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All mammalian mothers feed their children breast milk directly from breast to mouth; this act is known as breastfeeding. The World Health Organization and UNICEF recommends early initiation of breastfeeding, within an hour of birth, and exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life (Global strategy for infant and young child feeding, WHO 2013). Exclusive breastfeeding is defined as the infant receiving only breast milk without the addition of solid foods or other liquids. The benefits of exclusive breastfeeding are numerous, with the most highly recognized being protection against gastrointestinal infections, which have been shown to be a cause of mortality in infants. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) 2013 Breastfeeding Report Card, approximately 77% of American children are breastfed at all, 40% are exclusively breastfed at three months old, and 16% by six months. Approximately 50% of mothers continue to breastfeed their children past six months, although the child’s sustenance is supplemented with solid foods and other liquids. Lack of breastfeeding has been linked to malnourishment, which is associated with 45% of child deaths globally (WHO 2013). In 2012, close to 100 million children under the age of five were below the healthy weight-to-height ratio as a consequence of malnutrition due to inadequate feeding and multiple infections. Research has shown that the act of breastfeeding not only provides benefits for the child, but also mothers. According to the federal agency on women’s health, breastfeeding has been associated with reduced risk of breast and ovarian cancers, and other women’s health problems. Encouraging women to breastfeed exclusively for the first six months of thei... ...initiatives have increased breastfeeding rates from 31% to 51% in a small rural community in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada (Martens, 2000). Increasing educational initiatives to encourage breastfeeding can be further fortified by encouraging the involvement of family and close friends in the decision-making process. The support of family members such as spouses, siblings, and the infant’s grandparents is essential in helping the mother as she decides how the baby will be fed and providing the necessary support once the baby is born. Family members can also serve as mentors to mothers who are considering their infant’s feeding options. The baby’s grandmother, for example, can be a key influence by sharing her breastfeeding experience with her pregnant daughter or daughter-in-law. A mother’s perspective on breastfeeding is greatly influenced by the community around her.

Punishment: Forms and Functions Essay

In a contemporary society where crime takes place we expect the state authority to dispense justice in the form of punishment to maintain social solidarity. There are many forms of punishment that can be given to an offender, each with their own functions for the offender and society itself. Imprisonment is one of the most widely used forms of punishments globally, the ideology of imprisonment globally tends to remain the same. There are several functions of imprisonment and whether it is an effective method of punishment is widely argued by sociologist. To remove the offender from society, as to keep society safe is one function that stands out, by putting the offender in a high security environment you take away their freedom to commit offences towards the public again. However it could be argued that prison is deemed an unsafe environment for the offender itself as an institution, for many it’s an environment where they have to adapt to survive, in which case becoming a bre eding more criminals as a result of this or producing victims. Alternative punishment such as house arrest or probation would be more suitable in the face of the offender’s personal safety, whereby they are still paying for the crimes they have committed, with limitations on their freedom, however they are much safer. Statistics show that 50% of offenders that are released from prison are likely to reoffend within 3 years, which is the same rate as those who are given these alternative punishment. With 3% of the American population in prison and a large majority of those likely to reoffend within 3 year of release, they should be looking for alternative approaches to prison that takes into account the safety of the offender. However it could be argued that prison is there to be tough and that the people in there are criminals and should be treated as such. An alternative approach to prison that has be found to be particularly successful across America in reducing the number of young people entering prison and reducing the reoffending rate s are correctional facilities, which implements army regimes, with an aim to instil discipline, self-control and work ethic into juveniles. This form of punishment works based on the idea of giving young people who have committed the change to go through a programme or carry on with their sentence. This form of punishment works based on the idea of deterrence as mentioned in item B, which in the case of this form of punishment where it is heavily applied it is successful proven by the low rates of reoffending after graduation from correctional  facilities. However it can be argued it’s difficult to prove the effectiveness of deterrence, because only the offenders who weren’t deterred by possible consequences of the actions will come to face the enforcement of the punishment, therefore it does not tell us why others do not offend. Making punishments based on deterrence is based on a key concept that offenders choose to obey or disobey the law having calculated the possible gains and consequences of their actions. It could be argued that all forms of punishment are based on deterrence, we have punishment to deter the public from committing crimes, and it forces society to conform. Over the many centuries that there have been prison systems there have been changes in the way offenders have been treated, one concept that is present in today’s prison system is the idea of rehabilitation, this is aiming to reform the offender to give them the support and skills they needs to be able to go back into society once they have served their sentence, and in turn stop them reoffending. This as a function of punishment is generally very positive, it’s helping the offender, their still contained in a high security environment away from the public however for many offenders they tend to be uneducated or lack vocational skills which has left them unsupported previously, with rehabilitation they’re able to gain these skills so they can go out and get jobs, meaning they’re less likely to lead criminal lives when they’re released from prison. However Rothman 1973 rejects the idea of rehabilitating offenders, he believes that due to the environment they’re in with officers holding huge amounts of power over them, they’re left with little free will and are forced into these programmes. However it’s often found that many offenders, especially women and ethnic minorities, take well the programmes having been discriminated against in education and in the work place so having had less opportunism before prison. 30 mins When assessing the functions and forms of punishment one key aspect I think is important to take into consideration is the role of the crime itself and how that plays out in punishment. Imprisonment, can be a harsh environment, however can be an opportunity for offenders to reflect on the crime they’ve committed and who they’ve committed it against. Restorative justice also gives offender this opportunity to reflect on the harm they’ve caused  through programmes such as victim offender medication, which studies show has a high satisfaction rate for those involved, high victim participant rates, meaning a large proportion of victims who can will take up the opportunity to talk to the victim of their crime, and importantly reduced criminal behaviour by offenders (cumbhert 1994). However a major criticism of victim offender mediation is that it’s difficult in terms of victims of brutal crimes such rape of with relatives of murder victims. Item B refers to t he use of execution as a form of punishment, whereby countries such as the USA still enforce the death penalty, the UK uses the alternative of life imprisonment for brutal crimes such as murder or rape of a minor. Deterrence is a prominent concept when discussing death penalty, the idea is that if you take a life where the death penalty is used as a form of punishment, your life will be taken, however research from the death penalty information centre suggests that the use of capital punishment has no effect on the rate of murder case, when they compared states that used the penalty there wasn’t much difference between the number of murder cases and in some year It was higher for states with the penalty. In the UK we abandoned capital punishment and replaced it with life imprisonment, which some argue to be unfair on the victims and believe in the take a lie give a life ideology. However when you take into consideration a lifetime imprisonment and was that would actually be like, living with hundreds of criminals for a lifetime, in isolation, without many rights, it could be argued that the offender would endure more suffering, therefore the punishment is right for what they’ve done, and they’re serving the time for their crimes. Prison is a form of punishment which is a theme throughout, Foucault provides an explanation for why prison is so prominent as a form of punishment in our society. In previous years sovereign power was prominent, whereby punishment would be handled by those in power of the land, i.e. the king or queen, this would be done in a manner of cruelty and brutally aiming to punish the body for the crimes that have been committed. In our society we have moved towards disciplinary power whereby punishment is handed out by the authorities, it’s done so with an aim of disciplining the mind, making them correct their own actions. The idea of self-discipline comes into play in prisons where by prisoners are being watched by guards so act accordingly, in time they will begin to act this way without the guards being there in  case they are being watched. There are many forms of punishment and many functions of those punishments, and whether a punishment is successful depends on what the aim is and who the punishment is applied to. For example many argue that a fine is a suitable punishment for speeding and acts as a deterrent for reckless driving.

