Posts by anisak99567
Public Health Problems and Solution
Three major public health problems include stress, obesity, and lack of doctors. Stress is one of the foremost problems in America. Statistics indicate that 44% of Americans claim to be more stressed than they were 5 years ago. 1 in 5 Americans experience “extreme stress,” involving rapid, fluttering, or pounding heart, shaking, and depression. Work stress causes 10% of strokes. 40% of stressed people overeat or eat unhealthy foods. Further, stress increases the chance of heart disease by 40%, heart attack by 25%, and stroke by 50%. Stress-related diseases costs the nation $300 billion every year in medical bills and lost productivity. Apparently, stress is related to overworking, unpaid overtime, lack of vacations, and the like.
Obesity is a major problem in the nation right now. According to an NIH survey, more than 2 in 3 adults are overweight or obese and more than 1 in 3 adults are considered obese. Being overweight or obese is dangerous because it can lead to Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, fatty liver disease, osteoarthritis, and various kinds of cancers. Treatment often includes a mixture of behavioral treatment, diet, exercise, and sometimes weight loss drugs. Government guidelines recommend that healthy adults take part in aerobic activity of moderate intensity for at least 150 minutes a week or vigorous intensity for 75 minutes a week. They also recommend that people do activities that strengthen muscles (such as weight training or push-ups) at least twice a week. A study conducted in 2003–2004 to measure physical activity found that only about 3 to 5 percent of adults meet these recommendations.
The shortage of doctors is a tremendous problem at the current time and will become much, much worse as time goes by. A number of studies have estimated that by the year 2020, the U.S. will be short from between 24,000 and 200,000 physicians. Evidence indicates that younger physicians are not willing to work 80-hour work weeks like their elders did, valuing spending time with the family over working all the time. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the nation’s population over the age of 62 will increase from 46 million now to 83 million in 2030. 14 million will have diabetes and 21 million will be obese. $130,000 average debt from graduating medical school and selection of specialties which pay more are among the factors responsible for perpetuating this lack of primary care doctors.
One innovation that can help address the shortage of doctors is to decrease the cost for graduating medical school. One way to do this is to make medical school free and have doctors who want to become specialists pay for their specialist training. The cost of making medical school free is about $2.5 billion a year. This will get rid of enormous debt for doctors, which will provide a strong tendency towards primary care. Also, since potential specialists must pay for their training, their jobs will always be in demand.
Source:
http://www.stress.org/stress-is-killing-you/
http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/Pages/overweight-obesity-statistics.aspx
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/MAG-92871/Will-There-Be-Enough-Doctors
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/opinion/29bach.html?_r=0
http://www.bestmedicaldegrees.com/is-medical-school-worth-it-financially/
Solutions 3: Gender Pay Inequity Issues
In my last Problems paper, I identified three factors that contribute to the pay gap between men and women in the workforce. These included mentorship, negotiation, and parental constraints. In this work, I intend to suggest possible solutions to these microscopic aspects of the larger problem.
According to the research I examined in Problems 3, I found that while more women are getting an education, they are making up a disproportionately low proportion of the upper ranks in the corporate ladder. One reason for this problem is the lack of women mentors of high management.
I suggest developing a non-profit organization that takes volunteers from among women of high management positions who would dedicate a portion of their time each week to meet with women aspiring to achieve the top level positions of the organization in which they desire to work. Such women would be able to share valuable advice, experiences, contacts, opportunities, and much more. Such networking and relationship development will greatly enhance promotions, salary negotiations, and overall success in the careers of women in the workforce seeking to crash through the glass ceiling. This will also fix the negotiation problem.
To clarify, I think that the problem with mentorship among women today is that few women occupy the high level posts in their respective organizations and so mentoring opportunities are not very great and women in lower management positions cannot see themselves in the high ranking positions. Having role models in any career is important and the lack of them contributes to lack of progression into the higher ranks. Further, research indicates that women tend to benefit the most from women mentors of high rank. The aim of the organization I intend to introduce will be to organize mentoring opportunities in one place so that everyone can derive the maximum benefit.
