CriminologyJustice

Saturday, March 30, 2013

What Can make Dental Insurance policy Various from a Dental Low cost Program? - Business

Posted on 2:37 AM by Unknown

Dental advantages cover regimen treatment and restoration of a patient's teeth and gums. Well being care plans omit dental added benefits like cleanings, restorations this sort of as fillings, and therapies these as root canals or periodontal treatments. There are some situations where a wellness care plan will cover charges connected with dental care, but only when there is an underlying health-related issue triggering the dental distress or the dental matter is major to really serious medical complications.

In addition to health insurance coverage, there are two major strategies to cover the the greater part of your dental needs: dental insurance coverage and a dental discount prepare. How can you tell which sort of approach you have?

Dental Insurance

Dental insurance involves month to month or quarterly rates just like typical wellbeing insurance plan. Right after you have your dental care appointment, your dentist will submit the cost of the appointment as a claim to your insurance coverage organization. With almost everything computerized, your dentist's company workers will calculate your projected share and inquire you to pay your co-fork out the day of remedy.

Yet another gain of dental insurance policy is allowable expenses. It is vital to read your insurance policy paperwork carefully. Accepting your insurance policy might lock your dental professional into only charging up to the allowable charge for a procedure, and he or she are not able to inquire you to make up any variation.

For instance, a dentist may well typically cost $110 for a solitary floor amalgam filling, but insurance policies only permits $95 for the treatment. If your portion is 40%, you would be anticipated to spend $38, or forty% of $95. In addition, the dental professional can't invoice you for the $15 variation in between the normal charge and the allowable cost. Patients should continue to be vigilant when it comes to billing and checking it from their dental insurance policies documents.

There are limitations to dental insurance options. 1st, pre-active circumstances are almost never coated. So if you wait around until eventually your teeth are bothering you to buy dental insurance policies, your claims could be denied. Also, yearly caps on positive aspects are widespread in dental insurance strategies. This usually means your business will only fork out a greatest amount of money every single year in dental protection. For illustration, the current military dependent dental strategy has a cap of $1,200 annually for any covered relatives member.

Dental Low cost ProgramsA dental discount prepare is called a price reduction strategy mainly because the affected person only receives a decrease cost on procedures, but is accountable for the entire cost of the process following the low cost is utilized. There are no statements filed, and the expense of dental care is very straight ahead.Individuals can obtain dental discount plans online or possibly through their employer. There are particular person and relatives plans, just like dental insurance policy. On the other hand, alternatively of month-to-month premiums, the patient pays a flat upfront yearly charge to develop into a member of the dental low cost program. The patient will have a card comparable to an insurance card that has an exceptional member quantity the dentist can use to verify membership.Dental discount strategies do not restrict the quantity of advantage for a client. If the discount software saves $200 off of crowns, then an affected person needing s aves $600 in dental treatment costs. Meanwhile, the dental low cost plan could cost as very little as $100 annually for an personal, which means $500 in financial savings. Even so, the individual would be the only a person responsible for remaining cost of the crowns. Pre-present situations are coated with dental discount courses, nonetheless beforehand finished dental perform is not. Your dental professional will apply the price reduction to your remedy price as lengthy as you bought the membership prior to the appointment.Dental well being is very vital as infections and loss of tooth framework can turn out to be really serious wellness issues extremely rapidly. However, numerous overall health treatment options only provide dental riders, or dental insurance plan options that need an individual top quality. For some households, a low cost dental plan may well be helpful if the dental approach doesn't cover extremely much, or if the premiums are too costly. Overpaying for any insurance plan is wasted funds every yr, so absolutely everyone need to scrutinize their insurance policies wants and payments at minimum on an annual foundation.

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Friday, March 29, 2013

Observational Learning

Posted on 4:49 AM by Unknown

Thought (Photo credits: www.mysafetysign.com)

by Tabetha M. Cooper

Our ability to learn is what makes us successful in life. People have, at some point, learned from experience everything it is that they do. And in our society, the more expertise one has in a given area, the more likely that person will be to obtain, and hold, employment. We all know that learning is the acquiring of information, but the definition of learning goes deeper than that. So what is the definition of learning? Schacter, Gilbert, and Wegner (2009), define learning as “Some experience that results in a relatively permanent change in the state of the learner.” In other words, only the experiences that one remembers, or that in some other way affect one’s behavior, are classified as learning. Also, learning can be conscious or unconscious. Conditioning is one example of unconscious learning, and shows that we are not always aware of when we are learning.

