THIS IS MY GP BLOG.

20070513

REHAB is the way to go!

•Which do you think should be the more important aim of the legal and judicial processes : punishment or rehabilitation ?

Terms
in this essay, aim is considered a purpose to be achieved; legal and judicial processes taken as the actions taken when a person breaks the law, and punishment is the infliction of a penalty on a person who has broken the law, while rehabilitation is the process of restoring an individual to a useful place in society especially through some form of vocational, correctional, or therapeutic retraining(diction).
Intro
After a crime is committed, the criminal will either feel remorse and guilt, knowing that he has done wrong or feel that he has done no wrong, and indignant that he has to receive such a punishment for something he feels is right. In cases like this, and the criminal pleads not guilty, will punishment change that mindset of theirs and prevent them from committing the offence again? Also, will criminals go back to their own paths because they feel that the society cannot accept and understand them? What good has punishment done for the criminals then? Thus, I feel that rehabilitation should be a more important aim of legal and judicial processes.
Stand
I feel that rehabilitation is the more important aim.

Importance of punishment
- serve to deter generally and specifically, to prevent potential offenders from breaking the law by enforcing extremely strict punishments like death for heavy crimes.
- Its uses have significantly cut down on ….
- Evidence(stats)
- However, the use of punishment has only helped significantly cut down crimes like murder; while other rates of other crimes like theft, arson, less severe crimes are not declining because the punishment is of no significant use
Also, further studies have also shown that punishment
Why is it not as important as rehabilitation?
Crimes that are relatively less serious, criminals will receive not as heavy punishment to successfully deter them from committing the crime again.

Punishment could possibly be done with reasons like protecting the general public’s interest above the interest of the criminal. It can be considered more important because it is the interest of the masses above the interest of the individual and his family. However, if punishment is used on its own, it would not have a as lasting effect as rehabilitation would bring. Punishment might not be able to eliminate the root cause of criminal behaviour, and could possibly only encourage the “self-righteous” criminals to rebel and do more harm because they feel that they are right. They will continue to pose harm, even after punishment. The only people who have benefited from their punishments would be those that are discouraged from committing the same crime.

Rehabilitation
Importance of Rehabilitation
- enable law breakers( for less severe crimes) to reintegrate themselves into society, continue to contribute to the economy
- it cuts down the social backlash they will receive when they are released from jail
- because efforts and steps are taken to ensure they are given a second chance.
- Enables wrong-doers to understand their mistake and wrong mindsets
Why is it more important?
- rehabilitation can help a greater scoop of people. Unlike punishment, whose effect of deterrence can only be significantly felt when offenders have broken law under drugs dealing, murder and more serious offence, rehab can reach and help people that belong to big group, where theft makes up 60% of reported crimes
- rehabilitation can also be put in place for criminals who have committed severe offences and sent for life imprisonment but still able to apply for parole. These people have to be sufficiently counseled before they can be released again into the public to ensure they do not create further harm.
-
Example: The Prison School is set up in Singapore where continuous learning, self-discipline and self motivating is promoted. Education is the key to helping the offenders turn over a new leaf. They need to be equipped with skills, knowledge, restraint and respect for the law to continue to be on the right path even after they leave prison. The prison school provides the opportunity for prisoners, and give them a chance.

According to CNb, 60% of the offenders are repeats, and have been driven by reasons like poverty, desperation, addiction, or simply because the punishment is not heavy enough. If rehab was emphasized on instead of punishment, the rates would have be lower because rehab allows the prisoners opportunities to learn and know more from rehab programmes the prison arranges for them. Ultimately, it must be known that punishment and rehab all have one aim, and that is to help the prisoner. It can be seen from the figures that punishment isn’t helping much. Prisoners are not receiving the help they need.
Conclusion
Punishment will prevent people from committing a severe crime again, because the pain, the hardship one has to endure through the punishment is etched in their minds. However, we should not overlook the larger proportion of crimes, the small minute crimes that amount to a much larger community of 60% of reported crimes. Theft is commonly known to be the starting to criminal life. Offenders start from young by stealing, and from then on they spiral down the path of crime. If rehabilitation can prevent these people from going down that path from when they were young, wouldn’t that be even more effective? Punishment is what you get when you break the law, and pain comes with it. Rehab is turning over a new leaf, a new spark of hope. Rehab gives the offenders a chance. In life, we have to move on. Rehab teaches just that.

(:
"it is easy to see the flaws in people.but do you have what it takes to recognise the good in them?"

20070429

OSAMA

Top three criminals
OJ Simpson
Osama Bin Laden
Ted Bundy

Amongst the three criminals I have shortlisted, I feel that the worst criminal is Osama Bin Laden.

Osama is a well-known terrorist in the world. Till now, it is unknown whether he is dead or alive. What he has planned, and some actually carried out has impacted the world. The other two criminals, one already dead, have affected many people, with the families of people they killed suffering from their merciless killings. In fact, Ted Bundy remains to be highly mysterious. Why he gave up a bright future and send himself on the route of no return is not known. However, Osama has made a larger impact. The things he have done because of his belief has affected the entire world.

