignificant as the business can grow without hiring any new employees, while sales do not account for the first couple stages of the business cycle and there might be owners who deviate from the main product or service line. Research has also shown that there are no relationship between profitability and growth. Therefore, the entrepreneur’s perception of success should be moderated to measure small firm success. Three types of small firm owner’s characteristics has been identified, namely the ‘life-style’, ‘comfort-zone’ and ‘growth’.From the few pieces of research that has been examined, most of t he entrepreneurs are found to be ‘life-style’ and ‘comfort-zone’ and rarely the ideal ‘growth’ motivated characteristics. The gender of the entrepreneur will also affect the measuring manner of small firm growth success. Each attribute shows the willingness and capability of each owner to further grow their business. Hence, the entrepreneur’s intrinsic motivation plays a vital role in judging and predicting the small firm success.In this context, the intrinsic motivations are such as the need for achievement, autonomy and self-realisation are more important than business growth intentions. In a nutshell, it can be concluded that small firm growth can be a way to measure entrepreneurial success, but it should be based on the standard or level that the entrepreneur has placed emphasis on instead of strictly on monetary values only. REFERENCES Ahmad, SZ 2011, ‘Evidence of the characteristics of women entrepreneurs in the Kingdom of Sa udi Arabia’, International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 123-143.Bridge, S, O’Neill, K & Martin, F 2009, Understanding enterprise: entrepreneurship and small business, 3rd edn, Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire. Davidsson, P, Achtenhagen, L & Naldi, L 2005, ‘Research on small firm growth: a review’, 35th EISB Conference, Barcelona. Durguner, S & Katchova, AL 2009, ‘Measure of small business financial performance from a lender and a borrower perspective’, The Business Review, vol. 13, no. 2, p. 24. Edelman, LF, Brush, CG, Manolova, TS & Greene, PG 2010, ‘Start-up motivations and growth intentions of minority nascent entrepreneurs’, Journal of Small Business Management, Vol. 8, no. 2, p. 174. Fitzsimmons, JR, Steffens, PR & Douglas, EJ 2005, ‘Growth and profitability in small and medium sized Australian firms’, AGSE Entrepreneurship Exchange, Melbourne. Geneste, L & Weber, P 2011, ‘Relatin g small business growth with success: some findings from the 2008 Western Australian small business benchmarks survey’, 8th AGSE International Entrepreneurship Research Exchange, Melbourne. Hart, PE 2000, ‘Theories of firms’ growth and the generation of jobs’, Review of Industrial Organization, vol. 17, no. 3, p. 229.Helms, MM & Renfrow TW 1994, ‘Expansionary process of the small business: a life cycle profile’, Management Decision, vol. 32, no. 9, p. 43. Hupalo, PI, TiE Islamabad, 2012, ‘Measuring success in small business and entrepreneurship’, TiE Islamabad, 12 October 2012,< https://islamabad. tie. org/article/24/measuring-success-small-business-and-entrepreneurship>. Justo, R, Cruz, C, de Castro, J & Coduras, A 2006, ‘Entrepreneurs’ perception of success: examining differences across gender and family status’, IE working paper, Instituto de Empresa Business School.Lee, JW & Tai SW 2010, ‘Motivators a nd inhibators of entrepreneurship and small business development in Kazakhstan’, World Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development, vol. 6, no, p. 61. Morrison, A, Breen, J & Ali, S 2003, ‘Small business growth: intention, ability and opportunity’, Journal of Small Business Management, vol. 41, no. 4, p. 417. Mukherjee, TK 1992, ‘Financing the three stages of the small business cycle: a survey’, Journal of Business and Entrepreneurship, vol. 4, no. 1, p. 33.Papadanki, E & Chami, B, Industry Canada, 2012, ‘Growth determinants of micro-business in Canada’, Government of Canada Publications Ottawa, ON, viewed 12 October 2012, . Reijonen, H & Komppula R 2007, ‘Perception of success and its effect on small firm performance’, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 689-701. Robbins, DK, Pantuosco, LJ, Parker, DF & Fuller, BK 2000, ‘An empirical assessment of contribut ion of small business employment to U.S. state economic performance’, Small Business Economics, vol. 15, no. 4, p. 293. Robbins, SP, Judge, TA, Millet, B & Boyle, M 2011, Organisational Behaviour, 6th end, Pearson Australia, French Forest, NSW. Roper, Stephen 2012, Entrepreneurship : a global perspective, Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY. Utsch, A, Rauch, A, Rothfus,R & Frese, M 1999, ‘Who becomes a small scale entrepreneur in a post-socialist environment: on the differences between entrepreneurs and managers in East Germany’, Journal of Small Business Management, vol. 37, no. 3, p. 31.

