Word Choice Hear vs. Here - Writing Tips from Proofed

Word Choice Hear vs. Here - Writing Tips from Proofed Word Choice: Hear vs. Here Spoken out loud the words â€Å"hear† and â€Å"here† sound identical, which may be why they’re often confused in writing. Unfortunately, on paper the difference is a bit more obvious! In this post, then, we’re looking at the differences between these words and how to tell them apart. Hear (Listen To) To â€Å"hear† something is to sense a sound (this is why we talk about having a sense of â€Å"hearing†): I was in the forest, so I could hear the tree fall. It can also mean â€Å"listen to† or â€Å"learn by being told,† such as when we receive news second hand: I hear that trees fall silently if there’s nobody around. We also see this word used in â€Å"Hear! Hear!† This is an old-fashioned phrase used to express approval of what someone is saying (as if you’re literally saying â€Å"Listen to this person!†). Here (In This Place) The word â€Å"here† can be a noun, an adverb, or even an adjective, but it always means â€Å"this place.† Typically, this is the location occupied by the speaker: Why are we here in this forest anyway? The tree will land here when it falls. In both cases above, â€Å"here† is used to point to the immediate surroundings or a point nearby. Closeness is important for this word; if we were referring to something further away, we’d say â€Å"there.† In addition, â€Å"here† can indicate a point in time or within a process: We’ll end the lesson here for today. It can also be used to refer to the previous sentence or passage in writing: Berkeley wrote that sense objects exist only when they are perceived. Here, we can see how he would have been interested in whether unobserved falling trees make a sound. This makes â€Å"here† a useful word for linking sentences in a paragraph. Hear or Here? An ear. Mixing up these words in your writing can look bad. However, there’s an easy way to tell them apart: The one about listening contains the word â€Å"ear† (i.e., the thing we listen with). So, if you’re writing about sensing a sound or listening to someone, the correct word is â€Å"hear.† On the other hand, if you’re writing about a place or position, the word you need will be â€Å"here.† Remember: Hear = Sense a sound or listen to Here = This place or point

Sima de los Huesos, a Key to Human Evolution

Sima de los Huesos, a Key to Human Evolution The Sima de los Huesos (Pit of Bones in Spanish and typically abbreviated as SH) is a lower Paleolithic site, one of several important sections of the Cueva Mayor-Cueva del Silo cave system of the Sierra de Atapuerca in north-central Spain. With a total of at least 28 individual hominid fossils now firmly dated to 430,000 years old, SH is the largest and oldest collection of human remains yet discovered. Site Context The bone pit at Sima de los Huesos is at the bottom of the cave, beneath an abrupt vertical shaft measuring between 2-4 meters (6.5-13 feet) in diameter, and located about .5 kilometers (~1/3 of a mile) in from the Cueva Mayor entrance. That shaft extends downward approximately 13 m (42.5 ft), ending just above the Rampa (Ramp), a 9 m (30 ft) long linear chamber inclined about 32 degrees. At the foot of that ramp is deposit called the Sima de los Huesos, a smoothly oblong chamber measuring 8x4 m (26x13 ft) with irregular ceiling heights between 1-2 m (3-6.5 ft). In the roof of the eastern side of the SH chamber is another vertical shaft, which extends upwards some 5 m (16 ft) to where it is blocked by cave collapse. Human and Animal Bones The sites archaeological deposits include a bone-bearing breccia, mixed with many large fallen blocks of limestone and mud deposits. The bones are mainly composed of at least 166 Middle Pleistocene cave bears (Ursus deningeri) and at least 28 individual humans, represented by more than 6,500 bone fragments including over 500 teeth alone. Other identified animals in the pit include extinct forms of Panthera leo (lion), Felis silvestris (wildcat), Canis lupus (grey wolf), Vulpes vulpes (red fox), and Lynx pardina splaea (Pardel lynx). Relatively few of the animal and human bones are articulated; some of the bones have tooth marks from where carnivores have chewed on them. The current interpretation of how the site came to be is that all the animals and humans fell into the pit from a higher chamber and were trapped and unable to get out. The stratigraphy and layout of the bone deposit suggest  the humans were somehow deposited in the cave before the bears and other carnivores. It is also possible- given the large amount of mud in the pit- that all the bones arrived in this low place in the cave through a series of mudflows. A third and quite controversial hypothesis is that the accumulation of human remains might be the result of mortuary practices (see the discussion of Carbonell and Mosquera below). The Humans A central question for the SH site has been and continues to be who were they? Were they Neanderthal, Denisovan, Early Modern Human, some mixture we havent yet recognized? With the fossil remains of 28 individuals who all lived and died about 430,000 years ago, the SH site has the potential to teach us a great deal about human evolution and how these three populations intersected in the past. Comparisons of nine human skulls and numerous cranial fragments representing at least 13 individuals were first reported in 1997 (Arsuaga et a.). A large variety in cranial capacity and other characteristics were detailed in the publications, but in 1997, the site was thought to be about 300,000 years old, and these scholars concluded that the Sima de los Huesos population was evolutionarily related to Neanderthals as a sister group, and could best fit into the then-refined species of Homo heidelbergensis. That theory was supported by results from a somewhat controversial method redating the site to 530,000 years ago (Bischoff and colleagues, see details below). But in 2012, paleontologist Chris Stringer argued that the 530,000-year-old dates were too old, and, based on morphological attributes, the SH fossils represented an archaic form of Neanderthal, rather than H. heidelbergensis. The latest data (Arsuago et al 2014) answers some of Stringers hesitations. Mitochondrial DNA at SH Research on the cave bear bones reported by Dabney and colleagues revealed that, astonishingly, mitochondrial DNA had been preserved at the site, much older than any other found to date anywhere. Additional investigations on the human remains from SH reported by Meyer and colleagues  redated the site to closer to 400,000 years ago. These studies also supply the surprising notion that the SH population shares some DNA with the  Denisovans, rather than the Neanderthals they look like (and, of course, we dont really know what a Denisovan looks like yet). Arsuaga and colleagues reported a study of 17 complete skulls from SH, agreeing with Stringer that, because of numerous Neanderthal-like characteristics of the crania and mandibles, the population does not fit the  H. heidelbergensis  classification. But the population is, according to the authors, significantly different from other groups such as those at Ceprano and  Arago  caves, and from other Neanderthals, and Arsuaga and colleagues now argue that a separate taxon should be considered for the SH fossils. Sima de los Huesos is now dated to 430,000 years ago, and that places it close to the age predicted for when the split in hominid species creating the Neanderthal and Denisovan lineages occurred. The SH fossils are thus central to the investigations concerning how that might have happened, and what our evolutionary history might be. Sima de los Huesos, a Purposeful Burial Mortality profiles (Bermudez de Castro and colleagues) of the SH population show a high representation of adolescents and prime-age adults  and a low percentage of adults between 20 and 40 years of age. Only one individual was under 10 at the time of death, and none were over 40-45 years old. Thats confusing, because, while 50% of the bones were gnaw-marked, they were in fairly good condition: statistically, say the scholars, there should be more children. Carbonell and Mosquera (2006) argued that Sima de los Huesos represents a purposeful burial, based partly on the recovery of a single quartzite  Acheulean handaxe  (Mode 2) and the complete lack of lithic waste or other habitation waste at all. If they are correct, and they are currently in the minority, Sima de los Huesos would be the earliest example of purposeful human burials known to date, by ~200,000 years or so. Evidence suggesting that at least one of the individuals in the pit died as a result of interpersonal violence was reported in 2015 (Sala et al. 2015). Cranium 17 has multiple impact fractures which occurred near the moment of death, and scholars believe this individual was dead at the time s/he was dropped into the shaft. Sala et al. argue that placing cadavers into the pit was indeed a social practice of the community.   Dating Sima de lost Huesos Uranium-series and Electron Spin Resonance dating of the human fossils reported in 1997 indicated a minimum age of about 200,000 and a probable age of greater than 300,000 years ago, which roughly matched the age of the mammals. In 2007, Bischoff and colleagues reported that a high-precision thermal-ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) analysis defines the minimum of deposits age as 530,000 years ago. This date led researchers to postulate that the SH hominids were at the beginning of the  Neanderthal  evolutionary lineage, rather than a contemporary, related sister group. However, in 2012, paleontologist Chris Stringer argued that, based on morphological attributes, the SH fossils represent an archaic form of Neanderthal, rather than  H. heidelbergensis, and that the 530,000-year-old date is too old. In 2014, excavators Arsuaga et al reported new dates from a suite of different dating techniques, including Uranium series (U-series) dating of speleothems, thermally transferred  optically stimulated luminescence  (TT-OSL) and post-infrared stimulated luminescence (pIR-IR) dating of sedimentary quartz and feldspar grains, electron spin resonance (ESR) dating of sedimentary quartz, combined ESR/U-series dating of fossil teeth, paleomagnetic analysis of sediments, and biostratigraphy. Dates from most of these techniques clustered around 430,000 years ago. Archaeology The first human fossils were discovered in 1976, by T. Torres, and the first excavations within this unit were conducted by the Sierra de Atapuerca Pleistocene site group under the direction of E. Aguirre. In 1990, this program was undertaken by J. L. Arsuaga, J. M. Bermudez de Castro, and E. Carbonell. Sources Arsuaga JL, Martà ­nez I, Gracia A, Carretero JM, Lorenzo C, Garcà ­a N, and Ortega AI. 1997.  Sima de los Huesos (Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain). The site.  Journal of Human Evolution  33(2–3):109-127. Arsuaga JL, Martà ­nez, Gracia A, and Lorenzo C. 1997a.  The Sima de los Huesos crania (Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain). A comparative study.  Journal of Human Evolution  33(2–3):219-281. Arsuaga JL, Martà ­nez I, Arnold LJ, Aranburu A, Gracia-Tà ©llez A, Sharp WD, Quam RM, Falguà ¨res C, Pantoja-Pà ©rez A, Bischoff JL et al. . 2014.  Neandertal roots: Cranial and chronological evidence from Sima de los Huesos.  Science  344(6190):1358-1363. doi: 10.1126/science.1253958 Bermà ºdez de Castro JM, Martinà ³n-Torres M, Lozano M, Sarmiento S, and Muelo A. 2004.  Paleodemography of the Atapuerca-Sima de los Huesos Hominin Sample: A revision and new appropaches to the paleodemongraphy of the European Middle Pleistocene population.  Journal of Anthropological Research  60(1):5-26. Bischoff JL, Fitzpatrick JA, Leà ³n L, Arsuaga JL, Falgueres C, Bahain JJ, and Bullen T. 1997.  Geology and preliminary dating of the hominid-bearing sedimentary fill of the Sima de los Huesos Chamber, Cueva Mayor of the Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain.  Journal of Human Evolution  33(2–3):129-154. Bischoff JL, Williams RW, Rosenbauer RJ, Aramburu A, Arsuaga JL, Garcà ­a N, and Cuenca-Bescà ³s G. 2007.  High-resolution U-series dates from the Sima de  Ã‚  Journal of Archaeological Science  34(5):763-770.los  Huesos hominids yields : implications for the evolution of the early Neanderthal lineage. Carbonell E, and Mosquera M. 2006.  The emergence of  a  symbolic   Comptes Rendus Palevol  5(1–2):155-160.behaviour: the  sepulchral pit of  Sima de  los  Huesos, Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain. Carretero J-M, Rodrà ­guez L, Garcà ­a-Gonzlez R, Arsuaga J-L, Gà ³mez-Olivencia A, Lorenzo C, Bonmatà ­ A, Gracia A, Martà ­nez I, and Quam R. 2012.  Stature estimation from complete long bones in the Middle Pleistocene humans from the Sima de  los  Huesos, Sierra de Atapuerca (Spain).  Journal of Human Evolution  62(2):242-255. Dabney J, Knapp M, Glocke I, Gansauge M-T, Weihmann A, Nickel B, Valdiosera C, Garcà ­a N, Pbo S, Arsuaga J-L et al. 2013.  Complete mitochondrial genome sequence of a Middle Pleistocene cave bear reconstructed from ultrashort DNA fragments.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences  110(39):15758-15763. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1314445110 Garcà ­a N, and Arsuaga JL. 2011.  The Sima de  Ã‚  Quaternary Science Reviews  30(11-12):1413-1419.los  Huesos (Burgos, northern Spain): palaeoenvironment and habitats of Homo heidelbergensis during the Middle Pleistocene. Garcà ­a N, Arsuaga JL, and Torres T. 1997.  The carnivore remains from the Sima de  Ã‚  Journal of Human Evolution  33(2–3):155-174.los  Huesos Middle Pleistocene site (Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain). Gracia-Tà ©llez A, Arsuaga J-L, Martà ­nez I, Martà ­n-Francà ©s L, Martinà ³n-Torres M, Bermà ºdez de Castro J-M, Bonmatà ­ A, and Lira J. 2013.  Orofacial pathology in Homo heidelbergensis: The case of Skull 5 from the Sima de los Huesos site (Atapuerca, Spain).  Quaternary International  295:83-93. Hublin J-J. 2014.  How to build a Neandertal.  Science  344(6190):1338-1339. doi: 10.1126/science.1255554 Martinà ³n-Torres M, Bermà ºdez de Castro JM, Gà ³mez-Robles A, Prado-Simà ³n L, and Arsuaga JL. 2012.  Morphological description and comparison of the dental remains from Atapuerca-Sima de los Huesos site (Spain).  Journal of Human Evolution  62(1):7-58. Meyer, Matthias. A mitochondrial genome sequence of a hominin from Sima de los Huesos. Nature volume 505, Qiaomei Fu, Ayinuer Aximu-Petri, et al., Springer Nature Publishing AG, January 16, 2014. Ortega AI, Benito-Calvo A, Pà ©rez-Gonzlez A, Martà ­n-Merino MA, Pà ©rez-Martà ­nez R, Parà ©s JM, Aramburu A, Arsuaga JL, Bermà ºdez de Castro JM, and Carbonell E. 2013.  Evolution of multilevel caves in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain) and its relation to human occupation.  Geomorphology  196:122-137. Sala N, Arsuaga JL, Pantoja-Pà ©rez A, Pablos A, Martà ­nez I, Quam RM, Gà ³mez-Olivencia A, Bermà ºdez de Castro JM, and Carbonell E. 2015.  Lethal Interpersonal Violence in the Middle Pleistocene.  PLoS ONE  10(5):e0126589. Stringer C. 2012.  The status of Homo heidelbergensis (Schoetensack 1908).  Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews  21(3):101-107.

