Global Digital Store – Ebooks and Softwares

Tag: Persons

Statement on the meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee for Ebola virus disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 12 February 2020
The meeting of the Emergency Committee convened by the WHO Director-General under the International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005) to review the current Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) took place on Wednesday, 12 February 2020, from 14:00 to 16:45 Geneva time (CEST).

Proceedings of the meeting

Members and advisors of the Emergency Committee were convened by teleconference.

The Secretariat welcomed the Committee and thanked them for their support. The meeting was turned over to the Chair, Dr Robert Steffen.

Dr Steffen also welcomed the Committee and gave the floor back to the Secretariat.

Representatives of WHO’s legal department and the department of compliance, risk management, and ethics briefed the Committee members on their roles and responsibilities.

Committee members were reminded of their duty of confidentiality and their responsibility to disclose personal, financial, or professional connections that might be seen to constitute a conflict of interest. Each member who was present was surveyed and no conflicts of interest were judged to be relevant to the meeting.

The Chair then reviewed the agenda for the meeting and introduced the presenters.

Presentations were made by representatives of the Ministry of Health of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the WHO Secretariat, and the UN Ebola Emergency Response Coordinator.

The current situation in the DRC was reviewed. As of 10 February 2020, there were a total of 3431 cases, of which 3308 were confirmed and 123 were probable. 2253 persons have died (66%). Between 3 and 9 February 2020, three new confirmed cases were reported in Beni Health Zone, North Kivu. These three cases were already registered as contacts and two were under surveillance at the time of detection. More than 2000 contacts are being followed. There has been an increase in the number of security incidents in recent months.

Challenges that remain include: strengthening of community acceptance for full commitment to response measures; protection of personnel at strategic health checkpoints; improvement of infection prevention and control practices in health facilities; strengthening of the local health system; and comprehensive treatment and support for patients in recovery.

The WHO Secretariat gave an overview of the epidemiological situation, which shows an overall encouraging trend in case incidence and geographic spread. It was noted that sustaining this progress depends on the security situation and control of the well-known drivers of transmission, particularly in traditional health facilities, and on continued trust and communication with the community.

A risk communication and community engagement programme has been developed, as has an EVD survivors programme. It is critical to ensure the long-term sustainability of these two initiatives.

The situation in countries neighbouring DRC was reviewed, as was preparedness in nonaffected areas of DRC. An EVD operational readiness standardized approach has been implemented in 9 priority countries. More than 2400 alerts have been investigated, and more than 14,600 health workers have been vaccinated.

The UN Ebola Emergency Response Coordinator gave a brief report on operational support, focused on security challenges and preparations for any resurgence of disease.

Context and Discussion

The Committee noted a great deal of progress in the situation since its last meeting and commended the response, under the leadership of the DRC Ministry of Health and the multisectoral coordination commission established in July 2019. Support provided by WHO, UN agencies, nongovernmental organizations and other partners has also contributed to limiting the spread and impact of this virus in a difficult context. An increase in the number of alerts was attributed to strong and proactive community surveillance.

Conclusions and Advice

It was the unanimous view of the Committee that this event still constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) under the IHR (2005).

The Committee acknowledged the revised risk assessment, which puts the risk now as high at national and regional levels, and low at the global level.

The Committee was concerned that withdrawing the PHEIC now might have adverse consequences for the response efforts through diminishing focus. Additionally, although the primary concern of the Committee is EVD, there are serious ongoing outbreaks of other diseases, including measles and cholera, in DRC. The country continues to need support to combat infectious diseases as well as to strengthen its health system. Further, there remains an urgent need to maintain international solidarity for the response.

The Committee noted the ongoing discussions about the interpretation in the text of the IHR (2005) of the terms international and regional spread, and about creating an intermediate level of response between the binary possibilities of PHEIC or no PHEIC, in a way that does not require reopening negotiations on the Regulations. The Committee supports these discussions, as an intermediate level would be as useful for gradually ending a PHEIC and for signaling the potential for one to be declared.

The Committee provided the following advice to the Director-General for his issuance as revised Temporary Recommendations under the IHR (2005).