To add some style to this idea, I suggest the program be named along the lines of “Tea with Advisors.” The idea is to have the mentors sit down with protege at a location (maybe with the frequency of once per week or greater) of their choice, talk, and develop effective personal and business relationships. They may have tea or breakfast or something like that also. They might write down what they accomplished or discussed for that day on a sheet to be submitted to or collected by other volunteers. This will be a measure of the progress the group has made. Another possibility is that mentors hold extended “office hours” for a few hours each week as do professors of CCNY currently do.
What if their schedules do not fit? Ideally, they will find a time and place that is suitable for them and they can consistently devote time to at least once a week. If necessary, a Skype-based contact system can be developed but nothing can replace near-distance human interaction. If they need a place to meet, they can use one of the rooms within the organization’s building (headquarters). The organization itself will run various workshops to aid in the career development of aspiring women workers. As a volunteer-based organization, mentors will be attracted by opportunity to aid in women’s empowerment in the workplace and protege will be attracted by opportunity to meet role models.
As far as mothers and fathers taking off time from work to child-rear, I think the best idea is a policy system for paid leave.
References:
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/report/2015/02/04/105983/men-fathers-and-work-family-balance/
http://chicagopolicyreview.org/2014/08/21/advancing-women-in-the-workplace-through-a-gender-targeted-approach-to-workforce-development/
http://www.wowonline.org/women-and-work-project/
Wales Capital Questions
1. Can you give examples of how sustainable business exists in a fragmented form today? What is the actual problem Wales Capital is trying to solve? Is it a widespread and destructive problem?
2. Could you explain crowdfunding in some detail?
New Women, New Yorkers Questions
1. How did you find volunteers?
2. What are your sources for funding and maintaining financial stability?
Problems 3: Current issues for Women in the Workplace
Women are facing many problems in the workplace today. They are suffering lower wages even though they equally qualified as men doing the same jobs. They make up the majority of the labor force in many industries yet they comprise an unflatteringly low representation at the higher levels of decision-making and management in these industries. In the following discussion, I describe some of the major microscopic issues that emerge within these contexts. All traced to sexism within the culture, women are receiving ineffective mentoring, are poorly negotiating salaries, and are often unable to commit full-time to work due to caring for a child.
Mentored professionals tend to receive more promotions, earn a higher income, and tend to be more satisfied with their pay and benefits than those with weak mentoring relationships. A good mentor can be instrumental in getting a woman these benefits, which are surprisingly lagging behind those of men. A wide body of research confirms the problem of weak mentoring among women. Men report feeling uneasy about mentoring women because they feel that it could be viewed as improper by society. Yet, in most corporations, men comprise over 95% of the highest executive and decision-making positions. Consequently, powerful men could provide invaluable career support to women hoping to get promotion and advancement in their careers. Findings suggest that women in middle management positions tend to undervalue their career support and refrain from taking protégé because they fear their protégé’s failure and that they are not qualified enough. This trend does not, however, show up among women in the higher executive positions in the corporate ladder. Further, reports demonstrate that men mentors tend to provide more career support while women mentors tend to provide more socio-emotional support. Finally, research indicates that women get the most effective mentorship out of women mentors than men mentors.
Much research supports the conclusion that women are not effectively negotiating for salaries and benefits. Only 7% of female master’s degree graduates as compared to 57% of male master’s graduates negotiate for a higher salary than was originally offered by the employer. Worse, the outcome of not bargaining for the highest possible starting salary translates into a lifetime of net income loss compounded over a lifetime. Research points to certain mental tendencies among women to explain the poor negotiation skills, which would otherwise contribute greatly to a woman’s ability to act as effective leaders. Women tend to undervalue themselves, have a low sense of personal entitlement, expect less for themselves, and don’t believe they deserve any more than they are offered. Women do not want to jeopardize their job or the relationships they make with their employers through conversation. This has the negative effect of decreasing the worth of the employee in the superior’s eyes. Furthermore, when women do conduct research into the organization to examine their worth, they tend to focus on other women who are similarly undervalued.
A substantial body of research makes it clear that with time, the wage gap has been decreasing. In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics found that wage gaps between men and women could be reasonably attributed to personal career choices. For example, women are more likely than men to engage in professional or related occupations but tend to select lower paying careers in that sector than do men. Women go into healthcare and education more than the higher paying and more male-dominated computer and engineering jobs. However, a more problematic aspect about the pay gap is that mothers tend to be more distracted from their work to take care of their children than are fathers. This is exemplified by data showing that women have a greater tendency to take part-time jobs and to experience career interruptions than do men.