As the founder of Al-Qaeda, Osama claims responsibility of the September 11 World Trade Center Collapse. His actions devastated the world, with no precedence the world suffering such a massive man made attack. The collapse of World Trade Center not only meant agony to the families left behind, it has political and economic repercussions as well. The stock market collapses overnight.

The organization he founded continue to threaten world security. In the recent Madrid bombings, although politicians firmly drive across the point that another terrorist group is responsible for the bombings, evidence have shown that it might actually be Al-Qaeda. The refusal to put it on Al-Qaeda is because the public might take the attack to be on the government for their involvement in the Iraq war. Al Qaeda has already been regarded as powerful enough to destroy unknowingly. Beside the main September 11 event, other bombings and threats like severe demage to The Pentagon.
Osama is still at large, and the threats and harm he can cause is still not removed. Because we do not know whether he is alive or dead, a question mark remains. He is still a threat to society, and the unpredictability of his actions make him more dangerous to the general public.

20070422

Capital punishment number3

What are your own views on capital punishment? In what circumstances( if any) can the death penalty be justified?

Capital punishment is regarded as the death penalty. I feel that capital punishment in Singapore is used correctly and effectively to a large extent.

Many may feel that Singapore is too hard on criminals and impose capital punishment on them. But that is actually allowing their feelings and emotions to creep in, preventing them from having a clear and objective view on the punishments meted out. Advocates of anti-capital punishment are only time and again using emotional language to lighten the seriousness of the crimes the offenders have made, deeming Singapore as cruel and unfeeling.

This is not entirely true.

In the cases of murder, the offender is usually given the death penalty. This is done after taking the consideration the right of the offender to live; the impact on the offender and his family, versus the right of the victim’s family to see justice done. The government also have to take into consideration the safety of the general public. Capital punishment is deemed as a violation of human rights, but again, the murderer has already violated the right of the victim to live.

Where drugs are concerned, drug traffickers will only be sentenced to death when the trafficker smuggles more than 15g of PURE heroine into the State. It must be known that it is pure heroine, and 15g of pure heroine can actually be made into 750g of street heroine, much more than a person can actually consume personally. As such, these high amounts will be taken as an attempt to paddle drugs to others in the country. Capital punishment is thus needed to deter people from forming drug syndicates in Singapore, making this country a highly socially safe place to live in. We then do not need to suffer the backlash of drug syndicates making their presence known.

Some might feel drug traffickers who traffic drugs just to earn a living should not be sentenced to death because it is their circumstances that force them to do that. However, one should not place all the blame on circumstances. Despite saying that, I still recognize the fact that more can be done to prevent more people from potentially falling into that route of no return. We need to adopt a multi-pronged approach to cut down crime rates, with capital punishment included. Deterrence is needed, with education working hand in hand so that we can successfully prevent crimes.

20070415

number2

Plastic Surgery

Almost 3 in 4 Thai women think that they are not pretty enough. Women considered pretty were splashed across billboards, promoting women to wish to look like them, attain that body and face as what others perceive as beautiful. When they cannot lose weight or really cannot stand the way they look, plastic surgery becomes the easiest way out, or the only way out.

Now, plastic surgery can be made available to any man on the street. However, I think the number of people considering plastic surgery as an option has failed to see beyond what plastic surgery is all about. They think that plastic surgery is about beautifying themselves, but it is actually shows a lack of self-confidence, because they are not confident of what they are born to look like, and seek means and ways to alter what they have.

1 in 5 girls consider plastic surgery. More and more teenage girls are exposed to media and they feel that only by attaining the stick thin figure they see on the television is beautiful. Their misconception of beauty arose because technological advancements have made possible to make a size 6 look like a size 2. they want to look like Rain, single eye-lidded. They want to have high noses and flat tummies. If they have been confident of how they look like and accept it, plastic surgery would not have crossed their minds.

Rising affluence meant the increase in demand for plastic surgery. With this huge increase in demand, more money is pumped into developing more advanced plastic surgery procedures, and at the same time these advances eventually driving down the cost of plastic surgery. We can never fully abolish plastic surgery in the world today simply because it is becoming more convenient and meeting a higher demand. Once man is exposed to something he can exploit and make him look better, he will never give it up.

Plastic surgery makes some look beautiful, but have the people considered those surgeries that failed? Why aren’t they reconsidering their decision to go under the knife? This is because these failures are not publicized. The public do not know enough of the dangers. They fail to see what plastic surgery does to us, if the whole world takes plastic surgery like a meal. Everyone can be replicas of each other. If you’re black, you can be bleached white. We are losing ourselves in the pursue of the so-called beauty. We will lose our culture, our character and our resilience to not succumb to what others consider to be handsome and good-looking enough.

Seriously, who is the one that considered Rain to be good-looking? If there was no ugly, will there be beauty?