For DRC:
- Sustain the political commitment and multisectoral coordination approach to the response.
- Continue to engage and build trust with associations of survivors to facilitate rapid detection of any cases arising from exposure to infected bodily fluids of survivors.
- Continue to strengthen capacity, implementation, and coordination for community awareness and engagement, including a focus on hotspots, preventing resurgence where cases have declined, and to support survivors in their communities.
- Further enhance the acceptance of response measures and address access and security issues by engaging influencers and decision makers for all interventions.
- Strengthen measures to prevent and manage nosocomial infections, including systematic mapping of health facilities, targeting of IPC interventions and sustain support to those facilities through monitoring and supervision, including in private-sector and traditional health facilities.
- Continue cross-border screening and step up monitoring at checkpoints around hotspots and at main roads.
- Continue to implement and share real-time full-genome genetic sequencing of all new confirmed cases.
- Strengthen measures to prevent and manage nosocomial infections, including systematic mapping of health facilities, targeting of IPC interventions and sustain support to those facilities through monitoring and supervision.
- Strengthen preparedness in non-affected provinces of DRC, and more generally strengthen the health system across the country to respond to concurrent health emergencies.
- Continue to implement optimal vaccine strategies that have proven maximum impact on curtailing the outbreak, as recommended by WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE).
For countries at risk:
- At-risk countries should maintain their work with partners to improve their preparedness for detecting and managing imported or locally acquired cases, including the transparent sharing of detailed information on suspect cases, as required by the International Health Regulations (2005), and sharing laboratory samples of suspect cases for confirmatory testing in accordance with WHO norms and guidance.
- Countries should continue to map population movements and sociological patterns that can predict risk of disease spread.
- Risk communications and community engagement, especially at points of entry, should be maintained.
For all countries:
- As recommended previously, no country should close its borders or place any restrictions on travel and trade.
- The Committee does not consider entry screening at airports or other ports of entry outside the region to be necessary.
The Committee emphasized the importance of continued support by WHO and other national and international partners towards the effective implementation and monitoring of these recommendations.

Based on this advice, the reports made by the affected State Party, and the currently available information, the Director-General accepted the Committee’s assessment and on 12 February 2020 maintained the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

The Director-General endorsed the Committee’s advice and issued them as Temporary Recommendations under IHR (2005) to reduce the international spread of Ebola, effective 12 February 2020. The Director-General thanked the Committee Members and Advisors for their advice and requested their reassessment of this situation within two months or earlier if the situation requires.

Read More
https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/12-02-2020-statement-on-the-meeting-of-the-international-health-regulations-(2005)-emergency-committee-for-ebola-virus-disease-in-the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-on-12-february-2020

Views: 0
February 27, 2020
Stopping Employee Theft in Your Coffee Business

[ad_1]

Regardless to how good of an employer you are, and even if you treat your employees well, understand that employee theft is a reality, and you need to control it. While it may only be a very small percentage of your staff that might steal from you, it can have a significant financial impact on your coffee business. If it goes unnoticed, employees will usually become even more brazen in their activities.

When it comes to theft, your employees are likely to fall into one of the following four categories:

Mr./Ms. honest – these are people who would never think of taking anything if it doesn’t belong to them. If they happen to go home with one of your ballpoint pens, they’ll bring it back the next day, and feel guilty that they took it home, even though it was unintentional.

Incidental theft – these are people that will take home your pen by accident, and will keep it. And, they may scarf a piece of cheesecake occasionally when you aren’t looking, even though they know they shouldn’t. Because these items have minimal value, they have no great sense of guilt related to their activities.

Theft because of need and opportunity – this is when you have an employee who is perhaps living on the edge financially, and because they have the need, and because your security may be lax, they’ll take advantage of an opportune situation to take something.

Compulsive theft – this is the person who is always looking for something to steal, and they have absolutely no conscience about it. They typically rationalize the theft in their own mind. They consider you to be the rich, fat cat, and feel that they are over worked and under paid, so stealing from you is justified.

Employee theft probably exists to some extent within your operation, whether you are aware of it or not. You can most likely live with incidental theft, provided it doesn’t get out of control. Theft related to need and opportunity is, in reality, your fault. These people would probably not steal from you normally, but a lack of security procedures has created the temptation and means for them to do so. Compulsive theft must be discovered, stopped, and you must eliminate the person(s) responsible.

Losing product due to theft:

Your employees may have no desire or need for a sleeve of 12oz. paper cups, Java Jackets, or a roll of toilet paper… but they might like a frozen cake, gallon of chocolate sauce, 6-pack of beer, or a bottle of wine.