During my research, I have come across many examples of various types of learning. One of the experiments with learning I have studied is called the Bobo Experiment. It is an experiment concerning observational learning, conducted by a man named Albert Bandura and his colleagues. In this experiment children around the age of four years old were placed in a room with age appropriate toys. In a corner of the room was an adult who also had various types of toys. Among one of the toys the adult had to play with was a Bobo doll. A Bobo doll is a plastic, blow-up doll with sand at the bottom to keep it upright. If one punches the doll it falls over and then pops back to an erect position. The adult in the room took the Bobo doll and started to play aggressively with it. They knocked it down, punched it, hit it with a plastic mallet, threw it up in the air, and even kicked it. The children in the room watched as the adult played roughly with the doll. A short time later the children were given the opportunity to play with this doll. Each child in the experiment played with the doll in the same aggressive manner that the adults had demonstrated. The manner the doll was played with by the adults was purposeful, so the researchers could see if the children did the same thing. Each child, indeed, hit the Bobo doll with a mallet, threw it in the air, hit, and kicked it. In some of the studies the children got to observe the adult getting punished for the aggressive behavior. In the cases where the children observed the adult being punished, the amount of aggressiveness used was much less or not at all.

Inside Bobo doll (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is a perfect example of observational learning. Chances are, these children had never been exposed to a Bobo doll. Not knowing what the doll was, or how to play with it, they paid closer attention to what the adult was doing. When they saw the adult abusing the doll, I would infer that they thought that it looked fun and wanted to try it themselves, and that this was acceptable behavior with the doll. This caused the children to pay attention to each individual move the adult was performing on the doll. I think that another reason the children mimicked the actual actions of the adults was to see if they could do each action themselves. A child’s nature is to observe, and then attempt to do what they have seen. When the children saw the adult get punished for playing aggressively with the doll, they determined that what they were watching was bad and shouldn’t be done, deterring them from being aggressive. Based on what I gathered from the experiment, I would have to agree with Bandura’s notions that observational learning can only happen if someone pays attention to a behavior to be learned, can remember the behavior, have the necessary skills to perform the behavior, and have the desire to act in that way.

A recent discovery within the human brain (as well as the brains of birds and monkeys) is the mirror neuron. The mirror neurons are located in the frontal (close to the motor cortex) and parietal lobes. Mirror neurons activate when we perform a behavior as well as when we observe another person performing a behavior. From what I understand of mirror neurons, it follows that they have a direct relationship with observational learning. When we see someone doing something, our mirror neurons fire and we are more inclined to pay attention to and retain the behavior we saw. As we

2012 Behaviour Matrix copy (Photo credit: Robin Hutton)

observe a behavior that we have never seen or one which we desire to learn, these neurons help send what is being observed to the appropriate parts of the brain. We not only see what is going on but the mirror neurons help send the actions to the right place for our memory to store the information, so that we can perform the behavior ourselves at a later time.

I have learned a lot of things in my life through observational learning. In fact, I think I may learn better through observing then actively working with what I am trying to learn. I think that behaviors that come natural come from observational learning. For example, my mother is a really easy going person. She is also what one would call a pleaser, meaning she does whatever is asked of her whether she wants to or not. She puts everyone in the world before herself. I grew up watching not only these personality behaviorisms but the unhappiness that resulted from always doing for others, and never for her. I have grown up to be just like her. I honestly believe that the behaviors that I learned from watching her became instilled within me. Unlike her, doing for others before I do for myself has not made me unhappy, although I do find myself taking time away from the things that I need to get done. The word ‘no’ is not in my vocabulary. In the past, I had believed that this was a personality trait that I was born with. But, after studying about the different types of learning and seeing some examples, I no longer think this is the case. Now, I am convinced that I have observed these personality behaviorisms for so long, that it is just natural for me to behave in the same manner.