References:
http://www.leadershipeducators.org/resources/documents/jole/2004_winter/jole_3_3_tack_mcnutt.pdf
http://www.academia.edu/3379581/A_Critical_Analysis_of_Gender-Based_Workplace_Challenges_Facing_Women_Gender_and_Compensation
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2007/06/art2full.pdf
http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswom2012.pdf
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/08/on-equal-pay-day-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-gender-pay-gap/
Future of Work Solutions
In my previous post, the two problems I posed were the unethical business practices of corporations due to flawed corporate structure and the growing trend toward hiring adjunct professors that are underpaid and overworked.
To address the first problem, I will not suggest a whole new corporate structure or substructure. In my previous post, I explained that it was the priority of maintaining shareholder value that led to unethical business practices such as trashing of the environment and underpaying of workers. Shareholder value is the “sum of all strategic decisions that affect the firm’s ability to efficiently increase the amount of free cash flow over time.” In other words, shareholder value is value assigned to a shareholder on the basis of wise investments and good returns of investments. The idea is that if a company builds value, the stock price will eventually reflect that value. In order to stay competitive and to generate a profit, companies must take shareholder value into account.
A good way to address the problem I posed is to find a way to make being environmentally responsible a means by which one can increase shareholder value by a substantial degree. This is already in the works with budding innovative corporations that are developing environmentally and socially responsible solutions to various issues people are facing throughout the world. I have been reading about an idea, which is already being applied in certain sectors by certain corporations, called Circular Economy, which involves examining the designs of how things are made and to minimize waste. Ideally, the materials that construct our goods will be perpetually reusable. But, this requires that research be done to investigate the designs of things to make them more efficient and renewable. So, I suggest that a subcommittee be formed that deals with examination of the designs and processes that construct the goods corporations seek to sell to reduce the amount of wasted energy in such systems.
Another problem I seek to address is the adjunct phenomenon. According to the American Association for University Professors, adjunct professors make up more than half of all faculties and 76% of instructional positions are filled on a temporary basis. Adjunct professors are underpaid, overworked, have no benefits, and have no job security. Just last month, February 25, was National Adjunct Walkout Day, in which many adjunct professors walked out of work to protest horrible working conditions.
The reason that adjunct professors are being oppressed is that universities are pressured to keep tuition low, keep enough teachers to run their classes, and there is overwhelming competition for faculty positions that are few in number relative to the people who want to fill these positions. Due to all of these factors, adjunct professors are not being paid enough, have to teach multiple classes that can sometimes be large distances from one another, and are trapped waiting for tenure-track positions to open up and accept them.
To address this problem, I suggest conducting a bake sale to raise money for struggling adjuncts and advertising to demonstrate to the government that this is a problem that the public finds important to address. The hope is that this will lead to greater government funding for higher education.
References:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/one-professors-american-dream-teaching-turned-american-nightmare/
https://chroniclevitae.com/news/762-the-adjunct-crisis-is-everyone-s-problem
http://www.online-phd-programs.org/adjunct/
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/the-adjunct-professor-crisis/361336/
http://adjunctcrisis.com/
http://www.newappsblog.com/adjunct-faculty-and-hyper-exploitation/
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/2014/07/18/guest-post-adjunct-instructors-petition-for-change/
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/19/research-aaas-meeting-notes-difficult-job-market-academic-science
http://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/reference-material/what-is-an-adjunct-professor-and-why-do-colleges-hire-them/
http://www.toxicsaction.org/problems-and-solutions/waste
http://www.occupy.com/article/trash-tpp-why-its-time-revolt-against-worst-trade-agreement-history
http://www.globalissues.org/article/55/corporations-and-the-environment
http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/faq_shareholder_stakeholder_perspective.html
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/shareholder-value.asp
https://hbr.org/2011/10/ceos-must-understand-what-crea/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-kennell/recycling-opens-the-door-_b_6164314.html
https://www.google.com/search?q=february+25+adjuncts&oq=february+25+adjuncts&aqs=chrome..69i57.5511j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8
Problems 2 Future of Work
In class, we have been discussing contemporary issues with the current workplace and we have been examining how working conditions in the future may be impacted with current trends in working.