There are some simple things you can do to greatly reduce the chance of being ripped-off. First, don’t allow your employees to store their jackets, backpacks, and purses near where you store products. This makes it incredibly simple for someone to slide something into their bag or jacket pocket when no one is watching. I always had my employees store their personal belongings in the cabinet under the cash register (where someone would always be watching), or in my office, under lock & and key.

Second, keep the back door of your store locked with a key at all times (you or your supervisor being the only ones having a key). If customers regularly enter through your back door, this may not be an option. If your back door is an emergency fire exit (and it probably is), you’ll need to install an alarmed breaker-bar. The whole point is that you don’t want your employees to be able to flow in and out of the back door without you knowing about it. Carrying product out the back door to their car, a hiding place for later pick-up, or an awaiting friend, is one of the most common ways products will exit your store.

Once you have made it more difficult to stash things in their personal belongings, or carry them out the back door, employees may resort to hiding items in the trashcan. Of course you will unlock the back door to let them take out the trash. If they have hidden something in the trashcan, a dumpster-diving expedition will certainly be planned for after-hours to recover their treasure.

Periodic trashcan checks should eliminate this problem, or make it a far less appealing option to anyone considering this method to smuggle things out of your store. Buy a long handle 3-prong garden rake. When employees ask to take out the trash, accompany them, and have them hold the can up on the edge of the dumpster while you rake out the trashcan contents. What you are looking for are things that might have been hidden in the trash, but you can tell your employees that you are merely making sure that small wares aren’t being accidentally thrown away. During the 15-years I owned and managed restaurants, I discovered everything from six-packs of beer, bottles of wine, and packages of steaks hidden in the trash!

Another situation that will create an ideal opportunity for employees to steal from you is having only one person working in your store. If your baker comes in each morning a hour before you or the next employee, or if one person is left to clean and lock-up the place at the end of the day, opportunities for theft abound. As the old saying goes: when the cat’s away…

Always try to have at least two people in your store at all times. If there is not justification for having a second employee on the clock, then you will need to be that second person. If this requires you going from a 60-hour workweek to 80-hours, then this may not be a tolerable option. If this is the case, then at least invest a couple of hours more each day for a week or two to do some detective work.

During those times of day when only one employee is working, park at the far end of the parking lot, or across the street, so that you will reduce the chance of being noticed by your employee. If they are familiar with your vehicle, use your spouse’s or friend’s vehicle for a few days. Watch carefully (with binoculars if necessary). I know this all sounds a little CSI – like, but better to rest-easy, feeling fairly assured that your employee isn’t carrying away your store when you’re not watching. If I had the time, I could tell you countless stories of my experiences in catching employees red handed, loading the trunks of their cars.

If you suspect that theft of product might be occurring, but you’ve seen no direct evidence of it, then conducting a daily key item inventory may shed some light on the situation. Write down a list of 15 to 20 products that you think would be most appealing for someone to steal. In your coffee business, this might include items such as coffee, syrups and sauces, smoothie puree, biscotti, cookies, and desserts, sandwich meats & cheeses, and of course beer & wine (if you serve those from your operation). Then take an inventory of these items every day. Your employees don’t need to know what you are doing, and if they ask, simply tell them you are taking an inventory for ordering purposes.

What you are looking for are anomalies in usage. For example, let’s say that from your daily inventories you assess that you use about half a gallon of chocolate sauce per day. Then, one day you notice you used 1 1/2 gallons of chocolate the previous day. This should send up a red flag! Why did you go through an extra gallon of chocolate? Were you significantly busier yesterday, or did you featuring several drink specials which contained chocolate sauce? A quick review of individual item sales from yesterday’s cash register report should provide you with the answer. If you average one ounce of chocolate per beverage, then using 1 1/2 gallons means you should have sold approximately 192 beverages containing chocolate (128 oz. per gal. x 1.5 = 192). If this was the case, no problem. But, if you discover that you only sold 64 beverages containing chocolate, then 128 oz. (or 1 gallon) is unaccounted for and missing! A good indication that it probably walked out the door. If this happens, keep track of who was working on the day of the shortage. If this happens continually, eventually you will discover that the same person or persons were working every time.

Theft of money by employees:

Hopefully, none of your employees will have the desire to steal products from you, but some will be tempted by the lure of cold, hard, cash. Everyone could use an extra $20 a day. Employees who steal money from you will definitely hurt your bottom line, and must be eliminated.