Frontlines Black Money Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Frontlines Black Money - Essay Example From the perspective of a high-end chauffeur, it then details the lavish expenditures that accompanied the lifestyles of the Saudi princes immediately after the arms deal was completed and how he was instructed to refer all expenses to BAE. It then discusses how the Foreign Corruption Practices (FCPA) was formed in the United States during the Carter administration and how it makes United States laws against bribery the most strict in the world. Later, because of competitive disadvantages American companies were experiencing, the international community created the OECD to make it a world-wide offense. Even with these policies intact, large companies, such as BAE and the German company Siemens still found ways to work around the system. It discusses the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) 500 million dollar fine of KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary, for breaking United States anti-bribery laws. Eventually, a full scale investigation is launched by British investigators into the BAE scan dal and unearths a world-wide multi-billion dollar series of slush funds. An investigation is launched into BAE practices in Switzerland. Just as the investigation is supposed to unearth potent information, Prince Bandar visits with Tony Blair and informs him that if the investigation continues then the Saudis will stop cooperating with the British on anti-terrorism laws. This information, coupled with an apparent blackmail plot against the investigator, results in the investigation being dropped, with the Saudi connections to the United States being investigated further by the DOJ. The film ends on a somber note, concluding that the rules for the use of this ‘black money’ are different for the large corporations -- who can get away with it -- and the small businesses that face OECD

Body Fat and Eating Disorders Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Body Fat and Eating Disorders Paper - Essay Example t disease, high blood pressure, stroke, high cholesterol, diabetes, back pain, respiratory problems, kidney disorders, gallbladder problems, osteoarthritis, excess fatigue, sleep apnea, metabolic syndromes and urinary incontinence. There are various factors that could lead to obesity or an accumulation of body fat which occurs due to an imbalance in the calories consumed and burnt by the body. Other contributing factors include a lack of physical activity, increased consumption of fat, sugar, alcohol intake, overeating, chronic use of corticosteroids, hormonal imbalances and other related metabolic problems (Body composition and Health, 2002). Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating have serious effects on the physical and mental health of individuals and in extreme cases can also lead to life-threatening problems. This is mainly because such disorders do not exist for a particular period of time; rather they have the potential to become lifelong disorders in cases where they are not treated. In such cases they could affect the mental, emotional and physical well-being of individuals and also put tremendous strain on their relationships with other people. In the case of anorexia nervosa, in which individuals starve themselves the body becomes severely depleted of vital nutrients and hence there is a slowdown of metabolic process in order to conserve energy. As a result a number of medical problems arise some of which warrant immediate medical attention. The health consequences of anorexia nervosa includes an abnormal decrease in heart rate and blood pressure which increases the risk of heart failure, bone density reduction, loss and weakening of muscles, severe body dehydration increasing the risk of kidney failure, increased fatigue and general body weakness, dryness of skin and hair with hair loss and growth of lanugo all the body in an effort to maintain body temperature (Health Consequences of Eating Disorders, n.d; Eating

Death Penalty Essay Example for Free

Death Penalty Essay The Death Penalty The death penalty is a form of punishment in which a person who has been convicted of a serious crime is executed under the precept of the criminal justice system. The death penalty has been in existence for thousands of years and has gained wide acceptance in the United States since early colonial times. Even those who framed the Constitution specifically the Fifth Amendment approved of it though implicitly (McCord and Latzer 9). Despite the growing acceptance of the death penalty as an appropriate punishment for certain kinds of crimes such as first degree murders, there are still some people who argue against it on certain grounds. The debate as to the justification of the death penalty has raged on for a long time. On one hand, there are those who are of the opinion that the death penalty is a cruel punishment which is morally wrong and a violation of the right to life for its victims. Others defend their opposing views by citing the wave of abolition of other types of corporal punishment such as branding and flogging and propose that imprisonment should also replace the death penalty (McCord and Latzer 9). However, the death penalty has proved to be a punishment befitting certain crimes such as horrific murders as it is the ultimate punishment. It has taken many harmful elements off the streets besides acting as a deterrent for both the convicted criminals and other potential murderers out there. In essence, it has saved many innocent lives that otherwise would have fallen prey to the evil schemes of murderers. Indeed, there is no course more worthy than saving innocent lives. This essay presents an argument in support of the death penalty by considering its numerous benefits as backed up by ample evidence from credible sources. In order to build the argument, the essay shall also consider some of the opinions of those who oppose the death penalty. Death penalty is a good form of punishment considering that it prevents future murders by acting as a deterrent. Society has always employed different kinds of punishments in an effort to prevent potential criminals from committing crimes. In other words, there is always a drive to prevent future harm by learning from the mistakes of today. In this regard, the society has a fervent interest in protecting people’s lives from murderers. The best way to prevent murder is to use the strongest form of punishment which is the death penalty (Arguments for and Against the Death Penalty). Evidence from numerous  studies has proved that the death penalty has an inherent ability to deter would-be murderers from committing heinous crimes. In fact, the incapacitative benefits of the death penalty occur in two ways. Firstly, by apprehending and executing convicted individual murderers, death penalty totally eliminates any possibility of the criminal going back to the streets and killing again (Ogloff and Honeyman). Apart from this aspect referred to as specific deterrence, the death penalty has even a wider scope of incapacitative benefits through general deterrence. This is because, by executing people convicted of committ ing horrific murders, potential murderers would be restrained from killing people since they are conscious of what will come over them (Cassell and Bedau 32). Some opponents of the death penalty are of the opinion that the concept of deterrence rests on a shaky ground since it assumes that people always think before acting, so that their actions depend on their rational evaluation of the consequences. According to them, the assumption made here is that murderers will always think rationally before committing a crime and thus will opt not to commit murder in view of the imminent outcome which is the death penalty. In this regard, opponents of the death penalty nullify this assumption by noting that not all homicides are committed under circumstances that allow rational evaluation of the consequences. They cite homicides that are committed out of passionate hatred in which murderers, overcome by hatred towards their victims, have no time to contemplate about the ultimate consequences of their destructive behavior (Dorpat 114). However, this opposing opinion can only gain support in light of the fact that the Supreme Court only approves of death penalty if a criminal is convicted of premeditated first-degree murder. Just because murders committed out of the heat of passion are treated as second-degree murders in which death penalty does not apply, it does not nullify the deterrent ef fects of the death penalty. It does not also imply that the presence of death penalty in the criminal justice system lack the capacity to prevent the so-called second degree murders (Cassell and Bedau 32). Moreover, it cannot be implied that despite having the death penalty, homicides continue to be committed in the country. The outstanding issue is not whether the death penalty prevents every murder, but rather, whether some murders are deterred by the death penalty. Logic, firsthand reports, and statistics have proved that the death penalty at least deters  some murders (Cassell and Bedau 32). For instance, an analysis conducted by Isaac Ehrlich in 1973 indicated that at least seven lives were saved for every execution of a convicted murderer. This is because prospective murderers were deterred from going down the same path. Follow-up studies have generated similar results (Arguments for and Against the Death Penalty). Apart from acting as a deterrent, the death penalty stands out as the only punishment that can be equated with the crime of murder. It is worth noting that when a life is taken by another, an imbalance in the justice system is the outcome. If the imbalance is not corrected, society is left to a rule of violence. Therefore, in conformity with the requirement that the punishment accorded should be proportional to the magnitude of the crime committed, death penalty is the right way to go (Arguments for and Against the Death Penalty). Moreover, the U.S justice system is used to the trend of escalating punishments which then qualifies that the most heinous crimes should receive the most severe punishment. Some opponents of the death penalty have argued that death penalty is cruel and denies the person the right to life. However, many forget the extent of cruelty with which the victim was subjected to by the murderer. The pain that a murderer causes to the family of the victim is immense and death penalty is the most appropriate punishment that can guarantee justice. This is not forgetting that it will still not be enough since the affected family will not get back their loved one (Siegel 513). Some opposing arguments have implied that the death penalty is a costly venture which overburdens the taxpayers. This argument does not represent the truth since more expenses are incurred by locking up killers for their entire lives. When these prisoners grow old and become vulnerable to many illnesses, the taxpayers are overburdened even further by the medical expenses. No one wants to spend his/her resources suporting killers when there is a justified means of preventing such costs and delivering justice (Guernsey 62). The death penalty is morally correct as it is even mentioned in the Bible. At the time the U.S constitution was drafted, the death penalty was widely accepted and does not qualify as unusu al. According to opponents of the death penalty, the punishment amounts to revenge and that a mature society should not respond by inflicting immediate pain to the point of death. They argue that the response to murderers should be more measured as the death penalty is too extreme,  violates respect for life, and encourages violence (Arguments for and Against the Death Penalty). However, they forget that allowing murderers to live degrades the value that the society places on lives and perpetuates imbalance in the justice system. It creates a society where the families of the victims suffer psychological torture trying to understand how they could lose their loved ones in the hands of criminals who continue to live. Therefore, death penalty is a way of bringing murder crimes to a closure (Arguments for and Against the Death Penalty). It serves to underscore that murder is one crime which when committed, amounts to the murderer forfeiting his/her right to live (Siegel 513). The debate on the legitimacy of the death penalty has also seen hot contention regarding what opponents term as discriminative application of the penalty, where the blacks seem to be targe ted than the whites. They argue that even in cases where whites have committed a similar crime for which blacks receive the ultimate punishment, they end up being given lesser punishment. Some have pointed to the findings of Baldus which alludes to these kinds of racial disparities in the 1970s particularly in Georgia (Hill 190). However, recent studies have indicated that Baldus findings cannot be used to represent the current situation where cases are scrutinized more closely to avoid partial or discriminative justice. Moreover, the argument that similar crimes should receive the same sentence is untenable if not misguided. This is because; prosecutors and juries have the right to their own discretion so that the details of similar crimes may be interpreted differently. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has asserted that it would be unconstitutional to have a death penalty that universally applies to all first-degree murders (Arguments for and Against the Death Penalty). Statistics show that contrary to previous trends where it seemed like the death penalty was racially discriminative, more whites are actually executed than black people. In addition, death sentence cannot be overturned on the basis of disproportionate representation of blacks who are on death row since this might only indicate that more murders are committed by blacks (Arguments for and Against the Death Penalty). Another argument that has dominated the corridors of justice in relation to the death penalty is the opposing opinion that there is a significant chance of an innocent person being executed by mistake. Thus, opponents regard the death penalty as an unreliable punishment by alluding to statistics that  date back to the 1970s when such incidences were notable though rare. The fact of the matter is, given the system of appeals that has been set in place through numerous federal and state courts, it is almost impossible to see such mistakes being made (Arguments for and Against the Death Penalty). Moreover, there are better methods of scrutinizing evidence such as DNA profiling in forensics which are widely used to make the justice system achieve greater efficiency. Opponents of the death penalty cannot provide a solid argument on the grounds of innocent people being executed since there is no proof to this effect. Even if such incidences occurred, they are extremely rare. In an effort to build their case, some opponents of the death penalty rely on the claims of innocence propagated by those who have been pardoned from death row after many years. However, most of these people are re leased due to legal technicalities and can never be taken to mean that they are actually innocent (Arguments for and Against the Death Penalty). From this argument, it is clear that the death penalty is a valuable tool in our criminal justice system whose legitimacy cannot be downplayed by any amount of opposing views. It is the ultimate punishment that is founded on the U.S Constitution. By acting as a deterrent, it saves many lives every time a convicted murderer is executed. It is also a punishment that restores balance in the universal justice system and underscores the high value that the society places on human lives. Opponents of the death penalty fail to present a solid argument that innocent people may be or have been executed by mistake and that the application of the death penalty is racially discriminative. It would be unnecessary to rely on statistics accumulated 4 or 5 decades ago and overlook the current improvements that have been made to refine the justice system. The death penalty remains a morally and constitutionally legitimate punishment.

Thematic Issues in Nine Muses by Wim Coleman Essay -- essays research

Many thematic issues are found in modern plays from classic myths in the book Nine Muses by Wim Coleman. Long ago, when life was full of mysteries, myths, or explanations, helped people make sense of a perplexing world. Myths also explain deeper questions. Such as, how did the world itself come to be? How did life begin? How were human beings created and why? And why is there suffering and death in the world? People of ancient cultures all over the world puzzled over such questions, and they created stories to answer them. One of the main thematic issues in Nine Muses is the tragic effect of engaging in actions which are forbidden. Some plays which express this thematic issue are â€Å"Pandora†, â€Å"Phaeton and the Sun Chariot†, and â€Å"Eros and Psyche†. One of the plays found in Nine Muses is â€Å"Pandora†. This play is about Hesoid, a Greek poet, who describes the creation of the universe of gods and humankind. He shares a story about â€Å"a gift for humankind† (P.22) or in other words, the first woman Pandora. As she enters the mortal world, she becomes the wife of Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus, a titan. Epimetheus’s brother told him he is not to have anything to do with the gods, and when he found out that Pandora was a gift from the gods, he told her he told her that he could not accept her- a gift from the gods. Pandora finds a beautiful clay jar hidden behind a curtain, while searching for the â€Å"wife† of Epimetheus. Pandora reaches to open the jar assuming it has Epimetheus’s wife in it but Epimetheus stops her explaining that there are terrible things in the jar. Being a curious girl, as soon as Epimetheus leaves the room to attend his daily chores, Pandora walks over t o the jar and opens the lid letting the terrible thi... ...s talk and the two sisters become awfully jealous of her. After they try to find out the truth of Psyche and her husband, they leave with some jewels. The night after the two sisters leave, Psyche can’t sleep at night and order her servants to bring her a lamp. She sneaks into her husband’s room, to find a beautiful creature with great, white folded, feathered wings. He is the son of Aphrodite’s, Eros – she says. As she quietly moves away, her oil lamp drops oil on Eros burning him and waking him up. He explains to Psyche that â€Å"mortals and gods are forbidden to marry† (p.137) that’s why she couldn’t see him and now he must go away from her. In this play we see that Pandora should’ve listened to her husband, Eros, and it caused herself bad in not listening to Eros, but we see that things can work out after something terrible occurs, such as the birth of a child.

Market research

The company/brand selected for the research proposal project Is Wall-Mart. INTRODUCTION Wall-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Wall-Mart, Is an American multinational retail corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. Headquartered In Bonneville, Arkansas, the company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 and incorporated on October 31, 1969. It has over 11,000 stores in 27 countries, under a total 55 different names. It operates in India as Best Price.The company is the world's largest public corporation, the biggest private employer in the oral with over two million employees and the largest retailer in the world. Wall-Mart is a family-owned business, as the company Is controlled by the Walton family, who own over 50 percent of Wall-Mart through their holding company, Walton Enterprises. It is also one of the world's most valuable companies and is also the largest grocery retailer in the US. The partnership between Birth Enterprises and Wall-Mart has been dissolved.Now Walter India Private Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall-Mart Stores Inc. Walter India owns and operates 20 Best Price Modern Wholesale stores in 8 states across India. Division of wall-mart: Neighborhood Markets (groceries) Cam's Club (membership) Discount stores (FMC & apparels) Wall-Mart superstructures (groceries) THE PROBLEMS FACED BY WALL-MART Late entry Overlook competitors Destroy small businesses Joint venture & Nationalism Culture difference Suppliers Government Regulations The problem which is looked at In this research project is government regulation.The statement of the problem- The problem which Is looked at In this research project Is the government for retail global companies makes it difficult to make any development in India so Wall-Mart wants to launch e-commerce. Objective of the study- it is to see how Wall-Mart will make a difference in the economy by online purchases. To see how the Indian market responds to e-commerce and wil l it help in increasing sales of the company. What will India do for Wall-Mart?Wall-Mart needs India, and it needs success in India. At the same moment as the Joint venture in India was announced this weekend, Wall-Mart announced something stunning about its November financial performance. In the US, in stores that have been open at least a year, sales actually fell compared to last year. Same-store US sales fell Just 0. 1% – the decline comes to about $mm. It wouldn't have been a decline at all if each US store had sold Just $1 ,250 a week in additional merchandise.The performance is chilling because it's only the second time in 25 years that Wall- Mart's same-store sales haven't grown. The truth is that while the US still accounts for more than 70% of Wall-Mart's sales, the country is full up with Wall-Marts: 53% of Americans already live within five miles of a Wall-Mart, and 90% live within 15 miles. If an American wants to shop at Wall-Mart, he or she already is. So if Wa ll-Mart is going to continue to grow, it must tap new and receptive markets like India. What will Wall- Mart do to India?The mood about Wall-Mart in the United States is conflicted, at best. For two years, there has been a noisy national debate about Wall-Mart's impact – low prices, yes, but also low wages, poor working conditions, small merchants swept away, manufacturers squeezed. In the recent Congressional elections, prominent Democrat politicians routinely attacked Wall-Mart, despite the fact that millions of Democrat voters shop there every week. In developing nations, in contrast, the arrival of Wall- Mart stores is still greeted with gratitude.But will Wall-Mart bring with it to India exactly the kind of business practices that cause resistance to it in the US? Indian's retail market is likely to be transformed over the next 10 years, and Wall-Mart is determined to be part of that. When a superstore opens that can do $1 m or $mm in business a week, it's going to vacuu m sales away from small merchants. Yes, Wall- Marts, and all hyper marts, create hundreds of Jobs. But there is a big difference between being a shopkeeper, and working in a store for mega-corporation.But at this Indian's elected officials want to understand what happens when Wall-Mart arrives, hey need only consult local officials in China or Mexico or Missouri. And if Indian officials want to both usher in a new consumer era, and preserve some of the traditional aspects of Indian commerce, they need to act now – with zoning laws, with rules on the size of stores and the hours they may be open – before the hyper marts roll in. Once they dot the landscape, as we've discovered in the US, it's too late to do anything but mourn the traditional ways of shopping.SECONDARY RESEARCH FINDINGS Wall-Mart will open 50 cash-and carry-stores in the country in the next 4-5 years, a eve that will strengthen the presence of the retail major in the wholesale segment. The announcement c omes a day after the Bops manifesto declared that the party will not allow foreign direct investment (FAD) in the multi-brand retail segment if it forms the next government. The BGP, in its manifesto unveiled Monday, said that it is not in favor of FAD in the multi-brand retail sector, though it was open to FAD in all other sectors if it led to Job and asset creation.However, the company has refrained from entering the sector, citing stringent conditions related to mandatory 30 per cent local rouging. Given that 100 per cent FAD is allowed in the cash and carry segment, this sector presents an opportunity to the company to make in-roads in the vast Indian market. In a statement, Walter also said that it will launch business-to-business (BIB) e-commerce platform for members of its cash and carry ‘Best Price Modern Wholesale Stores'. â€Å"Walter is committed to India and we are excited about our growth plans.We will continue to focus on the cash and carry format as we are very happy with the way it has shaped up in the last few years. The format is also poised o grow in India and we would like to serve the growing customer base by opening 50 new cash and carry stores over the next four-five years and extend the e-commerce platform to our cash and carry members with a virtual shopping opportunity,† Scott Price, president and CEO, Walter Asia, said, in the statement. The retailer currently has 20 Best Price Modern Wholesale Stores in the country.The first store opened in Marital in May 2009. Currently, 100 per cent FAD is allowed in single brand retail, and 51 per cent is allowed in the multi-brand retail sector. Also, 100 per cent FAD is allowed in BIB e-commerce, but not in BBC e-commerce. Price also said that the company will take â€Å"a number of important steps to strengthen compliance so that we do the right thing everyday'. â€Å"We are evaluating and reinforcing procedures and programs relating to all compliance areas†¦ And responsibl e sourcing among others,† Price added.PEST ANALYSIS Strong opposition to FAD in Indian's retail sector Taxation police – VAT Low access to banking facilities Economic analysis: GAP growth Foreign investments Money supply Inflation Social analysis: Corporate social responsibility Environmental safety Ease of shopping Technological analysis: Retail media network ERP system Online shopping CRM system CONSUMER ANALYSIS What will Wall-Mart do for Indian consumers? Wall-Mart will be a sensation in India – as it has been in China and in Mexico.At the moment, there is Just a single hyper mart in the whole country, in Iambi. Indian's rapidly growing middle class has more money to spend than any previous generation – but no place to spend it. Just 7% of retail spending in the country is in what westerners would consider â€Å"organized† retail stores. Even in China, that number is 20%. So Wall-Mart's acres of low-cost merchandise from around the world, gather ed under a single roof, will be like a carnival for a slice of Indian consumers.Wall-Mart store openings in developing nations are frequently huge events – tens of thousands of Chinese show up when new stores open there – and with good reason. People everywhere are grateful to have the products of the world delivered to their doorstep at affordable prices. Competitors are competitors within an industry. Competition in the industry can be weak with few competitors that don't compete very aggressively or it can be intense tit many competitors fighting in a cut-throat environment.Key competitors of Walter in the retail sectors are: VA Barilla Group- It has a strong presence in apparel retail and owns renowned brands like Allen Solely, Louis Phillips, Trouser Town, Van Houses and Peter England. The company has started to expand aggressively to compete with other players. Trend- It is subsidiary of the Data group, operates lifestyle retail chain, book and music chain consum er electronics chain etc. Landmark Group K Rajah Crop Group Reliance Pantaloon Others stores are: Big bazaar Spencer Careful & metro are the main wholesale cash-and-carry brands. Market research The company/brand selected for the research proposal project Is Wall-Mart. INTRODUCTION Wall-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Wall-Mart, Is an American multinational retail corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. Headquartered In Bonneville, Arkansas, the company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 and incorporated on October 31, 1969. It has over 11,000 stores in 27 countries, under a total 55 different names. It operates in India as Best Price.The company is the world's largest public corporation, the biggest private employer in the oral with over two million employees and the largest retailer in the world. Wall-Mart is a family-owned business, as the company Is controlled by the Walton family, who own over 50 percent of Wall-Mart through their holding company, Walton Enterprises. It is also one of the world's most valuable companies and is also the largest grocery retailer in the US. The partnership between Birth Enterprises and Wall-Mart has been dissolved.Now Walter India Private Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall-Mart Stores Inc. Walter India owns and operates 20 Best Price Modern Wholesale stores in 8 states across India. Division of wall-mart: Neighborhood Markets (groceries) Cam's Club (membership) Discount stores (FMC & apparels) Wall-Mart superstructures (groceries) THE PROBLEMS FACED BY WALL-MART Late entry Overlook competitors Destroy small businesses Joint venture & Nationalism Culture difference Suppliers Government Regulations The problem which is looked at In this research project is government regulation.The statement of the problem- The problem which Is looked at In this research project Is the government for retail global companies makes it difficult to make any development in India so Wall-Mart wants to launch e-commerce. Objective of the study- it is to see how Wall-Mart will make a difference in the economy by online purchases. To see how the Indian market responds to e-commerce and wil l it help in increasing sales of the company. What will India do for Wall-Mart?Wall-Mart needs India, and it needs success in India. At the same moment as the Joint venture in India was announced this weekend, Wall-Mart announced something stunning about its November financial performance. In the US, in stores that have been open at least a year, sales actually fell compared to last year. Same-store US sales fell Just 0. 1% – the decline comes to about $mm. It wouldn't have been a decline at all if each US store had sold Just $1 ,250 a week in additional merchandise.The performance is chilling because it's only the second time in 25 years that Wall- Mart's same-store sales haven't grown. The truth is that while the US still accounts for more than 70% of Wall-Mart's sales, the country is full up with Wall-Marts: 53% of Americans already live within five miles of a Wall-Mart, and 90% live within 15 miles. If an American wants to shop at Wall-Mart, he or she already is. So if Wa ll-Mart is going to continue to grow, it must tap new and receptive markets like India. What will Wall- Mart do to India?The mood about Wall-Mart in the United States is conflicted, at best. For two years, there has been a noisy national debate about Wall-Mart's impact – low prices, yes, but also low wages, poor working conditions, small merchants swept away, manufacturers squeezed. In the recent Congressional elections, prominent Democrat politicians routinely attacked Wall-Mart, despite the fact that millions of Democrat voters shop there every week. In developing nations, in contrast, the arrival of Wall- Mart stores is still greeted with gratitude.But will Wall-Mart bring with it to India exactly the kind of business practices that cause resistance to it in the US? Indian's retail market is likely to be transformed over the next 10 years, and Wall-Mart is determined to be part of that. When a superstore opens that can do $1 m or $mm in business a week, it's going to vacuu m sales away from small merchants. Yes, Wall- Marts, and all hyper marts, create hundreds of Jobs. But there is a big difference between being a shopkeeper, and working in a store for mega-corporation.But at this Indian's elected officials want to understand what happens when Wall-Mart arrives, hey need only consult local officials in China or Mexico or Missouri. And if Indian officials want to both usher in a new consumer era, and preserve some of the traditional aspects of Indian commerce, they need to act now – with zoning laws, with rules on the size of stores and the hours they may be open – before the hyper marts roll in. Once they dot the landscape, as we've discovered in the US, it's too late to do anything but mourn the traditional ways of shopping.SECONDARY RESEARCH FINDINGS Wall-Mart will open 50 cash-and carry-stores in the country in the next 4-5 years, a eve that will strengthen the presence of the retail major in the wholesale segment. The announcement c omes a day after the Bops manifesto declared that the party will not allow foreign direct investment (FAD) in the multi-brand retail segment if it forms the next government. The BGP, in its manifesto unveiled Monday, said that it is not in favor of FAD in the multi-brand retail sector, though it was open to FAD in all other sectors if it led to Job and asset creation.However, the company has refrained from entering the sector, citing stringent conditions related to mandatory 30 per cent local rouging. Given that 100 per cent FAD is allowed in the cash and carry segment, this sector presents an opportunity to the company to make in-roads in the vast Indian market. In a statement, Walter also said that it will launch business-to-business (BIB) e-commerce platform for members of its cash and carry ‘Best Price Modern Wholesale Stores'. â€Å"Walter is committed to India and we are excited about our growth plans.We will continue to focus on the cash and carry format as we are very happy with the way it has shaped up in the last few years. The format is also poised o grow in India and we would like to serve the growing customer base by opening 50 new cash and carry stores over the next four-five years and extend the e-commerce platform to our cash and carry members with a virtual shopping opportunity,† Scott Price, president and CEO, Walter Asia, said, in the statement. The retailer currently has 20 Best Price Modern Wholesale Stores in the country.The first store opened in Marital in May 2009. Currently, 100 per cent FAD is allowed in single brand retail, and 51 per cent is allowed in the multi-brand retail sector. Also, 100 per cent FAD is allowed in BIB e-commerce, but not in BBC e-commerce. Price also said that the company will take â€Å"a number of important steps to strengthen compliance so that we do the right thing everyday'. â€Å"We are evaluating and reinforcing procedures and programs relating to all compliance areas†¦ And responsibl e sourcing among others,† Price added.PEST ANALYSIS Strong opposition to FAD in Indian's retail sector Taxation police – VAT Low access to banking facilities Economic analysis: GAP growth Foreign investments Money supply Inflation Social analysis: Corporate social responsibility Environmental safety Ease of shopping Technological analysis: Retail media network ERP system Online shopping CRM system CONSUMER ANALYSIS What will Wall-Mart do for Indian consumers? Wall-Mart will be a sensation in India – as it has been in China and in Mexico.At the moment, there is Just a single hyper mart in the whole country, in Iambi. Indian's rapidly growing middle class has more money to spend than any previous generation – but no place to spend it. Just 7% of retail spending in the country is in what westerners would consider â€Å"organized† retail stores. Even in China, that number is 20%. So Wall-Mart's acres of low-cost merchandise from around the world, gather ed under a single roof, will be like a carnival for a slice of Indian consumers.Wall-Mart store openings in developing nations are frequently huge events – tens of thousands of Chinese show up when new stores open there – and with good reason. People everywhere are grateful to have the products of the world delivered to their doorstep at affordable prices. Competitors are competitors within an industry. Competition in the industry can be weak with few competitors that don't compete very aggressively or it can be intense tit many competitors fighting in a cut-throat environment.Key competitors of Walter in the retail sectors are: VA Barilla Group- It has a strong presence in apparel retail and owns renowned brands like Allen Solely, Louis Phillips, Trouser Town, Van Houses and Peter England. The company has started to expand aggressively to compete with other players. Trend- It is subsidiary of the Data group, operates lifestyle retail chain, book and music chain consum er electronics chain etc. Landmark Group K Rajah Crop Group Reliance Pantaloon Others stores are: Big bazaar Spencer Careful & metro are the main wholesale cash-and-carry brands.