The History of Enron and WorldCom Free Essay Example, 3750 words

Emshwiller and Smith report that ‘The events were followed by a series of scandals involving irregular accounting methods bordering on fraud which involved Enron and Arthur Andersen accounting firm and led Enron on the verge of undergoing the largest bankruptcy in economic history in November 2001’. 7 Since Enron was always considered a blue chip stock, the bankruptcy was a disastrous and unprecedented event in the global financial world. The story of WorldCom is not quite different – the company had a very good start and a wonderful growth rate but it finished poorly. The starting objective of the company in 1984 was to provide service as a long distance reseller company thus the name LDDS, which stands for Long Distance Discount Service. The company embarked on a lot of acquisitions in the 1990s and these acquisitions fuelled the company’s growth. The website, which reports mainly on WorldCom reports that ‘For 15 years it grew quickly through acquisitions and mergers. Its $40 billion merger with MCI in 1998 was the largest in history at the time. ’8 The table below shows major companies that were bought or merged with WorldCom Company Year bought or merged Advanced Communications Corporation Resurgens Communication Group Metromedia Communication Corporation IDB Communications Group, Inc Williams Technology Group, Inc MFS Communication Company Digex (DIGX) 1992 1993 1993 1994 1995 1996 2001 The year 2002 however became the crisis year for the telecommunication giant that was once the second-largest long distance phone company in the U. S.9 The cause of the crisis as reported by Simon R. We will write a custom essay sample on The History of Enron and WorldCom or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now & Riva D. A, was because WorldCom was ‘plagued by the rapid erosion of its profits and an accounting scandal that created billions in illusory earnings’10. It was reported that WorldCom executives lied about the companys accounting numbers, blowing the companys assets up by around $12 billion dollars. The result of this was a swift bankruptcy that was followed by massive losses for investors of the company. 2.0 Potential Risks that all Companies are Likely to Face and how they may be Addressed One of the most prudent thoughts any investor or entrepreneur should have at the back of his mind is that the decision to start a company comes with a lot of risks. The word ‘risk’ sounds threatening but these company or business risks do not suggest that every business would fail at all cost. The truth rather is, when an investor or an entrepreneur is aware of these risks, he is put in a very good position to handle them when they begin merging their heads.