The first way to reduce cash theft is to have a cash handling policy in place that will discourage theft. If multiple employees are using the cash register, and no one person is responsible, then I can almost guarantee that your cash drawer will keep coming up short on a regular basis. The fact that no one person can be held responsible for the shortages, will make grabbing a bill or two easy and appealing.

Implement a policy that one, and only one person is responsible for the cash register for the entire shift. They should count the drawer at the beginning of their shift to verify that they are starting with the designated change bank. Then, they should be the only person to ring up sales and make change. Even you, the owner/manger, should keep your hands out of their cash drawer. Finally, at the end of their shift, they should set aside the amount they started with in the change drawer, and total all the remaining cash, checks, and charges, and balance against what was rung up on the register. If they started with the right amount of money in the cash drawer, rang everything up, took all the money, counted back all the change, and they end up short… who’s fault is it? It can only be theirs. By implementing this simple policy, I once took an operation that was coming up $100 a day ($3,000 a month) cash short, and reduced it to $3 a day, in just 30 days! That’s over a $2,900 bottom line improvement, (in case you didn’t do the math)!

The other common method that a cashier might use to steal money from you is by using a method called, building a bank. This is the process of not ringing up items on the cash register, while still taking money from the customers, and then pocketing that money. Typically, they will obscure the view of the cash register display on the customer’s side with something like a flower, retail merchandise, or by turning the display so that it cannot be easily seen. Then, they will pretend to ring up an item, but will hit the no sale key instead, popping the drawer open so they can take the cash and make change, but in reality, they haven’t rung up anything. The other thing they might do when it is busy is to just not shut the drawer between transactions. They simply convey verbally the cost of items ordered by customers and take the cash, but once again, nothing has been rung up.

A cash register that prints out the order on a remote receipt printer to the person who will be preparing the item, can eliminate this problem. Quite simply, if the item isn’t rung-up, it won’t print out. If your barista or cook won’t prepare anything without a receipt (and they shouldn’t!), it will force your cashier to ring everything up.

If you observe that the cash register’s display has been blocked from the customer’s view, or there are an excessive number of no sale indications on your cash register’s detail tape, or notice that your cashier is not shutting the drawer between transactions, beware! While these may not be indisputable proof that your cashier is stealing from you, they should certainly heighten your vigilance to find out if something is going on.

If your coffee business only warrants having one employee working at a time, perhaps because you own a cart, kiosk, or low volume drive-through operation, then how do you go about keeping your employee from building a bank and stealing from you? The best solution I’ve seen is to turn your customers in to watchdogs. Affix a sign to the front of your cash register, in plain sight of the customer, that reads: If you don’t receive a receipt with your order, it’s FREE! This will force your cashier to hand each customer a receipt for their purchase. If they are building a bank, this means they will have to hand the customer a receipt that says – NO SALE; something they probably won’t fell comfortable doing!

The financial impact of theft of money can be extremely damaging, for example: Let’s say you have a cashier who is skimming off $20 a day by not ringing things up, and then pocketing the money. Not only did you loose the stolen $20, but the $7 of ingredients that were probably used to produce the ordered products; ($20 x 35% ingredient cost = $7.00). So in reality, you lost $27, and it will take an additional $41.54 in sales, to recover this loss; ($41.54 x 65% gross profit = $27). $27 a day lost to theft, X 21 days worked by the employee = $567 lost cash & product per month; $872 extra sales required to offset this loss. (Annual loss, $6,804; $10,468 in additional income required to offset loss.) You must stop theft of money!

Theft of money management:

If you have a manger running your operation for you, this can really create an opportunity for cash theft. Just about anyone who has ever run a food service operation (self included), probably felt that they were over-worked and under-paid. Some are tempted to grant themselves an unapproved raise. Your manger has the control key to the cash register, which means they have the ability to back off items that were sold. You would be wise to check your cash register detail tapes on a regular basis. If you see multiple items backed off in groups, or more worrisome yet, all backed off at the very end of the shift, beware!

A good way to keep this from happening is to establish a policy that no over-rings are to be backed off of sales on the cash register with the management control key. Instead, when the cashier makes an over-ring, they should take the receipt, write over-ring on it, sign it, and put it in the cash drawer. At the end of the shift, the total of all over-rings should be manually backed off of the sales total indicated on the cash register report.