Desistance

Criminology & Criminal Justice  © 2006 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks & New Delhi) and the British Society of Criminology. www. sagepublications. com ISSN 1748–8958; Vol: 6(1): 39–62 DOI: 10. 1177/1748895806060666 A desistance paradigm for offender management FERGUS McNEILL Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde, UK Abstract In an in? uential article published in the British Journal of Social Work in 1979, Anthony Bottoms and Bill McWilliams proposed the adoption of a ‘non-treatment paradigm’ for probation practice.Their argument rested on a careful and considered analysis not only of empirical evidence about the ineffectiveness of rehabilitative treatment but also of theoretical, moral and philosophical questions about such interventions. By 1994, emerging evidence about the potential effectiveness of some intervention programmes was suf? cient to lead Peter Raynor and Maurice Vanstone to suggest signi? cant revisions to the ‘non-treatme nt paradigm’.In this article, it is argued that a different but equally relevant form of empirical evidence—that derived from desistance studies—suggests a need to re-evaluate these earlier paradigms for probation practice. This reevaluation is also required by the way that such studies enable us to understand and theorize both desistance itself and the role that penal professionals might play in supporting it.Ultimately, these empirical and theoretical insights drive us back to the complex interfaces between technical and moral questions that preoccupied Bottoms and McWilliams and that should feature more prominently in contemporary debates about the futures of ‘offender management’ and of our penal systems. Key Words desistance †¢ effectiveness †¢ ethics †¢ offender management †¢ nontreatment paradigm †¢ probation 39 40 Criminology & Criminal Justice 6(1) IntroductionCritical analysts of the history of ideas in the probati on service have charted the various reconstructions of probation practice that have accompanied changes in penal theories, policies and sensibilities. Most famously, McWilliams (1983, 1985, 1986, 1987) described the transformations of probation from a missionary endeavour that aimed to save souls, to a professionalized endeavour that aimed to ‘cure’ offending through rehabilitative treatment, to a pragmatic endeavour that aimed to provide alternatives to custody and practical help for offenders (see also Vanstone, 2004).More recent commentators have suggested later transformations of probation practice related ? rst to its recasting, in England and Wales, as ‘punishment in the community’ and then to its increasing focus on risk management and public protection (Robinson and McNeill, 2004). In each of these eras of probation history, practitioners, academics and other commentators have sought to articulate new paradigms for probation practice. Though much of the debate about the merits of these paradigms has focused on empirical questions about the ef? acy of different approaches to the treatment and management of offenders, probation paradigms also re? ect, implicitly or explicitly, developments both in the philosophy and in the sociology of punishment. The origins of this article are similar in that the initial impetus for the development of a desistance paradigm for ‘offender management’1 emerged from reviews of desistance research (McNeill, 2003) and, more speci? cally, from the ? ndings of some particularly important recent studies (Burnett, 1992; Rex, 1999; Maruna, 2001; Farrall, 2002).However, closer examination of some aspects of the desistance research also suggests a normative case for a new paradigm; indeed, some of the empirical evidence seems to make a necessity out of certain ‘practice virtues’. That these virtues are arguably in decline as a result of the fore-fronting of risk and public protect ion in contemporary criminal justice serves to make the development of the case for a desistance paradigm both timely and necessary. To that end, the structure of this article is as follows.It begins with summaries of two important paradigms for probation practice—the ‘nontreatment paradigm’ (Bottoms and McWilliams, 1979) and the ‘revised paradigm’ (Raynor and Vanstone, 1994). The article then proceeds with an analysis of the emerging theoretical and empirical case for a desistance paradigm. This section draws not only on the ? ndings of desistance studies but also on recent studies of the effectiveness of different approaches to securing ‘personal change’ in general and on recent developments in the ‘what works’ literature in particular.The ethical case for a desistance paradigm is then advanced not only in the light of the empirical evidence about the practical necessity of certain modes of ethical practice, but also in th e light of developments in the philosophy of punishment, most notably the ideas associated with the work of the ‘new rehabilitationists’ (Lewis, 2005) and with Anthony Duff’s ‘penal communications’ theory (Duff, McNeill—A desistance paradigm for offender management 2001, 2003).In the concluding discussion, I try to sketch out some of the parameters of a desistance paradigm, though this is intended more as an attempt to stimulate debate about its development rather than to de? ne categorically its features. 41 Changing paradigms for probation practice Writing at the end of the 1970s, Bottoms and McWilliams declared the need for a new paradigm for probation practice, a paradigm that ‘is theoretically rigorous, which takes very seriously the limitations of the treatment model; but which seeks to redirect the probation service’s traditional aims and values in the new penal and social context’ (1979: 167).Bottoms and McWilliams proposed their paradigm against the backdrop of a prevailing view that treatment had been discredited both empirically and ethically. Though they did not review the empirical case in any great detail, they refer to several studies (Lipton et al. , 1975; Brody, 1976; Greenberg, 1976) as establishing the broad conclusion that ‘dramatic reformative results are hard to discover and are usually absent’ (Bottoms and McWilliams, 1979: 160). They also stressed the theoretical inadequacies of the treatment model, noting several ? aws in the analogy between probation interventions and medical treatment; ? st, crime is voluntary whereas most diseases are not; second, crime is not pathological in any straightforward sense; and third, individual treatment models neglect the social causes of crime. Worse still, neglect of these ? aws produced ethical problems; they argued that over-con? dence in the prospects for effecting change through treatment had permitted its advocates both to coerce offenders into interventions (because the treatment provider was an expert who knew best) and to ignore offenders’ views of their own situations (because offenders were victims of their own lack of insight).Perhaps most insidiously of all, within this ideology coerced treatment could be justi? ed in offenders’ own best interests. Bottoms and McWilliams also discerned an important ‘implicit con? ict between the determinism implied in diagnosis and treatment and the frequently stressed casework principle of client selfdetermination’ (1979: 166). How can offenders be simultaneously the objects on whom psychological, physical and social forces operate (as the term diagnosis implies) and the authors of their own futures (as the principle of self-determination requires)?Bottoms and McWilliams’ hope was that by exposing the weaknesses of the treatment paradigm, they would allow for a renaissance of the probation service’s traditional core val ues of hope and respect for persons. They suggested that the four primary aims of the service ‘are and have been: 1 2 3 4 The provision of appropriate help for offenders The statutory supervision of offenders Diverting appropriate offenders from custodial sentences The reduction of crime’ (1979: 168). 42 Criminology & Criminal Justice 6(1) It is their discussion of the ? rst and second of these objectives that is most relevant to the discussion here.However, it is worth noting ? rst that, for Bottoms and McWilliams, the problem with the treatment model was that it assumed that the fourth objective must be achieved through the pursuit of the ? rst three; an assumption that they suggested could not be sustained empirically. 2 With regard to the provision of help as opposed to treatment, Bottoms and McWilliams rejected the ‘objecti? cation’ of offenders implied in the ‘casework relationship’, wherein the offender becomes an object to be treated, c ured or managed in and through social policy and professional practice. One consequence of this objecti? ation, they suggested, is that the formulation of treatment plans rests with the expert; the approach is essentially ‘of? cer-centred’. Bottoms and McWilliams (1979: 173) suggested, by way of contrast, that in the non-treatment paradigm: (a) Treatment (b) Diagnosis (c) Client’s Dependent Need as the basis for social work action becomes becomes becomes Help Shared Assessment Collaboratively De? ned Task as the basis for social work action In this formulation, ‘help’ includes but is not limited to material help; probation may continue to address emotional or psychological dif? ulties, but this is no longer its raison d’etre. Critically, the test of any proposed intervention technique is that it must help the client. Bottoms and McWilliams (1979: 174) explicitly disavowed any claim that the help model would be bene? cial in the reduction of cr ime. 3 Having reconceived of probation practice as help rather than treatment, Bottoms and McWilliams’ discussion of probation’s second aim, the statutory supervision of offenders, explored the implicit tensions between help and surveillance.Accepting that probation of? cers are ‘law enforcement’ agents as well as helpers, they drew on an article by Raynor (1978) that argued for a crucial distinction between coercion and constraint; ‘choice under constraint is morally acceptable; manipulative coercion is not’ (Bottoms and McWilliams, 1979: 177). Following Raynor, they suggested that making this distinction meaningful required probation of? cers actively to seek, within the constraints of the probation order, to maximize the area of choice for the offender.Their paradigm therefore invoked a distinction between the compulsory requirements imposed by the court (with the offender’s constrained consent) and the substantive content of the hel ping process. In the latter connection, the ‘client’ should be free to choose to accept or reject help without fear of further sanctions. Put another way, the authority for supervision derives from the court but the authority for help resides in the offender. For Bottoms and McWilliams this required that the (then) legal requirement of consent by defendants to probation and community ervice should be taken much more seriously; indeed, they suggested that so as to avoid compulsory help McNeill—A desistance paradigm for offender management arising from a probation recommendation, defendants’ consent to such recommendations should be required. Where consent was absent, no such recommendation should be made. Fifteen years later, Peter Raynor and Maurice Vanstone (1994) argued that the non-treatment paradigm—a paradigm that they clearly regarded as being well worthy of the in? uence that it had exercised in the intervening years—was none the less in need of revision.The resurgence of optimism about the potential effectiveness of some forms of ‘treatment’ led Raynor and Vanstone to argue that the foundations of the non-treatment paradigm, ‘built as they were out of a mixture of doubt and scepticism about the crime-reducing potential of rehabilitation, have produced cracks in the structure’ (1994: 396): By uncoupling ‘helping offenders’ from ‘crime reduction’, the paradigm is prevented from exploring whether work with individuals on their thinking, behaviour and attitudes has any relevance to crime reduction. Current knowledge of research into effectiveness necessitates, therefore, a rede? ing of the concept of appropriate help in a way that retains the principle of collaboration, and the stress on client needs, but which incorporates informed practice focused on in? uencing and helping individuals to stop offending . . . This should not detract from the need to address the s ocial and economic context of crime. (Raynor and Vanstone, 1994: 398) 43 It is clear that Raynor and Vanstone (1994) were not advocating a return to a treatment paradigm; rather, in their discussion of intervention ‘programmes’, they explicitly rejected Bottoms and McWilliams’ dichotomization of treatment and help.More speci? cally, Raynor and Vanstone questioned the assumption that critiques of psychodynamic approaches as ‘involving disguised coercion, denial of clients’ views, the objecti? cation of people, and a demonstrable lack of effectiveness when applied to offenders’ (1994: 399) could be equally applied to all forms of treatment. This false assumption, they argued, led Bottoms and McWilliams to ‘ignore other possible bases for intervention outside the â€Å"medical model† and encouraged the reader to identify all attempts to in? uence offenders as ethically objectionable treatment’ (Raynor and Vanstone, 1994: 400). A further crucial problem with the ‘non-treatment paradigm’ rested in its neglect of victims. The arguments of left realist criminologists (Young, 1988) persuaded Raynor and Vanstone (1994) that the traditional probation value of ‘respect for persons’ had to include the actual and potential victims of crime. This in turn implied that the extent to which client (that is, offender) choice could be respected and unconditional help could be offered had some necessary limitations; essentially, probation had to accept an obligation to work to reduce the harms caused by crime, as well as the ills that provoke it.Thus: Compensatory help and empowerment of offenders are a proper response to situations where individuals have had few opportunities to avoid crime, but 44 Criminology & Criminal Justice 6(1) their purpose is not simply to widen offenders’ choices: it includes doing so in a manner consistent with a wider goal of crime reduction. Such a goal is not simply in the interests of the powerful: although criminal justice in an unequal society re? ects and is distorted by its inequalities, the least powerful suffer some of the most common kinds of crime and are most in need of protection from it. This includes, of course, many offenders who are themselves victims of crime . . . ) (Raynor and Vanstone, 1994: 401) Raynor and Vanstone (1994: 402) concluded by adapting Bottoms and McWilliams’ (1979) schematic summary of their paradigm: (a) Help becomes Help consistent with a commitment to the reduction of harm Explicit dialogue and negotiation offering opportunities for informed consent to involvement in a process of change Collaboratively de? ned task relevant to criminogenic needs, and potentially effective