One contemporary issue is that there are many corporations today that trash the environment. According to a United Nations study on the activities of the world’s 3,000 biggest companies, firms would lose over one third of their profits if they were forced to pay for use, loss, and damage of environment. The first speaker, Oliver Libby, revealed to us that the reason for this is that, in the United States, stakeholder value is the highest priority. To protect this, corporations will engage in unethical behaviors. Such unethical behaviors include underpaying workers and trashing the environment. However, that speaker had also revealed that this situation will fail to last because with the coming of new businesses that are environmentally responsible and a new generation of environmentally-aware people, businesses cannot afford to be environmentally irresponsible or unethical in any way. Otherwise, people may not be willing to invest in such companies. As that speaker had said, “Would you rather invest in a company that makes lots of money but trashes the environment or in a company that makes a little less money but is environmentally responsible?” This question was directed at the future of New York and it is clear that the answer leans overwhelmingly toward the latter option. Our last speaker, Debera Johnson, echoed the comments of the first speaker during her talk.
Another issue that needs to be addressed in the topic of work is the growing trend towards temporary jobs, especially with regard to adjunct professors. Today, part-time instructors account for over half of all faculty at the nation’s public and private institutions for higher education. My current differential equations (a 300 level course) professor is an adjunct professor making about $3,000 per semester. This is a horrible financial situation because it is questionable as to whether or not he will even be able to sustain himself and it is clear that he is being paid below minimum wage. This is a horrendous problem that needs to be addressed. According to Prof. Binz Scharf, the reason for this rising trend in hiring adjunct professors is that universities recognize that a tenured professor is a multimillion dollar investment. A tenured professor cannot be removed from office and is consistently paid, with increasing pay with seniority. It is no question, then, that some form of social innovation is needed to address this problem. Something needs to change in the current structure of academic employment to improve this dismal situation. This is also of personal interest to me because I have plans for working in the university setting someday.
Two contemporary issues in work that I feel deserve a good deal of attention is the current corporate structure and how it leads to unethical business practices as well as the current trend of employing adjunct professors at universities, who are underpaid and treated as second-class academic citizens.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/18/worlds-top-firms-environmental-damage
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2014-04-16/growing-reliance-adjunct-professors
http://www.academia.edu/2100902/The_Work_of_the_University_The_Adjunct_Phenomenon
Questions for Designer Debera Johnson
1. The City Farm and Fish program looks interesting to me. Could you tell me more about how the City Farm and Fish method is an improvement over the old-world way of bringing in outsourced fish and through trucking in urban areas? This point was not very clear to me on the website.
2. When talking about the City Farm and Fish program, I examined the schematic provided of the design that CFF uses to provide fish with clean water and use fish droppings for fertilizer, which can then produce food for the fish. This looks sustainable but how does this work in reality? Where is it happening? Is the CFF doing any other projects like this (i.e. using solar panels as implied in the website) and can you give a description of these?
Questions for NYC Social Innovation Center
1. Can you describe in-depth what kinds of actual social innovations have been developed or will be developed at this institution and also at what stages these projects are in?
2. According to the website, NYS SIC is using 100,000 square feet. What is being done with all that area? Also, how can people such as ourselves get involved (can people with little capital or with inability to pay large monthly fees get involved?)?
2 questions for Brenden Beck
1. How did you get started in Milk Not Jails?
2. Why not increase something other than farms and dairy funding?
Comments by anisak99567
"You make a very strong case. Your idea of making healthcare a state-sponsored system is an intriguing one. However, I am wondering what will become of the current health insurance companies. If someone wanted to look further into this, they may want to look at the number of people employed by these companies, the amount of revenue they generate, and the like. Also, how did the current system evolve into the way it is now? In sum, your argument is compelling."
--( posted on May 5, 2015, commenting on the post
Revamping the Health Care System )
"I find your solution to the food deserts problem to be quite innovative. Selling products that are being wasted and giving them to those that need it sounds like a good idea. A good thing to look for if one wanted to implement this is to find statistics of food quality after the expiration date, what risks it could pose, how long it lasts, and the like. The idea sounds fascinating."