Many years ago I had a manager that was stealing money from me in another creative way. This manager, who opened the store each day, would reset the cash register by Z-ing it out after the first half hour of business. He would then pocket the proceeds earned during that first half hour. Because additional sales were generated during the second half hour, the cash register hourly sales report would always show sales for the first hour of operation, thus eliminating any suspicion that something might be going on.

It wasn’t until I was doing a routine audit of cash register Z tapes that I noticed something wasn’t right. When you run a Z report, which resets the cash register at the end of each day, a multi-digit number will usually be printed somewhere on that tape. The next time you Z the register, that number will advance by one digit. I noticed that even though the tapes were sequential in date, every other number was missing. This tipped me off that the register was being Z-ed twice a day! When I confronted my manager with the tapes, his look of panic spoke volumes.

If you are doubting the honesty of any of your employees or managers, one way you can verify or eliminate your suspicion is by baiting the cash drawer. Slip an extra $20 bill in the drawer sometime during the day when they aren’t watching. If they don’t end up reporting at the end of their shift that they were $20 cash-over, I’ll do it a second time (just to make sure). If they don’t report it a second time, you should have no doubts that they are indeed, dishonest.

NEVER accuse an employee or manger of stealing unless you catch them red-handed (actually stuffing money into their pockets). Even though the circumstantial evidence may be overwhelming, unless you actually catch them in the act, they are likely to deny your accusations, and will probably file a complaint against you with the department of labor! The brief moment of satisfaction you will gain from letting them know you are aware of what they’ve been doing, will be quickly overwhelmed by the legal predicament you will find yourself in. You will be far better off to not make accusations. Simply terminate their employment. In many states, you do not need to provide a reason as to why you are letting them go. When they ask for an explanation as to why you are firing them, simply say: I don’t need to give you a reason, I’m just letting you go, goodbye!

Finally, don’t over look technology to help you with security. Surveillance cameras linked to a DVR (digital video recorder) can provide you with peace of mind, or evidence of theft. These systems have become very affordable, and many are easy to install. The value of these cameras go beyond having a video record of operations. The mere fact that employees understand that their activities are being video recorded, will usually discourage them from doing things that they might not think twice about, if no one was watching.

I think it’s important to not be paranoid about employee theft. Certainly, you don’t want to be constantly obsessed with the suspicion that everyone is stealing from you. In reality, the majority of your employees are probably honest people. But, you would be wise to establish some simple safeguards, and maintain a watchful eye.

[ad_2]

Source by Ed Arvidson

Views: 0

February 6, 2020
Created To Bond – Changes That Heal Part II
[ad_1]

Failure To Develop Relationships

Emotional ties have a dramatic effect on our well-being. When one fails to develop relationships or bond with others, it can and often does affect their ability to stave off or recover from a variety of not only physical but also emotional ills. When they learn to attach to and trust others, they begin to develop not only emotionally, but also psychologically. Thus, their ability to bond with others… to become closely knit, often carryover into their home life.

When a child is distressed, he/she may show unusual signs such as increased pulse, increased or labored respiration, helplessness, and hopelessness and may easily become enraged. These signs are often seen when the biological parent remarries and the child tends to believe that he/she must compete with the step-parent for the biological parent’s attention.

When the adoptive or step-parent enters the situation with food, physical contact, compassion and other help, the child learns her parents can meet her needs. The child is then more active and able to respond to stimulation such as playing. When the child is content, she is able to sleep and feel comfortable in her surroundings.

According to Deborah Gray, author of Attaching in Adoption, “attachment is a relationship formed primarily with members of the family and requires more time and interaction to be created. Attachment is what most adoptive parents are referring to when they talk about bonding with their child. Adopted children of all ages may have an attachment to their birth family, even if the relationship was neglectful or abusive. Many adoption experts agree that if a child can form an attachment to birth and foster parents, she will have the skills to attach to her adoptive family as well.”

Signs of Secure Attachment

The parental attachment process can often take weeks or years to fully develop, and in some cases there maybe pervasive attachment disorders for which professional therapy will be required. A strong indicator of whether attachment is taking place is the comfort with which the adoptive or step-parent is able to recognize the child’s needs. It is important to remember that the repetition of parents meeting a child’s needs is the foundation of forming a secure attachment with children of all ages, not just infants.