References

Schacter, Gilbert, Wegner; Psychology (2009) Chapter 3 pg. 78 and Chapter 6 (entire chapter)

Posted in albert bandura, Bandura, Behavior, Bobo, Bobo doll experiment, Learning, Mirror neuron, Observational learning | No comments

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Impact of Terrorism in the US Today

Posted on 6:34 AM by Unknown

by Tina Handrick

Introduction

On September 11, 2001 the United States of America changed forever. This was the day that the U.S. realized how badly a job they were doing on making sure that this country was protected from outside attacks and corruption. There were many lives lost from the terrorist attacks

September 11 2001 Bell in Saint Paul's Church next to Ground Zero (Photo credit: Whiskeygonebad)

that happened on September 11, 2001 and a huge blow to our country. On this day there were two planes that crashed into the twin towers in New York and another plane crashed into the Pentagon, in Northern Virginia, and a forth plane went down in rural Pennsylvania which was meant for Washington, D.C. thanks to the heroic effort of the passengers on that plane. Thousands of people lost their lives this day, many people lost a loved one, a wife, a husband, mother, father, brother, sister, grandmother, and grandfather over something as senseless as another man’s greed and thought process.

Terrorism Impact

Since September 11, 2001 there has been disagreements on whom and how information should be shared within the network of public and country safety. Police Chiefs, Mayors, and City Managers have criticized the FBI for being too secretive about its counterterrorism investigations

English: The Seal of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. For more information, see here. Español: El escudo del Buró Federal de Investigaciones (FBI). Para obtener más información, véase aquí (Inglés). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(E.J. Delattre, pg. 413, 414). They believe that to make the best use of their manpower and the local knowledge in safeguarding the public the police are in need of the information that the FBI has regarding any terrorist suspects, networks, potential local targets, and any other likely attack that could be in the works. Terrorism prevention doesn’t only depend on mutual candor and cooperation from local, state and federal agencies it could also benefit from creating a first response program that allows a better response from police, firefighters, hazardous materials experts, hospitals and other emergency personnel. If prior knowledge is known throughout these types of organization about potential terrorist threats that are pending then maybe some of what happened on Sept. 11 can be avoided in the future.

On October 26, 2001 President Bush signed into law the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (U.S.A. Patriot Act), this new law enlarges the surveillance and search powers of federal agencies and expands their authority to share among themselves information and intelligence, including previously secret grand jury information. It allows for greater information to be shared with foreign governments. It grants the Department of State and the Immigration and Naturalization Service access to criminal history records and other materials maintained by the National Crime Information Center and expands federal authority to deny admission to any alien “who has been associated with terrorist organization and intends while in the U.S. to engage solely, principally, or incidentally in activities that could endanger the welfare, safety, or security of the U.S.” (Section 411).

Seal of the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), USA. — “Servicing Our Citizens” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Homeland Defense from terrorism requires police to undertake a larger mission to the public and government. Now police have to commit their personnel and budgets to expand to include new antiterrorism assignments, at the cost of other priorities, which means that the people and community that it serves suffers. Because police now have to move their officers around to now include historic sites and other targets of terrorism now it means taking away from areas that still have crime and the possibility of that crime rate going back of because of the changes. Sure these agencies receive money to help with some of the cost but with the rising economy, and the loss of jobs the streets just do not have the amount of police present that it needs to stop other crimes from happening. Most police agencies are already spread thin and when you add more work and fewer officers then you are looking at more criminal activity and corruption.

Social Stigma

Social stigma varies vastly from country to country. Depending on a country's foreign policies, including countries they are possibly at war with, or have immigration issues with another, the social stigma attached to certain ethnicities or creeds can have a great effect on the public. This attitude from the general public, or rather, sections of the public prejudice against other sections can directly influence law enforcement. Islam has perhaps been the biggest source of social stigma in the Western World over the past decade or so.