in meeting them b) Shared assessment becomes (c) Collaboratively de? ned task becomes In terms of both organizational change and practice development, the 10 years that followed the publication of Raynor and Vanstone’s (1994) article have been even more tumultuous than the years between the publication of the non-treatment paradigm and its revision. It is beyond the scope of this article to give an account of these changes (see Nellis, 1999; Raynor and Vanstone, 2002; Mair, 2004; Robinson and McNeill, 2004).Indeed, since the purpose of this article is to consider how the practice of offender management should be reconstructed in the light of the desistance research, there is some merit in ignoring how it has been reconstructed for more political and pragmatic reasons. That said, two particular developments require comment. The ? rst relates to changes in formulations of the purposes of probation since the publication of the earlier paradigms.Without entering into the ongoing debates about the recasting of probation’s purposes south of the border (see Robinson and McNeill, 2004; Worrall and Hoy, 2005), it is suf? cient to state that, in contrast to the four aims outlined by Bottoms and McWil liams—aims which were still uncontested by Raynor and Vanstone in 1994—the new National Offender Management Service, incorporating prisons and probation, exists to manage offenders and in so doing to provide a service to the ‘law-abiding’ public. Its objectives are to punish offenders and to reduce re-offending (Blunkett, 2004: 10).The second development concerns the application of a particular approach to developing effective probation practice in England and Wales in McNeill—A desistance paradigm for offender management the form of the ‘what works’ initiative (McNeill, 2001, 2004a). In effect, this initiative involves the imposition from the centre of an implicit ‘what works’ paradigm for probation practice. Once again the debates about the characteristics, implications and ? aws of this paradigm are complex (see Mair, 2004). Perhaps he easiest way to summarize the paradigm however, is to suggest a further revision to Ray nor and Vanstone’s (1994) adaptation of Bottoms and McWilliams’ (1979) schematic summary: (a) Help consistent with a commitment to the reduction of harm (b) Explicit dialogue and negotiation offering opportunities for informed consent to involvement in a process of change (c) Collaboratively de? ned task relevant to criminogenic needs, and potentially effective in meeting them becomes Intervention required to reduce reoffending and protect the public Professional assessment of risk and need governed by the application of structured assessment instruments 5 becomes becomes Compulsory engagement in structured programmes and case management processes to address criminogenic needs – as required elements of legal orders imposed irrespective of consent Theoretical and empirical arguments for a desistance paradigm4 A fundamental but perhaps inevitable problem with the non-treatment paradigm, the revised paradigm and the ‘what works’ paradigm is that they b egin in the wrong place; that is, they begin by thinking about how practice (whether ‘treatment’, ‘help’ or ‘programmes’) should be constructed without ? rst thinking about how change should be understood.For Bottoms and McWilliams (1979) this omission makes some sense, since their premise was that the prospects for practice securing individual change were bleak. However, for Raynor and Vanstone (1994) and for the prevailing ‘what works’ paradigm, the problem is more serious; given their reasonable optimism about the prospects for individual rehabilitation, the absence of a well-developed theory of how rehabilitation occurs is more problematic. 5 Understanding desistance The change process involved in the rehabilitation of offenders is desistance from offending.The muted impact that desistance research has had on policy and practice hitherto is both surprising and problematic because 46 Criminology & Criminal Justice 6(1) knowledge about processes of desistance is clearly critical to our understandings of how and why ex-offenders come to change their behaviours. Indeed, building an understanding of the human processes and social contexts in and through which desistance occurs is a necessary precursor to developing practice paradigms; put another way, constructions of practice should be embedded in understandings of desistance.The implications of such embedding are signi? cant and far-reaching. Maruna et al. (2004) draw a parallel with a related shift in the ? eld of addictions away from the notion of treatment and towards the idea of recovery, quoting an in? uential essay by William White (2000): Treatment was birthed as an adjunct to recovery, but, as treatment grew in size and status, it de? ned recovery as an adjunct of itself. The original perspective needs to be recaptured. Treatment institutions need to once again become servants of the larger recovery process and the community in which that recovery is nested and sustained . . (White, 2000, cited in Maruna et al. , 2004: 9) Although the language of recovery may be inappropriate in relation to offenders, given both that it implies a medical model and that it suggests a prior state of well-being that may never have existed for many, the analogy is telling none the less. Put simply, the implication is that offender management services need to think of themselves less as providers of correctional treatment (that belongs to the expert) and more as supporters of desistance processes (that belong to the desister).In some respects, this shift in perspective, by re-emphasizing the offender’s viewpoint, might re-invigorate the non-treatment paradigm’s rejection of the objecti? cation of the ‘client’ and of the elevation of the ‘therapist’. However, it does so not by rejecting ‘treatment’ per se, but by seeing professional intervention as being, in some sense, subservient to a wider proce ss that belongs to the desister. Before proceeding further, more needs to be said about how processes of desistance should be understood and theorized.Maruna (2001) identi? es three broad theoretical perspectives in the desistance literature: maturational reform, social bonds theory and narrative theory. Maturational reform (or ‘ontogenic’) theories have the longest history and are based on the established links between age and certain criminal behaviours, particularly street crime. Social bonds (or ‘sociogenic’) theories suggest that ties to family, employment or educational programmes in early adulthood explain changes in criminal behaviour across the life course.Where these ties exist, they create a stake in conformity, a reason to ‘go straight’. Where they are absent, people who offend have less to lose from continuing to offend. Narrative theories have emerged from more qualitative research which stresses the signi? cance of subjective cha nges in the person’s sense of self and identity, re? ected in changing motivations, greater concern for others and more consideration of the future. Bringing these perspectives together, Farrall stresses the signi? cance of theMcNeill—A desistance paradigm for offender management relationships between ‘objective’ changes in the offender’s life and his or her ‘subjective’ assessment of the value or signi? cance of these changes: . . . the desistance literature has pointed to a range of factors associated with the ending of active involvement in offending. Most of these factors are related to acquiring ‘something’ (most commonly employment, a life partner or a family) which the desister values in some way and which initiates a reevaluation of his or her own life . . (Farrall, 2002: 11) 47 Thus, desistance resides somewhere in the interfaces between developing personal maturity, changing social bonds associated with certain li fe transitions, and the individual subjective narrative constructions which offenders build around these key events and changes. It is not just the events and changes that matter; it is what these events and changes mean to the people involved. Clearly this understanding implies that desistance itself is not an event (like being cured of a disease) but a process.Desistance is necessarily about ceasing offending and then refraining from further offending over an extended period (for more detailed discussions see Maruna, 2001; Farrall, 2002; Maruna and Farrall, 2004). Maruna and Farrall (2004) suggest that it is helpful to distinguish primary desistance (the achievement of an offence-free period) from secondary desistance (an underlying change in self-identity wherein the ex-offender labels him or herself as such). Although Bottoms et al. 2004) have raised some doubts about the value of this distinction on the grounds that it may exaggerate the importance of cognitive changes which ne ed not always accompany desistance, it does seem likely that where offender managers are dealing with (formerly) persistent offenders, the distinction may be useful; indeed, in those kinds of cases their role might be constructed as prompting, supporting and sustaining secondary desistance wherever this is possible.Moreover, further empirical support for the notion of secondary desistance (and its usefulness) might be found in Burnett’s (1992) study of efforts to desist among 130 adult property offenders released from custody. Burnett noted that while eight out of ten, when interviewed pre-release, wanted to ‘go straight’; six out of ten subsequently reported re-offending post-release. For many, the intention to be law-abiding was provisional in the sense that it did not represent a con? dent prediction; only one in four reported that they would de? itely be able to desist. Importantly, Burnett discovered that those who were most con? dent and optimistic about de sisting had greatest success in doing so. For the others, the ‘provisional nature of intentions re? ected social dif? culties and personal problems that the men faced’ (Burnett, 2000: 14). That this implies the need for intentions to desist to be grounded in changes of identity is perhaps supported by Burnett’s ? ndings about different types of desisters. She discerned three 48Criminology & Criminal Justice 6(1) categories: ‘non-starters’ who adamantly denied that they were ‘real criminals’ and, in fact, had fewer previous convictions than the others; ‘avoiders’, for whom keeping out of prison was the key issue; and ‘converts’ who appeared to have decided that the costs of crime outweighed the bene? ts. Indeed, the converts were: the most resolute and certain among the desisters. They had found new interests that were all-preoccupying and overturned their value system: a partner, a child, a good job, a new vocat ion.These were attainments that they were not prepared to jeopardize or which over-rode any interest in or need for property crime. (Burnett, 2000: 14) Although Burnett notes that, for most of the men involved in her study, processes of desistance were characterized by ambivalence and vacillation, the over-turning of value systems and all pre-occupying new interests that characterized the ‘converts’ seem to imply the kind of identity changes invoked in the notion of secondary desistance.Maruna’s (2001) study offers a particularly important contribution to understanding secondary desistance by exploring the subjective dimensions of change. Maruna compared the narrative ‘scripts’ of 20 persisters and 30 desisters who shared similar criminogenic traits and backgrounds and who lived in similarly criminogenic environments. In the ‘condemnation script’ that emerged from the persisters, ‘The condemned person is the narrator (although he o r she reserves plenty of blame for society as well). Active offenders . . . argely saw their life scripts as having been written for them a long time ago’ (Maruna, 2001: 75). By contrast, the accounts of the desisters revealed a different narrative: The redemption script begins by establishing the goodness and conventionality of the narrator—a victim of society who gets involved with crime and drugs to achieve some sort of power over otherwise bleak circumstances. This deviance eventually becomes its own trap, however, as the narrator becomes ensnared in the vicious cycle of crime and imprisonment.Yet, with the help of some outside force, someone who ‘believed in’ the ex-offender, the narrator is able to accomplish what he or she was ‘always meant to do’. Newly empowered, he or she now seeks to ‘give something back’ to society as a display of gratitude. (Maruna, 2001: 87) The desisters and the persisters shared the same sense of f atalism in their accounts of the development of their criminal careers; however, Maruna reads the minimization of responsibility implied by this fatalism as evidence of the conventionality of their values and aspirations and of their need to believe in the essential goodness of the ‘real me’.Moreover, in their accounts of achieving change there is evidence that desisters have to ‘discover’ agency in order to resist and overcome the criminogenic structural pressures that play upon them. This discovery of agency seems to McNeill—A desistance paradigm for offender management relate to the role of signi? cant others in envisioning an alternative identity and an alternative future for the offender even through periods when they cannot see these possibilities for themselves.Typically later in the process of change, involvement in ‘generative activities’ (which usually make a contribution to the well-being of others) plays a part in testifying to the desister that an alternative ‘agentic’ identity is being or has been forged. Intriguingly, the process of discovering agency, on one level at least, sheds interesting light on the apparent theoretical inconsistency that Bottoms and McWilliams (1979) inferred from the treatment paradigm; that is, an inconsistency between its deterministic analysis of the causes of criminality and its focus on self-determination in the treatment process.Arguably what Maruna (2001) has revealed is the role of re? exivity in both revealing and producing shifts in the dynamic relationships between agency and structure (see also Farrall and Bowling, 1999). Supporting desistance The implications for practice of this developing evidence base have begun to be explored in a small number of research studies that have focused on the role that probation may play in supporting desistance (for example Rex, 1999; Farrall, 2002; McCulloch, 2005). In one study of ‘assisted desistance’ , Rex (1999) explored the experiences of 60 probationers.She found that those who attributed changes in their behaviour to probation supervision described it as active and participatory. Probationers’ commitments to desist appeared to be generated by the personal and professional commitment shown by their probation of? cers, whose reasonableness, fairness and encouragement seemed to engender a sense of personal loyalty and accountability. Probationers interpreted advice about their behaviours and underlying problems