The attachment bond shapes an infant’s brain

The attachment bond is the term for our first interactive love relationship-the one we had with our primary caregivers, that is, our mothers. The mother-child attachment bond is instrumental in shaping infants brains. This important attachment profoundly influences our self-esteem, our expectations of others, and our ability to attract and maintain successful relationships. So, the success, or failure, of our first love-the attachment bond-has a life-long effect.

Our secure attachment bond shapes our abilities to:
- feel safe
- develop meaningful connections with others
- explore our world
- deal with stress
- balance emotions
- experience comfort and security
- make sense of our lives
- create positive memories and expectations of relationships
Attachment bonds are as unique as we are. Primary caretakers do not have to be perfect. They do not have to always be in agreement with their infants’ emotions, but it helps if they are emotionally available a majority of the time.

We were born with an innate or preprogrammed need to bond with one very significant person-our primary caregiver, usually our mother. Like all infants, you were a small bundle of disjointed emotions-intensely experiencing fear, anger, sadness, and joy, often at the same time. The natural emotional attachment that grew between you and your caregiver was the first interactive relationship of your life, and it depended upon nonverbal communication. Therefore, the bonding you experienced in this relationship determined how you would relate to other people throughout your life. This bonding relationship established the foundation for all verbal and nonverbal communication in your future relationships.

For better or worse, the attachment bond profoundly influences the infant brain. It is a baby’s first love relationship. When the primary caretaker can manage personal stress, calm the infant, communicate through emotion, share joy, and forgive easily, the young child’s nervous system becomes “securely attached.” The strong foundation of a secure attachment bond enables the child to be self-confident, trusting, hopeful, and comfortable in the face of conflict. As an adult, he or she will be flexible, creative, hopeful, and optimistic.

People who fail to establish this type of bonding relationship often experience confusing, frightening, or broken emotional communications during their infancy and often grow into adults who have difficulty understanding their own emotions and the feelings of others. This hampers their ability to establish, build and/or maintain attachments leading to successful relationships.

What is Attachment?

Attachment is the relationship between infants and their primary caregivers-is responsible for:
- shaping the success or failure of future intimate relationships
- the ability to maintain a normal emotional balance
- the ability to enjoy being ourselves and to find satisfaction in being with others
- the ability to successfully rebound from various disappointments, discouragement, and misfortune
Many scientific studies of the brain-and the primary role attachment plays in shaping it-has given us a new basis for understanding why vast numbers of people have great difficulty communicating with the most important individuals in their work and love lives. Once, we could only use guesswork to try and determine why important relationships never evolved, or developed chronic problems, or fell apart. Now, thanks to new insights into brain development, we can understand what it takes to help build and nurture productive and meaningful relationships at home and at work.

What is the attachment bond?

The mother-child bond is the primary force in infant development, according to the attachment bond theory pioneered by English psychiatrist John Bowlby and American psychologist Mary Ainsworth. The theory has gained strength through worldwide scientific studies and the use of brain imaging technology.

The attachment bond theory states that the relationship between infants and primary caretakers is responsible for:
- shaping all of our future relationships
- strengthening or damaging our abilities to focus, be conscious of our feelings, and calm ourselves
- the ability to bounce back from misfortune
Scientific research reveals the infant/adult interactions that result in a successful, secure attachment, where both people are aware of the other’s feelings and emotions is the necessary precursor for successful relationships. These studies also reveal troubled, or insecure attachment, in which the communication of feelings fails thus resulting in an inability to form the bind needed to establish a solid relationship. Researchers found that in order to have successful adult relationships there must exist in us and we must depend on the ability to:
- manage stress
- stay “tuned in” with emotions
- use communicative body language
- be playful in a mutually engaging manner
- be readily forgiving, relinquishing grudges
The same research also found that when an insecure attachment exists some type of abuse may have caused it, but it is just as likely to be caused by isolation or loneliness. These recent discoveries offer a new glimpse into successful love relationships. Taking these observations into account often provides the keys to identifying and repairing a love relationship that is strained or falling apart.