--( posted on May 5, 2015, commenting on the post
Public Health Problems and Solutions )
"I think that the concept of raising minimum wage to close the pay gap is a smart and creative idea. That was well thought-out of you. As far as raising the diversity of student body by balancing the number of men and women, especially in the business school, I think that some problems could arise. For example, women are more numerous than men to begin with so equalizing the number of men and women students may not be needed. A question to look at here is why are women being underrepresented at these levels."
--( posted on Apr 20, 2015, commenting on the post
Gender and Economic Growth Solutions )
"I agree with your vision. The atmosphere in the workplace and indeed throughout the community should be one in which everyone respects one another as human beings. I think the idea of an anonymous complaint panel is an excellent move forward in terms of addressing discrimination in the workplace. You could develop a consulting organization and have people review the cases of discrimination. The anonymous person would just have to describe the person or people involved in the discrimination and in the nature of the discrimination so that it can be investigated."
--( posted on Apr 20, 2015, commenting on the post
Gender and Economic Growth Solutions )
"I like that you took an overview of the major problems that are facing women in the contemporary workforce. I feel, however, that you need to look at some of the more microscale aspects of the macroscale-level problems you brought up. For example, you explained that women typically choose more relationship-based "soft" skilled careers and that they should be going into more male-dominated occupations, since character traits associated with those occupations are indicative of strong leaders. This is, I think, a part of the pay gap issue. However, the problem with this argument is that if women are, by their own will, choosing to go into certain types of occupations, that's not really the social problem since it was by their own choice. Maybe what you mean is that since computer and engineering jobs are male-dominated professions, a number of microscale problems, such as lack of role-models, contributes to the perpetual lack of tendency towards these "hard-skill" professions. I like that your article stirs up a discussion."
--( posted on Apr 6, 2015, commenting on the post
Gender and Economic Growth )
"I like that you brought up maternity leave because that's a really microscopic aspect to the problem and is a part of the problem that can easily be addressed. Recognizing the importance of human experience and life, many organizations that hire mothers should be expected to pay special attention to these employees. I glossed over the specific problem of maternity leave but I regarded the career interruptions on mothers due to caring for a child to be among the main factors for the wage gap between men and women in contemporary society."
--( posted on Apr 6, 2015, commenting on the post
Gender Inequality Problems )
"Really well written. From what I have just read, your three solutions to help people get jobs in an increasingly competitive world is to have the governmental allocate defense money to job creation, give tax cuts to corporations to incentivize training undergraduate students, and to have colleges work with companies to match students to jobs. All three of these ideas are creative and look like they will probably alleviate the problem you are trying to solve. A question that comes up is why the government spends so much on the military and defense. Do we really need to allocate such a vast portion of the nation's wealth for this purpose."
--( posted on Mar 17, 2015, commenting on the post
Work Solutions )
"The idea of a company without a manager sounds like an interesting and creative solution. But, why is it that the manager would be the cause of a lack of face to face interaction? What actual benefit comes out of removing the manager? Still, the idea of recognizing everyone's power to be the same, that everyone is a leader, is very interesting and is bound to have some positive psychological consequences."
--( posted on Mar 17, 2015, commenting on the post
Future of Work Solutions )
"I like that you decided to write about robots and how they could bring about an unemployment crisis unlike anything anyone can currently conceive of. As far as the future is concerned, it is highly uncertain. With advances in technology, things may come up that we aren't even aware of right now. But, if I take your argument that future technologies will possess all the capabilities of humans and beyond, interesting questions rise up. With such refinement in technology, questions would be raised as to what is the appropriate job for the human being. Even more generally, the question would arise as to what the position of the human being is in society. As far as the idea of robots replacing humans as members of society is concerned, I see the idea as preposterous. I think the dominant prevailing view that will continue to prevail long into the future by humans of robots and other machines is that technologies of all kinds are our slaves. They are viewed as inferior and will never be accepted as members of the community.
At the same time, I am aware that there are efforts underway to discover the secrets to creating life and give rise to consciousness in machines. Such efforts are very interesting and it is unknown how far such research will allow humankind to modify its mode of living. If a method was discovered to give robots life and consciousness, I think there would be great debate as to how to appropriately deal with such technologies. If humans can truly create life from non-life, humans would become responsible for managing such machines and controlling the distribution and knowledge of such technologies as a way to protect the community from malicious robots. If robots could not disobey humans, though, humans would just view them as tools and a renaissance of a kind unknown to contemporary times would emerge to assess the future of humankind.