People argue and discuss with protestors at the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

While Islam is a peaceful, global religion with over a billion Muslims, the religion's reputation has come under unfair scrutiny because of insane or terrorist individuals. This is largely due to terrorist factions hiding behind the protection of their religion to justify their own misguided intentions that what they believe is what should be. After September 11, there was wide spread animosity towards people of an Asian ethnicity, often regardless of their religion; many Hindus, Sikhs and members of other religions were harassed indiscriminately just because of what or where they might have come from. The American Christian belief is that you can have your own religion without prosecution or ridicule; the same should be applied to any other country as well. Just because they may have a few rotten apples we should not judge all of them and put them in the same basket.

These events and news stories cannot help but influence an individual's outlook of things. While the law is supposed to judge all members of its society equally and fairly, the people enforcing these laws are individuals in their own right. They may have professional codes of ethics to abide by, but in some situations, an officer of the law's own perceptions of threats can weigh in, sometimes for the better, and sometimes unfairly. It’s very important that when doing a job an officer is not looking at the color of a person skin but on how that person may be behaving and their mannerisms.

Ethical

Police abuse of force and police corruption usually follows accord with each other. If

September 11, 2001 (Photo credit: wallyg)

an officer goes out and deals drugs or steals evidence to sell out on the street, is just as bad as having an suspect in custody and using force to obtain a confession or information that can be used against them or others in a court of law. It is everyone’s right to be treated fairly and without due harm. If someone is treated when in custody then anything that they have said could be thrown out of court due to the way the information was obtained and if their lawyer plays the right cards. Police officers need to use their training when dealing with potential suspect, or corruptive thoughts. You should follow the policies and procedures that your agency has so that you don’t have to worry about crossing any lines. If there are any other personnel that you know that are committing such crimes, ethically and morally you should report them to your supervisor as soon as possible with any proof that you might have attained. Some of the examples of this would be

· Excessive use of deadly force

· Excessive use of physical force

· Discriminatory patterns of arrest

· Patterns of harassment of such "undesirables" as the homeless, youth, minorities and gays, including aggressive and discriminatory use of the "stop-and-frisk" and overly harsh enforcement of petty offenses.

· Chronic verbal abuse of citizen, including racist, sexist and homophobic slurs

· Discriminatory non-enforcement of the law, such as the failure to respond quickly to calls in low-income areas, and half-hearted investigations of domestic violence, rape or hate crimes.

· Spying on political activists.

· Employment discrimination -- in hiring, promotion and assignments, and internal harassment of minority, women and gay or lesbian police personnel.

· The "code of silence" and retaliation against officers who report abuse and/or support reforms.

· Overreaction to "gang" problems, which is driven by the assumption that most or all associational activity, is gang-related. This includes illegal mass stops and arrests, and demanding photo IDs from young men based on their race and dress instead of their criminal conduct.

· The "war on drugs," complete with overboard searches and other tactics that endanger innocent bystanders. This "war" wastes scarce resources on unproductive "buy and bust" operations to the neglect of more promising community-based approaches.

· Lack of accountability, such as the failure to discipline or prosecute abusive officers, and the failure to deter abuse by denying promotions and/or particular assignments because of prior abusive behavior.

· Crowd control tactics that infringe on free expression rights and lead to unnecessary use of physical force (N.A., 2004)

If for any reason anyone in an agency behaves in this manner then it would be a good idea to turn them into I.A. (Internal Affairs) and make it clear that you are not a part of the situation. Having strong ethics is a must when you are serving the public, you are constantly being judged from those that you are protecting and if for any reason the community is to doubt your judgment it could make it hard for them to trust you.

Training

When a new officer goes through training he/she goes through classes that can make it easier for them to deal with the public and the criminal elements. Hopefully this new recruit already has good ethics instilled into them because at this late date it is hard to change a person outlook in life

English: FBI Mobile Command Center in Washington DC. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Some of the jobs that an officer has to undertake are:

· Patrolling their districts, responding to calls for service, conducting preliminary investigations, investigating traffic related incidents, writing reports, pursuing and detaining suspects, and making arrests

· Enforcing traffic and parking laws

· Participating in Community Policing activities

· Working with other police department units as well as other local, state, and federal entities

· Preparing for and attending court appearances

· Participating in mandatory and elective training

· Keeping proficient with firearms

Learning how to use critical thinking skills is a plus when you are faced with a situation that doesn’t allow you to make a mistake. Training should be done every year as a refresher course so that you have the tools that you need in case there are in changes to policy or regulations.