Child Prostitution

The figures are staggeringly frightening. The age of the average child prostituted gets younger and younger. In the world we claim to be educated, why are we allowing the animal in us to make others in the world suffer? We are taking advantage of the poverty in Africa, reducing them to suffer in the endless vicious poverty cycle. Child prostitution has been a cause that many have been fighting for, and have succeeded to only a small extent.

www.lightamillioncandles.com achieved its goal of getting 1 million candles ‘lighted’, in less than 60 days. We can see that people around care for these victims, but much more needs to be done. We need to implement stricter rules enforcements on the law breakers; the demand has to be greatly reduced for the syndicate to break. It is because of the high demand, leading to the high numbers of children prostituted. The largest culprit, USA, should place stricter laws, put focus on a problem that is affected the whole world. If they are already doing something, they need to know it is not enough.

We need to educate the masses to teach them how cruel child prostitution is. Even after these victims are rescued, they need a long time, or probably forever to get over what they have been through. Others will never understand the way they feel; they are the ones that were forced against their will to do things they never wanted, tricked and manipulated into the sex trade. The world needs to know, and protect their children against this trade. Poor people should get help, instead of selling their children off as their only resort. Other countries should provide help, no matter how small, it all comes together to form a loud voice, Stop. They need our money, but more importantly, they need our support.

20070408

number1

How ethical is YouTube in its dealings in the media industry?

Over the past few months, many have regarded Google’s investment in YouTube as a wrong decision because of the many possible lawsuits YouTube has been embroiled in. Critics feel that YouTube has infringed on copyright laws because of its allowance of spontaneous uploading of various videos. However I feel that YouTube is still ethical in its dealings in the media industry to a large extent.

The definition of ethics according to dictionary.com is A theory or a system of moral values. It can thus be assumed that ethics does not encompasses being politically correct or economically correct. YouTube’s actions of allowing anyone to just upload videos has nothing morally wrong.

Their dealings are honest, and with the normal terms of use governing the site, like stating clearly in it “users will have to agree that he will not submit material that is copyrighted, protected by trade secret or otherwise subject to third party proprietary rights, including privacy and publicity rights, unless he is the owner of such rights or have permission from their rightful owner to post the material and to grant YouTube all of the license rights granted herein” . This proves that YouTube has pre-warned its users against copyright, and YouTube has also on their own spent a great deal getting content license despite claiming that under the Federal Law, they are actually not breaking any intelluctual laws and copyright infringements.

The site’s main drawing point is its allowance of spontaneous uploading of videos, and everyone sharing these videos get to enjoy a wide range of videos anywhere, as long as internet connection is available. If the site sieves through the videos before they are allowed to be uploaded, many people might no longer visit the site because of the strict restrictions on what is uploaded, and immediacy is no longer there.

To what extent has the emergence of YouTube changed our medium of entertainment?
(how has YouTube changed the way we entertain ourselves?)

“ a year ago, they watched 10 million videos a day; now they watch 100 million.”
This statement of figures from Time Magazine affirms YouTube as a up and rising alternative to Cable television, changing the way we entertain ourselves. YouTube emerged to change our medium of entertainment to a tremendous extent, so much that investors are willing to pay millions to advertise on the site, proving YouTube’s popularity and ability to reach masses.

YouTube’s main selling point is their easily available videos from a wide range of genres. People like this idea of having all the videos they want to watch consolidated in one single place. Even cable television cannot provide this. They have to adhere to time slots for particular programmes, and can at most can only allow viewers to watch up to a maximum of two channels on the same screen, in the case of Starhub Video Mosaic, 16 small boxes on one screen for 16 different channels. Netizens can watch all the videos they want on different browsers simultaneously and instantaneously.
Unknowingly, YouTube has also created a culture and generation where people spend longer periods on leisure. We now spend more time on the computer because of the endless videos on YouTube, and it is highly unlikely that one will finish watching all that he want in one day because the uploads do not stop and more videos just keep coming in. The presence of commercials in television gives even the coach potatoes some minutes to take their eyes off the box and just take a break. YouTube does not have that. One can just watch videos for the whole day, with no commercials to cut them off from their endless entertainment. People become glued to their computers.

20070319

Discovery

GRACE CHIA CHAI LING

My name is Grace and I like it a lot. It is short, and can be remembered easily. However, some might feel that I do not represent my name well. I am not as demure as how a graceful girl might present herself, but I make that up with liveliness. The word “outspoken” is always used by my previous form teachers in my term reports, a more pleasant alternative to the word “chatterbox” or “talkative”. I strongly believe that one should live his life the way he wants it to go, and not live by others’ expectations. Others expect me to be graceful to match my name, but that is not how I want to be.

My favourite subject is Mathematics and the subject I did worst for in the O levels was English. I have always done better solving math equations and inequalities than churning out argumentative essays to support my stand.

I have been in Anderson for the past three months and studied in Bukit Panjang Government High School previously. After 6 years in the choir, I have decided to join a new Co-Curricular Activity(CCA) in Anderson, which is AJ Squash. It is a new sport to many students, as it’s not usually offered in secondary schools. The new CCA means treading into unfamiliar waters. It takes stamina to finish a game, and we have to train very hard for that. Despite all the hard work I will have to put in, I still love the new sport I am in. The challenge that comes with it makes it more exciting.

This is the end to the introduction of a girl called Grace and I hope as time passes, you will discover,there is more to her than this.