Cool paper. It really got me thinking."
--( posted on Mar 12, 2015, commenting on the post
The Future of Work: The Threat of Technology )
"I like your statement, "There is no job waiting for me." It sounds deep and dramatic and caught my attention. As far as minimum wage goes, I think the argument you put forward makes sense but some aspects could be made clearer. For example, you mention that if people make minimum wage but cannot survive or live comfortably off of that wage, then more people will be unemployed, this will hurt the economy, and this is the reason we should raise minimum wage. I got this impression while reading your piece although you may have meant something else. I don't think the argument I presented just now is valid though because lower wages don't necessarily mean fewer jobs. Rather, it means more suffering for the people who are trying to get by on some jobs. Some statistics of unemployment and wages can make your argument more convincing. Also, something you can research about if you're interested is what kinds of things is the minimum wage connected to. What permits its acceptable rise or decline? Why not raise the minimum wage? What is the impact of minimum wage on the economy? Also, how many minimum-wage jobs are there and what kinds of jobs are those? How do people earning minimum wage or less than that survive? I read in a newspaper that one woman took three minimum wage jobs to support her family and she was extraordinarily overworked and stressed. Anyways, I found your piece to be interesting and informative."
--( posted on Mar 12, 2015, commenting on the post
Work Problems )
"I think that your ideas for solutions are positively brilliant. The idea of putting cameras in jails and prisons and using an outside agency to oversee the footage is an excellent way to help resolve the issue of police brutality. There may be some controversy around this idea because if the outside agency is handling this footage, it will need to be able to pick up signs of excessive force as opposed to justified force. We will need a picture of what is "normal" or appropriate in prison or jail. In fact, prison and jail cameras already exist and some judges have ordered that there be more cameras in prisons or jails. This occurs because of incidences in which police officers bring inmates to blind spots of the cameras to malevolently beat them."
--( posted on Feb 26, 2015, commenting on the post
Policing Solutions )
"Your response is quite enlightening. I did not know about CompStat and this piece inspires me to look into it as a viable solution to racial profiling. The use of body cameras seems like a good idea too. But, body cameras are something that already exists or will increase in number.
One issue with CompStat is that police can manipulate statistics to be evaluated better. For example, Adrian Schoolcraft's extensive recordings indicated that his superiors in policing urged him to manipulate data. Furthermore, they encouraged stop-and-frisk and racial profiling in group meetings. So, while there is great potential usefulness to the system, we would have to rely on police using it correctly. Again, maybe body cameras would increase accountability in this case. If you are interested, maybe you can consider more community interaction with police in such meetings."
--( posted on Feb 26, 2015, commenting on the post
Solution 1 – Policing )
"You have raised some important points. The issues you selected - that is, Stop-and-Frisk and Police quotas - are clear indications of a problem that needs solving. The underlying problem in Stop-and-Frisk is racial profiling and the underlying problem in police quotas is undesirable incentives. Changing the way by which police are evaluated can solve the second problem. The challenge of Stop-and-Frisk seems to be that it is not intended for racial profiling but the police departments conduct racial profiling anyways. So, is there a way to restrain such profiling? Is there an alternative to stop and frisk to accomplish the intended goals? Is there a way to gain effective oversight and policing of the police?"
--( posted on Feb 18, 2015, commenting on the post
Policing Problems )
"Based on what you are saying, it seems that you think that the crafting of appropriate legislation is what will ultimately decrease crime rates and incarceration rates. You seem to be asserting that society as a whole has made the incorrect assumption that the quality of the police force is what decreases the crime and incarceration rates. What you are saying is very interesting and probably true. Also, I don't think that society as a whole would care all that much if the police robbed gangs, who themselves are thieves anyways. Certainly, society would frown upon it as such funds could be put to use in more productive uses than for mere personal gain. I think, though, that you're still arguing the same thing that the class has been discussing because if the police become the criminals who are oppressing innocent members of the community, I think that you would probably argue again that society would need to craft legislation to either oversee and regulate their activities or that will lead to a change of circumstances that permit undesirable behavior. Your piece is very eloquently written and I liked that you were very passionate about your topic."
--( posted on Feb 18, 2015, commenting on the post
Policing is the Problem )