Conclusion

Since September 11, 2001 the way that people look at each other in America is different. They are either against everything that the bombing has changed or they have united against it but one of the things that is more upsetting is that a lot of American’s are forgetting, and when that happens that allows for it to happen again. All law enforcement agencies should help each other when it comes to terrorist threats and not withhold critical information when it is needed. The security

US Navy 060911-N-9578C-002 Sailors from USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67) read names of New York Fire and Police Department members who lost their lives during the terrorist attacks (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

in America should be on top of the list to make sure that what happened on September 11 never happens again. By stopping some of the immigration into our country for a while can help keep some of these people out that can cause such destruction. The U.S. has enough inner turmoil that having outside terror as a constant threat just seems to be another layer of pressure on the law enforcement agencies.

References:

Ethics in Policing Character and Cops By: Edwin J. Delattre 2011

Plano Police Department; Assignments: http://www.plano.gov/Departments/Police/Employment/Pages/assignments.aspx

Preventing Police Abuse: PoliceCrimes.com http://www.policecrimes.com/police_abuse.html

Social Control and the Policing of Terrorism: Foundations for Sociology of Counter-Terrorism; http://www.cas.sc.edu/socy/faculty/deflem/zpolterror.html

Posted in FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Crime Information Center, Northern Virginia, September 11 2001, September 11 attacks, United State, Western World | No comments

Monday, March 25, 2013

Behind the Yellow Tape and Body Farm Founder Dr. Bill Bass

Posted on 9:18 PM by Unknown

The Body Farm (TV series) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of the places that this author would love to visit is the Body Farm in Tennessee, founded by Dr. Bill Bass.

Listen in as host Joey Ortega has an in depth discussion with the first person to make decomposition a research option to be studied by many.

Listen to internet radio with Joey Ortega on Blog Talk Radio

Posted in Arts, Bill Bass, Blog Talk Radio, Body Farm, Formats, Joey Ortega, Radio, Tennessee | No comments

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Opinion: Damage to the Victim and an Entire Town, or How One Blogger Should Be Ashamed of Herself for Bringing Anonymous into a Rape Case

Posted on 10:04 PM by Unknown

By Elizabeth Hall

We all should take a step back, particularly those of us who blog, and remember the scene from Aaron Sorkin’s (2010) screenplay The Social Network where the character Erica Albright gets upset with Mark Zuckerbergfor calling her a name on the internet, and exclaims that “the internet is not written in pencil, Mark, it is written in ink”. That being said, this article is to discuss the reality of what can happen when bloggers do not respect the normal criminal justice processes and attempt to convert the situation into something for themselves. The case being referenced is the SteubenvilleOhio Rape Case which has been reported on by bloggers, radio show hosts, and even the mainstream media and the results of the spectacle caused in the media, and particularly one blogger who is claiming credit and accolades of being a hero when in reality the resulting arrests, convictions, and actions by the justice system would have been the same without her involvement. At this point, now that the justice system has ruled, we can shed some light on what really happened and why #Knightsec, and Anonymous came to be involved with this, the ramifications that came for the town because of their involvement, and the extra problems in the town, because one blogger was chasing her fifteen minutes of fame.

We here at Criminology & Justice have been following this saga through our involvement with Behind the Yellow Tape Radio Show which airs on Friday nights at 7PM PST 10PM EST and through that platform have heard what problems the KYAnonymous involvement has caused (Ortega, 2013). The same blogger, Alexandra Goddard, was the person who brought this issue to their attention, as she was working on the show at the time. We did notice that Mrs. Goddard seemed to bring controversy with her, as the topics soon went to Juggaloes, the Insane Clown Posse band, prostitution, and she was reporting to us that she was receiving death threats at that time from those involved in that controversy. C & J even left the show for a while as we felt that her influence was taking the show in bad directions. Alex however seemed to thrive on the controversy. We noticed right away how the addition of Mrs. Goddard seemed to change the show. We at C & J had to ask ourselves why, as we blog on controversial issues, have even taken our own shots at Anonymous, and we do not receive death threats. We also do not make up identities to further our causes. The difference is that those of us that respect the ethics of what we do; do not insert ourselves into the controversy for the sake of attention alone.