Movie Crash Essay Essay

The film â€Å"Crash† written and directed by Paul Haggis was taken place in Los Angeles. This movie illustrates how discrimination and prejudice has affected our everyday lives, due to the misconceptions we have of each other. All the characters in this movie are either victims of prejudice and discrimination or are guilty of it. To help us give more understanding about this movie I am comparing the movie Crash to Joseph Healey textbook, Race, Ethnicity, Gender & Class. In this movie we see a wide range and depth of prejudice and discrimination and it is not only the whites who are prejudice or discriminate but also minorities who are prejudiced and discriminate against other minorities. For better understanding first we need to learn the meaning of prejudice and discrimination. According to Joseph Healey â€Å"Prejudice is tendency of individuals to think and feel in negative ways about members of other groups.† Discrimination on the other hand, is actual, overt, individual behavior† (Healey 96). Healey thinks these two concepts do not always occur together. Healey believes that there are four different combinations of prejudice and discrimination. The first one is Timid bigot, Healey asserts, â€Å"A person who is prejudiced but doesn’t discriminate is a timid bigot† (Healey 96), An example of this is shown in the beginning of the movie Crash, when Dorri and her father, Farhad, are in a gun shop and the owner of the gun shop makes references to Osama bin Laden and Jihad thinking Farhad was Arab. When Dorri tells the gun shop owner that â€Å"You can give me the gun or give me back the money and I am really hoping for the money† (Crash), the gun shop owner gives her the gun because he is in a gun shop business for the money. This scene from the movie Crash shows a perfect example of timid bigotry; the gun shop owner is prejudiced but doesn’t discriminate due to his nature of work, he is a business owner and his interest is to make money. The second combination of prejudice and discrimination Healey mentions in his book is â€Å"Fair-Weather Liberal.† Healey states that â€Å"a person who discriminates without being prejudiced is fair-weather liberal.†(Healey 96). It’s more  like Officer Hansen who gets upset with Officer Ryan’s treatment to Cameron and Christine; he watched this whole scene but couldn’t stop Officer Ryan who is superior of him. He files a complaint against Officer Ryan and obtains his own squad car. Officer Hansen didn’t say anything to Officer Ryan instead he went back to his department and took an action against Officer Ryan. The third combination of prejudice and discrimination Healey mentions in his book is â€Å"All Weather Bigot† is when a â€Å"person is prejudiced and does discriminate† (Healey 96). In this case we can relate this definition to Officer John Ryan, who is white and racist against all color of people. Right after learning that the person who is handling his ailing father’s insurance case is black; he decides to take his frustration out by pulling over Cameron and his wife, who were black. This is also an example of the Scapegoat Hypothesis mentioned in Healey’s book, which describes how â€Å"people sometimes deal with personal failure or disappointment by expressing their anger on a substitute target, not against the object or person that actually caused their frustration† (Healey 98). In this case, Cameron was driving and did not violate any law; still Officer Ryan treated him and his wife Christine as inferior, and went so far as to molest Christine right front of her husband. Officer Ryan showed prejudice and discrimination by misusing his powers; he held Cameron and Christine until they surrendered their dignity. On the other hand, I believe Officer Ryan is not a bad person, because he is fighting for his ailing father and later in the movie he also saves Christine when she gets into car explosion. These different scenes from the movie illustrate that Officer Ryan who is racially prejudiced is ironically both villain and hero. The last combination of prejudice and discrimination Healey mentions in his book is â€Å"All-Weather Liberal† â€Å"a person who is neither prejudiced nor discriminate† (Healey 96). The best example for all weather liberal in the movie Crash is Daniel the locksmith. In the whole movie I did not see Daniel being racially prejudiced against any character. He is very quiet and the peaceful person in the whole movie and due to nature of his work, he usually works late at night. However, to me it seemed like that he doesn’t really care about working late nights rather he wants to spend more time with his family. Moreover, Crash demonstrates some other examples of stereotyping that are  mentioned in Healey’s book. According to Healey’s book, â€Å"Stereotypes are exaggerated overgeneralization† (Healey 99). It means that people often have distorted perception of another person or a group. They are based on race, ethnicity, gender, age, physical appearance and many other factors. An example can also relate to Daniel the locksmith, who comes to change the door locks for Jean and Rick’s house. By looking at his appearance and tattoo Jean sees him as a gang banger. She thinks after he leaves from her house he is going to give a copy of her house keys to his gang members and they will come to rob her house. That’s why she asks her husband Rick to get the locks changed again in the morning. Jean stereotyped Daniel based on his appearance. To me Daniel is a good guy, but Jean didn’t think of him as a family man. By looking at his appearance she made her judgment and thought of him as a gang banger but nothing else. There are some other terms that are mentioned in Healey’s book that can be related to the scenes in the movie. Another term from Healey’s book that is closely related to the movie Crash is â€Å"Selective Perception,† which means that â€Å"people often see what they expect to see, so stereotypes are often confirmed in a vicious circle.