as evidence of concern for them as people, and ‘were motivated by what they saw as a display of interest in their wellbeing’ (Rex, 1999: 375).Such evidence resonates with other arguments about the pivotal role that relationships play in effective interventions (Barry, 2000; Burnett, 2004; Burnett and McNeill, 2005; McNeill et al. , 2005). If secondary desistance (for those involved in persistent offending at least) requires a narrative reconstruction of identity, then it seems obvious why the relational aspects of practice are so signi? cant. Who would risk engaging in such a precarious and threatening venture without the reassurance of sustained and compassionate support from a trusted source?However, workers and working relationships are neither the only nor the most important resources in promoting desistance. Related studies of young people in trouble suggest that their own resources and social networks are often better at resolving their dif? culties than professional staff (Hill, 1999). The potential of social networks is highlighted by ‘resilience perspectives’, which, in contrast with approaches that dwell on risks and/or needs, consider the ‘protective factors and processes’ involved in positive adaptation in spite of adversity.In terms of practice with young 49 50 Criminology & Criminal Justice 6(1) people, such perspectives entail an emphasis on the recognition, exploitation and development o f their competences, resources, skills and assets (Schoon and Bynner, 2003). In similar vein, but in relation to re-entry of ex-prisoners to society, Maruna and LeBel (2003) have made a convincing case for the development of strengths-based (rather than needs-based or risk-based) narratives and approaches.Drawing on both psychological and criminological evidence, they argue that such approaches would be likely both to enhance compliance with parole conditions and to encourage exprisoners to achieve ‘earned redemption’ (Bazemore, 1999) by focusing on the positive contributions through which they might make good to their communities. Thus promoting desistance also means striving to develop the offender’s strengths—at both an individual and a social network level—in order to build and sustain the momentum for change.In looking towards these personal and social contexts of desistance, the most recent and perhaps most wide-scale study of probation and de sistance is particularly pertinent to the development of a desistance paradigm. Farrall (2002) explored the progress or lack of progress towards desistance achieved by a group of 199 probationers. Though over half of the sample evidenced progress towards desistance, Farrall found that desistance could be attributed to speci? c interventions by the probation of? cer in only a few cases, although help with ? ding work and mending damaged family relationships appeared particularly important. Desistance seemed to relate more clearly to the probationers’ motivations and to the social and personal contexts in which various obstacles to desistance were addressed. Farrall (2002) goes on to argue that interventions must pay greater heed to the community, social and personal contexts in which they are situated (see also McCulloch, 2005). After all, ‘social circumstances and relationships with others are both the object of the intervention and the medium through which . . . change can be achieved’ (Farrall, 2002: 212, emphases added).Necessarily, this requires that interventions be focused not solely on the individual person and his or her perceived ‘de? cits’. As Farrall (2002) notes, the problem with such interventions is that while they can build human capital, for example, in terms of enhanced cognitive skills or improved employability, they cannot generate the social capital that resides in the relationships through which we achieve participation and inclusion in society. 6 Vitally, it is social capital that is necessary to encourage desistance. It is not enough to build capacities for change where change depends on opportunities to exercise capacities: ‘. . the process of desistance is one that is produced through an interplay between individual choices, and a range of wider social forces, institutional and societal practices which are beyond the control of the individual’ (Farrall and Bowling, 1999: 261). Barry’ s (2004) recent study provides another key reference point for exploring how themes of capital, agency, identity and transition play out speci? cally for younger people desisting from offending. Through in-depth interviews with 20 young women and 20 young men, Barry explored why they started and stopped offending and what in? enced or inhibited them McNeill—A desistance paradigm for offender management in that behaviour as they grew older. The young people revealed that their decisions about offending and desisting were related to their need to feel included in their social world, through friendships in childhood and through wider commitments in adulthood. The resolve displayed by the young people in desisting from offending seemed remarkable to Barry, particularly given that they were from disadvantaged backgrounds and were limited in their access to mainstream pportunities (employment, housing and social status) both because of their age and because of their social class. B arry recognizes crucially that: Because of their transitional situation, many young people lack the status and opportunities of full citizens and thus have limited capacity for social recognition in terms of durable and legitimate means of both accumulating and expending capital through taking on responsibility and generativity . . .Accumulation of capital requires, to a certain extent, both responsibilities and access to opportunities; however, children and young people rarely have such opportunities because of their status as ‘liminal entities’ (Turner, 1969), not least those from a working class background. (2004: 328–9) 51 It is interesting to note that similar messages about the signi? cance both of the relational and of the social contexts of desistance have emerged recently from ‘treatment’ research itself.Ten years on from McGuire and Priestley’s (1995) original statement of ‘what works’, these neglected aspects of practic e have re-emerged in revisions to and re? nements of the principles of effective practice. One authoritative recent review, for example, highlights the increasing attention that is being paid to the need for staff to use interpersonal skills, to exercise some discretion in their interventions, to take diversity among participants into account and to look at how the broader service context can best support effective practice (Raynor, 2004: 201).Raynor notes that neglect of these factors may account for some of the dif? culties experienced in England and Wales, for example, in translating the successes of demonstration projects to general practice. He suggests that the preoccupation with group programmes arises from their more standardized application, which, in turn, allows for more systematic evaluation than the complex and varied nature of individual practice. However, this pre-occupation (with programmes), ironically perhaps, is undermined by the literature on treatment effectiven ess in psychotherapy and counselling; arguably the parent discipline of ‘what works’.Here, the evidence suggests that the most crucial variables of all in determining treatment outcomes—chance factors, external factors and ‘client’ factors— relate to the personal and social contexts of interventions rather than to their contents (Asay and Lambert, 1999). Moreover, in terms of those variables which the therapist can in? uence, it is a recurring ? nding that no method of intervention is any more effective than the rest, and, instead, that there are common aspects of each intervention that are responsible for bringing about change (see Hubble et al. , 1999; Bozarth, 2000). These 52Criminology & Criminal Justice 6(1) ‘core conditions’ for effectiveness—empathy and genuineness; the establishment of a working alliance; and using person-centred, collaborative and ‘client-driven’ approaches—are perhaps familiar to probation staff, but not from earlier reviews of ‘what works? ’. 7 With regard to the probation paradigms reviewed earlier, these ? ndings are particularly signi? cant because, despite the disciplinary location and positivist approaches of these studies, the forms of treatment that they commend seem to be some way removed from those criticized by Bottoms and McWilliams (1979).Indeed, the notion of therapeutic or working alliance implies, as Bottoms and McWilliams (1979) advocated, that the worker and client share agreement on overall goals, agreement on the tasks that will lead to achievement of these goals and a bond of mutual respect and trust (Bordin, 1979). This seems explicitly to preclude the kind of attitudes and practices that Bottoms and McWilliams (1979) associated with treatment and that arguably characterize the prevailing ‘what works’ paradigm (McNeill, 2004b). Ethical arguments for a desistance paradigmLeaving aside these emerging empirical ? ndings and theoretical issues, desistance research has some clear ethical implications for the practice of offender management. The ? rst of these implications is perhaps already obvious. Rex’s (1999) research, reviewed in the context both of Maruna’s (2001) account of narrative reconstruction and of the evidence from psychotherapy research about the critical signi? cance of certain core conditions for treatment, points to the importance of developing penal practices that express certain practical virtues.Virtue-based approaches to ethics have experienced something of a resurgence in recent years (Pence, 1991), suggesting a shift in moral thinking from the question ‘what ought I to do? ’ to the question ‘what sort of person should I be? ’ In this context, one of the merits of desistance research is that by asking offenders about their experiences both of attempting desistance and of supervision, progress is made towards answering the questi on that a would-be ‘virtuous’ offender manager might ask: What sort of practitioner should I be?The virtues featured in responses from desisters might include optimism, hopefulness, patience, persistence, fairness, respectfulness, trustworthiness, loyalty, wisdom, compassion, ? exibility and sensitivity (to difference), for example. The practical import of the expression of these virtues is suggested by recent discussions of the enforcement of community penalties, which have emerged particularly (but not exclusively) where community penalties have been recast as ‘punishment in the community’. This recasting of purpose has increased the need for effective enforcement in order that courts regard community penalties as credible disposals.Though the language of ‘enforcement’ implies an emphasis on ensuring the meaningfulness and inevitability of sanctions in the event of non-compliance, Bottoms (2001) has argued convincingly that attempts to encour age or require compliance in McNeill—A desistance paradigm for offender management the criminal justice system must creatively mix habitual mechanisms, constraint-based mechanisms, instrumental mechanisms and normative mechanisms (related to beliefs, attachments and perceptions of legitimacy).What seems clear from the desistance research is that, through the establishment of effective relationships, the worker’s role in supporting compliance is likely to be particularly crucial to the development of these normative mechanisms. It is only within relationships that model the kinds of virtues described above that the formal authority conferred on the worker by the court is likely to be rendered legitimate in the mind of the offender. Just as perceptions of legitimacy play a key role in encouraging compliance with prison regimes (Sparks et al. 1996), so in the community legitimacy is likely to be a crucial factor both in preventing breach by persuading offenders to comply with the order and, perhaps, in preventing recidivism by persuading offenders to comply with the law. This notion of moral persuasion (and modelling) as a role for offender managers resonates with some aspects of Anthony Duff’s penal communications theory (Duff, 2001, 2003). Duff (2003) has argued that probation can and should be considered a mode of punishment; indeed he argues that it could be the model punishment.However, the notion of punishment that he advances is not ‘merely punitive’; that is, it is not concerned simply with the in? iction of pain as a form of retribution. Rather it is a form of ‘constructive punishment’ that in? icts pain only in so far as this is an inevitable (and intended) consequence of ‘bringing offenders to face up to the effects and implications of their crimes, to rehabilitate them and to secure . . . reparation and reconciliation’ (Duff, 2003: 181). The pains involved are akin to the unavoidable pains of repentance.For Duff, this implies a role for probation staff as mediators between offenders, victims and the wider community. Though developing the connections between Duff’s theory and desistance research is beyond the scope of this article, Maruna’s (2001) study underlines the signi? cance for desisters of the ‘redemption’ that is often achieved through engagement in ‘generative activities’ which help to make sense of a damaged past by using it to protect the future interests of others. It seems signi? ant that this ‘buying back’ is productive rather than destructive; that is, the right to be rehabilitated is not the product of experiencing the pains of ‘merely punitive’ punishment, rather it is the result of evidencing repentance and change by ‘making good’. In working to support the reconstruction of identity involved in desistance, this seems to underline the relevance of the redemptive opportunitie s that both community penalties and restorative justice approaches might offer.No less obvious, by contrast, are the futility and counter-productiveness of penal measures that label, that exclude and that segregate and co-locate offenders as offenders. Such measures seem designed to con? rm and cement ‘condemnation scripts’ and thus to frustrate desistance. However, as well as highlighting the importance of encouraging and supporting offenders in the painful process of making good, the desistance 53 54 Criminology & Criminal Justice 6(1) research at least hints at the reciprocal need for society to make good to offenders.Just as both Bottoms and McWilliams (1979) and Raynor and Vanstone (1994) recognized the moral implications of accepting the role that social inequalities and injustices play in provoking offending behaviour, so Duff (2003) argues that the existence of social injustice creates moral problems for the punishing polity. The response must be ‘a genuin e and visible attempt to remedy the injustices and exclusion that they [that is, some offenders] have suffered’ (Duff, 2003: 194). Duff suggests that this implies that: the probation of? cer . . . ill now have to help the offender