Now on to the Steubenville controversy, all was going well, as the host +Joey Ortega is known for asking questions and getting to the bottom of the issues, as he interviewed plenty of people including Sheriff Fred Abdallah from one of the jurisdictions involved over the multiple shows held on this topic (Ortega,2012). What we learned from the sheriff, and what any criminal justice, law, and even forensic psychology major knows from their training is that the wheels of justice move in their own time, law enforcement does not regularly reveal all that they know in an investigation to the public, and that exposing evidence to the general public in the manner that Anonymous did only serves to disqualify that evidence in the courtroom. It has come to our attention collectively (C & J and Behind the Yellow Tape) through an investigation by another individual, C & J’s own investigation, and the investigation done by Mr. Ortega, that that Mrs. Goddard not only orchestrated the involvement of Anonymous, but also used several different platforms and identities to make it look like there were more people than just her and her friend trying to get their attention.

In reality she is from the area, and had an opportunity to exploit the situation to her advantage. In the world of cybercrime this falls into the category of trolling which is a far cry from the innocence she is claiming. According to the Oxford Dictionary (2013) the definition of trolling is deliberately posting something online with the intention of inciting an angry response or a person who does this. She not only trolled Anonymous, but Cody Saltzman as well. Some of the evidence is displayed on a website done by the individual not with C & J or BTYT, which clearly shows that the IP address used for all of these personas ties back to Mrs. Goddard and her friends Michelle McKee and Holly Briley and can be viewed here; http://didprinniedoit.wordpress.com/prinnie/

There are several reasons why C & J feels that we must expose this for what it is, mostly because this kind of behavior needs to be recognized, but also because we are sure that Mrs. Goddard and her friends Michelle McKee, and Holly Briley are not the only bloggers that attempt to do this and the public needs to be made aware so they can stop supporting this type of behavior. Just because someone posts something online does not make it true, and there are many trolls out there. So, back to the case, by trolling members of Anonymous, Mrs. Goddard posed as a persona named Fraulein Ava @ BrigitZahlten taunted them and followed them along with Holly Briley and Michelle McKee until they found a small subset of Anonymous called #Knightsec who apparently took her up on her cause. The real kicker is that this group and the rest of Anonymous seemed to turn against each other over this.

What did this involvement cause to happen in Steubenville? As explained by Sheriff Abdallah, parents were afraid to send their kids to school, and even worse the members of the Anonymous subgroup #Knightsec were going around the town, knocking on people’s doors and harassing them by staring the residents down from behind the masks menacingly. Neighbors were feuding, and all of this was caused by Mrs. Goddard’s trolling of Anonymous.

What about the victim? Not only was she receiving threats from others in the town as supposedly the groups were there on her behalf, but her embarrassment has been played on every major news channel before the trial. To make this worse, now it has been played out all over the internet, which is, you guessed it, written in ink will be on display forever. On her many blogs including Radio News, prinniefied, her new Facebook account under Alexandria Goddard, and whoever else’s blogs that she has believing her she is portraying herself as a hero. This victim will never have peace now as her story is forever displayed. We are sure she will have a harder time recovering from one of the worst crimes to suffer from, due to the way the information is displayed, and of course the adverse affects on the area she lives in will not be forgotten or easy to get over as well.

The lesson to be learned here is that before you jump on an internet bandwagon maybe you should look further than the story you are viewing to see if there is a troll behind it, or if someone might have skewed the story to insert themselves into it. Anyone can print anything on the internet, but that does not make it true, just like it was found that Mr. Saltzman was not involved. What about him? This will follow him around as well. Remember as you read stories on social media involving the justice system and crimes that it is the job of law enforcement to investigate, and the job of the attorneys, judges and juries to try the case in court where it belongs, not on the internet. The law is the law, and there is no room for opinion in a courtroom, so all of the public opinion in the world will not change the verdicts handed down or the timetable of events except to cause problems for those who are trying to do their jobs.
Continued Evidence Snips