† The example can relate to Officer Hansen; from the first scene he is in, we can tell that he is not prejudiced and it seemed to me that Officer Hansen doesn’t have lots of experience with people outside of his race. In the movie he helps Peter, who is walking on the road side, by offering him a lift. This was the first time Officer Hansen seen prejudiced in the whole movie. Peter began laughing without explanation and Officer Hansen asked him to leave the car. Peter wanted to show him what he had in his pocket that was so funny. While Peter was reaching in his pocket, Offer Hansen panicked and shot Peter, who was innocent. That was the first time Officer Hansen had shown prejudiced; even though he was shown as a good man in the movie, he end up killing an innocent man. I think Office Hansen shot peter because he was afraid that his own life might be in a risk. Officer Hansen thought Peter was reaching his pocket for some kind of weapon and in seconds he made his decision and fire at Peter. The movie Crash shows many aspects of prejudice and discrimination. Crash explores many social encounters that are defined by different characters of  the movie. I think Crash represents the race relations in America and shows that how misconceptions and lack of communication makes our life situations very unstable. On the other hand, Healey’s Book Race, Ethnicity, Gender & Class have helped us with more understanding of prejudice and discrimination by giving us different combinations of racism and prejudice and by providing all important definitions. He even mentions that education have helped us with better understating of each other. But in my opinion we will never have that fully understanding of each other because somewhere on the line we forget who we are and the different people we are dealing with. Most time we think we don’t prejudiced or discriminate and sometimes we don’t even realize that we are prejudicing and discriminating against other people. I guess we are in modern racism.

A O Neville - 1279 Words

Does the movie present Mr. A. O. Neville as a liberator or as a jailer? The Australian movie â€Å"Rabbit Proof Fence† presents a sensational story about three half-caste young girls who escape from the settlement Moore River where in which they were abducted and taken to. The movie reveals the racism that took place between white Australians and Australia’s Aboriginal people. The movie clearly portrays Mr. A O Neville as a racial activist. Mr. A O Neville did what we thought was right. He did what the law said and carried it out the best he could. It can be said that Neville tried his best to improve the conditions in which the people lived, but there is clear evidence that he never tried to improve anything. Neville always put himself, the†¦show more content†¦They could not protect their children from the government or the police. Mothers constantly worried that soon the day would come that they would not see their children again. The movie undoubtedly depicts Neville as a bad person, or a jailer. The movie was unmistakably emo tional in that the young children were powerless. The children had no escape from their fate. Their fate is decided by Neville. The movie compels the viewer to be in the shoes of the three little girls. It feels even more realistic, because these traumatic events are based on a true story, not a fictional one. The viewer can feel the pain, anguish, and anger that not only the girls feel, but their families too. The viewer has empathy for all the families involved. Compassion builds up for all the horrible scenes that have took place. With all of this understanding, there is only one person the viewer can look to and blame. That person Is Mr. A O Neville, the Chief Protector of the Aborigines. Like â€Å"The Rabbit Proof Fence†, the Holocaust was very much blamed on Hitler, the man in charge, where Neville is the person in charge of this act of disgrace on people, and much of the blame was on him for the most part. There are a lot of ways that â€Å"The Rabbit Proof Fence† relates to the Holocaust. When anyone views movies about the Holocaust, it is made clear that Hitler is a very bad person. The same can be said for â€Å"The Rabbit Proof Fence† and Mr. A O Neville. We canShow MoreRelatedChapter 5 Of The Windows Internals Textbook1076 Words   |  5 PagesMark Russinovich, David Solomon and Alex Ionescu covers the Windows I/O system. This chapter goes over device drivers, I/O system components and features, and Plug and Play. One of the topics I am covering for my final is the similarities and differences between the Windows and FreeBSD I/O system so this chapter will assist me in