negotiate his relationship with the polity against which he has offended, but by whom he has been treated unjustly and disrespectfully: she must speak for the polity to the offender in terms that are censorious but also apologetic—terms that seek both to bring him to recognise the wrong he has done and to express an apologetic recognition of the injustice he has suffered: and she must speak to the polity for the offender, explaining what is due to him as well as what is due for him. (2003: 194, emphasis added)Thus the help and practical support advocated in the non-treatment paradigm can now be re-legitimated both empirically, in terms of the need to build social capital in supporting desistance, and normatively (even within a punishment disc ourse) as a prerequisite for making punishment both intelligible and just for offenders. Recognition of interactions between, on the one hand, exclusion and inequalities and, on the other, crime and justice, also lies behind some of the arguments for rehabilitative approaches to punishment. Such arguments tend to lead to rights-based rather than utilitarian versions of rehabilitation.For McWilliams and Pease (1990), rights-based rehabilitation serves a moral purpose on behalf of society in limiting punishment and preventing exclusion by working to re-establish the rights and the social standing of the offender. By contrast, Garland (1997) describes how, in late-modern penality, a more instrumental version of rehabilitation has emerged in which the offender need not (perhaps cannot) be respected as an end in himself or herself; he or she has become the means to another end. He or she is not, in a sense, the subject of the court order, but its object.In this version, rehabilitation is not an over-riding purpose, it is a subordinate means. It is offence-centred rather than offender-centred; it targets criminogenic need rather than social need. The problem with this version of rehabilitation, however, is that it runs all the same moral risks that led Bottoms and McWilliams (1979) to reject treatment; it permits, in theory at least, all of the same injustices, violations of human rights and disproportionate intrusions that concerned, for example, the American Friends Services Committee in 1971, and led ultimately to the emergence of ‘just deserts’ (von Hirsch, 1976; Home Of? e, 1990). Indeed, in England and Wales, the current situation is worse in one respect: McNeill—A desistance paradigm for offender management the removal of the need for offenders’ consent to the imposition of community penalties (under the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997), which made some sense in the context of the move towards seeing probation as a proportionate punishme nt, means that offenders can now be compelled to undertake ‘treatment’ in the form of accredited programmes.In a recent article, Lewis (2005) has drawn on the work of the ‘new rehabilitationists’ (Cullen and Gilbert, 1982; Rotman, 1990) to revive the case for a rights-based approach to rehabilitation; meaning one which is concerned with the reintegration of offenders into society as ‘useful human beings’. According to Lewis, the principles of the new rehabilitationists include commitment to, ? rst, the state’s duty to undertake rehabilitative work (for similar reasons to those outlined above); second, somehow setting limits on the intrusions of rehabilitation in terms of proportionality; third, maximizing voluntarism in the process; and, ? ally, using prison only as a measure of last resort because of its negative and damaging effects. In exploring the extent to which these principles are articulated and applied in current penal policy, she reaches the conclusion that ‘current rehabilitative efforts are window-dressing on an overly punitive â€Å"managerialist† system’ (Lewis, 2005: 119), though she retains some hope that practitioner-led initiatives at the local level might allow some prospect that these principles could be applied.The value of the desistance research may be that just as the evidence about ‘nothing works’ allowed Bottoms and McWilliams (1979) to make a theoretical and empirical case for more ethical practice, and the evidence that ‘something works’ enabled Raynor and Vanstone (1994) to revise that case, so the evidence from desistance studies, when combined with these constructive developments in the philosophy of punishment, might do a similar job in a different and arguably more destructive penal climate. 55 Conclusions: a desistance paradigmThis article has sought to follow the example offered by Bottoms and McWilliams (1979) and Raynor and Vanstone (1994) by trying to build both empirical and ethical cases for the development of a new paradigm for probation practice. In summary, I have suggested that desistance is the process that offender management exists to promote and support; that approaches to intervention should be embedded in understandings of desistance; and, that it is important to explore the connections between structure, agency, re? exivity and identity in desistance processes. Moreover, desistance-supporting interventions need to respect and foster agency and re? xivity; they need to be based on legitimate and respectful relationships; they need to focus on social capital (opportunities) as well as human capital (motivations and capacities); and they need to exploit strengths as well as addressing needs and risks. I have also suggested that desistance research highlights the relevance of certain ‘practice virtues’; that it requires a focus 56 Criminology & Criminal Justice 6(1) on the role of legiti macy in supporting normative mechanisms of compliance; that it is consonant in many respects with communicative approaches to punishment which cast probation of? ers (or offender managers) as mediators between offenders, victims and communities; and that it suggests a rights-based approach to rehabilitation which entails both that the offender makes good to society and that, where injustice has been suffered by the offender, society makes good to the offender. Like the authors of the earlier paradigms, I do not intend here to offer a detailed account of precisely how a desistance paradigm might operate in practice (for some initial suggestions see McNeill, 2003). That task is one that could be more fruitfully undertaken by those working in the ? ld, preferably in association with offenders themselves. However, in an attempt to suggest some direction for such development, Table 1 summarizes the contrasts between the constructions of practice implied by the nontreatment, revised, â₠¬Ëœwhat works’ and desistance paradigms. Unlike the earlier paradigms, the desistance paradigm forefronts processes of change rather than modes of intervention. Practice under the desistance paradigm would certainly accommodate intervention to meet needs, reduce risks and (especially) to develop and exploit strengths, but Table 1.Probation practice in four paradigms The non-treatment paradigm Treatment becomes help The revised paradigm Help consistent with a commitment to the reduction of harm A ‘what works’ paradigm Intervention required to reduce re-offending and protect the public A desistance paradigm Help in navigating towards desistance to reduce harm and make good to offenders and victims8 Explicit dialogue and negotiation assessing risks, needs, strengths and resources and offering opportunities to make good Collaboratively de? ed tasks which tackle risks, needs and obstacles to desistance by using and developing the offender’s human and social cap ital Diagnoses becomes shared assessment Explicit dialogue and negotiation offering opportunities for consensual change ‘Professional’ assessment of risk and need governed by structured assessment instruments Client’s dependent need as the basis for action becomes collaboratively de? ned task as the basis for action Collaboratively de? ed task relevant to criminogenic needs and potentially effective in meeting them Compulsory engagement in structured programmes and case management processes as required elements of legal orders imposed irrespective of consent McNeill—A desistance paradigm for offender management whatever these forms might be they would be subordinated to a more broadly conceived role in working out, on an individual basis, how the desistance process might best be prompted and supported.This would require the worker to act as an advocate providing a conduit to social capital as well as a ‘treatment’ provider building human capit al. Moreover, rather than being about the technical management of programmes and the disciplinary management of orders, as the current term ‘offender manager’ unhelpfully implies, the forms of engagement required by the paradigm would re-instate and place a high premium on collaboration and involvement in the process of co-designing interventions.Critically, such interventions would not be concerned solely with the prevention of further offending; they would be equally concerned with constructively addressing the harms caused by crime by encouraging offenders to make good through restorative processes and community service (in the broadest sense). But, as a morally and practically necessary corollary, they would be no less preoccupied with making good to offenders by enabling them to achieve inclusion and participation in society (and with it the progressive and positive reframing of their identities required to sustain desistance).Perhaps the most obvious problem that might be confronted by anyone seeking to envision further or even enact this paradigm, is that the communities on which its ultimate success would depend may lack the resources and the will to engage in supporting desistance, preferring to remain merely ‘punishing communities’ (Worrall and Hoy, 2005). This is, of course, an issue for any form of ‘offender management’ or reintegration.However, rather than letting it become an excuse for dismissing the paradigm, it should drive us to a recognition of the need for offender management agencies to re-engage with community education and community involvement and to seek ways and means, at the local level and at the national level, to challenge populist punitiveness (Bottoms, 1995) and to offer more progressive alternatives. 57 NotesI am very grateful to Steve Farrall and Richard Sparks for their hospitality in hosting the seminars through which this article was developed and to all of the contributors to the semi nars both for their helpful and encouraging comments on earlier versions and for the stimulation that their papers provided. I am also grateful to Monica Barry, Mike Nellis and Gwen Robinson for comments on the draft version of this article. Though I have grave reservations about the term ‘offender management’ (relating to its obvious inference that the offender is a problem to be managed rather than person to be assisted and that the task is technical rather than moral), I use it here, not just because of its contemporary relevance, but also because it refers both to community disposals and postprison resettlement. 8 Criminology & Criminal Justice 6(1) 2 Owing to their pessimism about the prospects for treatment delivering their fourth aim (the reduction of crime), Bottoms and McWilliams turned their attention to other crime reduction strategies and in particular to crime prevention. Their argument in this connection was essentially that because ‘crime is predomi nantly social . . . ny serious crime reduction strategy must be of a socially (rather than an individually) based character’ (Bottoms and McWilliams, 1979: 188). 3 That said, they allowed that: ‘there is, ironically, at least a tiny shred of research evidence to suggest that, after all, help may be more crime-reducing than treatment’ (Bottoms and McWilliams, 1979: 174). To support this claim they referred to two studies that presaged later desistance research; the ? st suggested that although intensive casework treatment had no apparent impact, changes in the post-institutional social situations of offenders (for example, getting married or securing a job) were associated with reductions in recidivism (Bottoms and McClintock, 1973); the second suggested that treatment did demonstrate lower reconviction rates where the ‘treatment’ involved primarily practical help which was given only if and when offenders asked for it (Bernsten and Christiansen, 1965 ). 4 This section of the article draws heavily on McNeill et al. (2005). 5 It may be that this gap in theory s in part the product of the incremental and quasi-experimental character of ‘what works’ research; indeed it might even be said that the ‘what works’ philosophy is anti-theoretical in that it is more preoccupied with identifying and replicating successes than in explaining and understanding them (Farrall, 2002). 6 Signi? cantly, Boeck et al. ’s (2004) emerging ? ndings suggest that bridging social capital in particular (which facilitates social mobility) seems to be limited among those young people in their study involved in offending, leaving them ill-equipped to navigate risk successfully. That said, some recent studies have begun to explore the contribution of particular practice skills to effectiveness. Raynor refers in particular to a recent article by Dowden and Andrews (2004) based on a meta-analysis examining the contribution of certa in key staff skills (which they term ‘core correctional practices’ or CCPs) to the effectiveness of interventions with offenders. 8 It is with some unease that I have merely mentioned but not developed arguments about the importance of making good to (and for) victims in this article.I am therefore grateful to Mike Nellis for highlighting the contingent relationships between offenders making good and making amends to victims. There is little empirical evidence that desistance requires making amends or making good to particular victims, although there are of course independent and compelling reasons why this matters in its own right. As Nellis suggests (personal communication, 18 August 2005), the case for making amends requires separate justi? cation. He further suggests that from the point of view of interventions with offenders, it may be important not so much as an enabling factor in desistance as a signifying factor.Drawing on this distinction, my own view is that a lthough making amends is neither necessary nor suf? cient for desistance to occur, it may be useful none the less in consigning the past to the past (for victims and offenders) and thus in entrenching redemption scripts (for offenders). McNeill—A desistance paradigm for offender management References American Friends Services Committee (1971) Struggle for Justice. New York: Hill & Wang. Asay, T. P. and M. J. Lambert (1999) ‘The Empirical Case for the Common Factors in Therapy: Quantitative Findings’, in M. A. Hubble, B. L. Duncan and S. D.Miller (eds) The Heart and Soul of Change: What Works in Therapy, pp. 33–56. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. 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