explaining how the I/O system in Windows operates and unique factors that Windows has when it comes to I/O. Windows Internals, Part 2, 6th ed, Chapter 10 Chapter 10 of theRead MoreThe Effects that Neville Bonner Had on the Land Rights and Freedoms of Aboriginal Australians741 Words   |  3 PagesGood morning ladies and gentlemen, I am here to discuss the effects that Neville Bonner had on the land rights and freedoms of aboriginal Australians. Australia has a history of discrimination. This is proven by the amount of effort it took to change the rights of indigenous Australians. One of the most effective aboriginal Australian’s was Neville Bonner, who I will speak about today. Neville Bonner had a significant impact on the rights and freedoms of indigenous peoples due to his involvementRead MoreResearch Assignment: Data Structures and â€Å"Space Quest†800 Words   |  4 Pagesalgorithms. Between the use of linked lists, arrays, and tree-based data structures, trees were found to be a lot more time efficient when search, insertion, and deletion cases were analysed. Their time complexity was within the O(log(n)) catego ry, and the space complexity remained in the O(n) region. Tree-based algorithms usually perform better in the best-case and worst-case scenarios, further cementing their usefulness as data structures (Rowell et al, nd). Another property - and probably the most noticeableRead MoreCauses Of The Whiskey Rebellion1521 Words   |  7 Pagesholes, barns and gristmills ripped down† (Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion). These attacks grew more personal when they targeted General John Neville, a federal tax inspector. While at first an opponent of the law, he later grew to accept the law, which made many view General Neville as a traitor. Tom the Tinkers men proceeded to create a straw likeness of Neville and burned it South of Pittsburgh. New of the burning spread across the nation, and as a result the government had to start taking actionRead MoreReport On The Gym Group1498 Words   |  6 Pages EC4001/AP4001 Microeconomic Report Daniel Williams K1355702 Table of Contents Summary Report 1 Bestway Diversify As Co-op Try To Avoid Bankruptcy The Times, 18th July, Simon Neville Report 2 The Gym Group Look To Expand Throughout Europe The Telegraph, 13th August 2014, Oliver Duggan Report 3 Ryan Air’s Pursued Acquisition Of Cyprus Airways The Telegraph, 21st August, Oliver Duggan Conclusion References Summary In an effort to diversify its businessRead MoreEssay on No Sugar Jack Davis1269 Words   |  6 Pageswhites were trying to get them too; by making them wear this uniform they are trying to make them a part of the white society. Also where Neville says â€Å"†¦to live as other Australians live, and to live along side other Australians; to learn to enjoy the privileges and to shoulder the responsibilities of living like a white man.† It’s clearly shown here that Neville is trying to make them all one. Colonialism is clearly evident through this text, so because colonialism was evident in Davis’s time we canRead MoreKey Engagement Drivers Of The Companies Operating Across Asia1496 Words   |  6 Pagesinformation efficiently. There might be errors and flaws in the data as this is collected by others. To minimize this problem, the validity, reliability and trustworthiness of the data sources need to be checked. Checking Validity and Reliability o In my research, secondary data is obtained from three participant companies operating in Asia. Each company has the same objective- to find out employee engagement level by engagement survey. This survey of each company was based mainly on quantitativeRead MoreEssay about Sport Psychology1518 Words   |  7 Pagesleaders and not just the manager and captain. A team is a group of people who must interact with each other in order to accomplish shared objectives. A team must have: Ø Interaction between members. Ø Positive feeling between members. Ø A collective identity, be different from others. Ø Share common goal, have the same objectives. Groups go through a four-stage development sequence to move from being just a collection of individuals to becoming a team: Read More One Love A Look into the Life of Bob Marley Essay700 Words   |  3 Pagesprovided financial support and occasionally came back to see them. In the 50’s a depression hit Jamaica and Bob followed his mother to West Kingston otherwise known as Trenchtown. It was in Trenchtown were Bob’s love for music began. He and his friend Neville Livingstone or â€Å"Bunny† began to attend music classes. Through the classes the two meet Peter McIntosh and they formed the Wailing Wailers. The band recorded their first song in 1962, Judge Not. From there he started a record label Tuff Gong and recordedRead MoreAnalysis Of No Sugar By Jack Davis751 Words   |  4 PagesAboriginal characters face throughout the play. Neal’s abuse of Mary has been deliberately intending by Davis to shock the white audience into disbelief that someone could whip a pregnant woman with a ‘cat-o-nine tails’, his use of ‘A blackout’ also helping to highlight the brutality. By never having Neville or Neal show remorse for their actions, Davis believes these white authority figures are beyond redemption. However, despite the abuse and evident assimilation among the Indigenous characters of the