Insecure attachment affects adult relationships

Insecurity can be a significant problem in all of our lives, and it usually takes root when an infant’s attachment bond fails to provide the child with sufficient structure, recognition, understanding, safety, and mutual accord. These insecurities may lead us to:
- Tune out and turn off-Most often, if our parent is unavailable and self-absorbed, we may-as children-get lost in our own inner world, we become introverted, avoiding any close, emotional connections. This often causes us as adults to become physically and emotionally distant in relationships.
- Remain insecure-If we have parents who are inconsistent or intrusive, it’s more than likely that we will become unrealistically anxious and fearful, never knowing what to expect. Then as adults, we may become willingly available one moment and totally rejecting the next.
- Become disorganized, aggressive and angry-When our early needs for emotional closeness and comfort is neglected, or when a parent’s erratic behavior is a source of disorienting terror, emotional problems are sure to follow. As we grow into adults, we may lack the ability to love easily and may unknowingly be insensitive to the needs of our partner.
- Develop slowly-Problems often occur when we fail to develop as rapidly as we should, both emotionally and intellectually. Such developmental delays often manifest themselves in the form of deficits and often result in subsequent physical and mental health problems, and generally lead to social and learning disabilities.
Lessons Learned From Our Attachment Bond

There are many powerful, life-altering lessons we learn from our attachment bond-our first love relationship continues to teach us as adults. The gut-level knowledge we gained from this bond then guides us in improving our adult relationships and making them secure.

Lesson No. 1-All adult relationships depend on nonverbal forms of communication for their success. These nonverbal communication skills are learned in infancy. Newborn infants cannot talk, reason or plan; yet they are equipped to make sure their needs are met. Infants don’t know what they need, they feel what they need, and communicate accordingly. When an infant communicates with a caretaker who understands and meets their physical and emotional needs an attachment takes place and the strength of that attachment influences other relationships later in life.

Lesson No. 2-Relationships in which the parties are tuned in to each other’s emotions are called attuned relationships, and attuned relationships teach us that:
- nonverbal cues deeply impact our love relationships
- as we play it helps us smooth over the turbulent times we endure in love relationships
- inevitable conflicts can build trusting relationships if we approach them without fear or a need to punish or retaliate
When we can recognize knee-jerk memories, perceive expectations, inappropriate attitudes, unfounded assumptions and improper behaviors as problems resulting from insecure attachment bonds, we can squelch their influence and their effect on our adult relationships. That recognition allows us to readily reconstruct the healthy nonverbal communication skills that ultimately produce an attuned attachment and successful relationship.

Becoming an Adult and Relationship Orientation

As we grow into adulthood, for the most part we bring with us the ideas and communication lessons we have learned from the time of our infancy. Whether these are good or bad depends on our ability to not only view life from our perspective but also have the ability and the willingness to see things from the other person’s point of view as well. When we are able to do that, then we are in a more astute position to deal with situations and circumstances that are adverse to us.

As we move through the adolescent stage of life we find ourselves at odds not only with others but also with ourselves. We want to be an adult with all of its rights and privileges sooner that we can become one, yet at the same time we want to abdicate the responsibility that goes with that station in life. It is a time of being able to make your own decisions and taking authority over your own life, but you are not there yet. You must learn to maintain control of your impulsiveness and your inhibitions. You must be able to objectionably reevaluate your beliefs, see your parents and authority figures realistically, recognize and pursue your God-given talents and goals, and be willing to take ultimate responsibility for yourself. Finally you must be able to accept and appreciate people who are different.

This ability helps us to be able to accept the good and the bad because we are able to address situations in a mature manner. When we are able to do this, we place ourselves into a position of strength, resulting in a proper evaluation of ourselves. Thus we are able to overcome some of the most persistent problems we face daily because now we are not only able to see things in black and white but also in the various shades of gray. As such, we are able to make allowances for our and other peoples mistakes.

We at that point come to realize that everything in life doesn’t have to go our way in order for us to be happy. We gain a new perspective on ourselves, others and God as a result of our changed thinking. We are then able to deal with each other with mercy, in grace, with the understanding that we too make mistakes. When we move into the realm of tolerance and forgiveness, we are able to love others without them having to be perfect.

Yet, in order to accomplish the task and responsibility of growing up we must also be willing to take responsibility and be accountable for those things of which we have been put in charge. Those things include our attitude, tongue, and actions. As we continue to grow in stature and wisdom the maturity level of our life should also increase proportionately.

Differences Between Men And Women

From my experience in dealing with women, (my mother, aunts, seven sisters and many friends and associates) I find that the majority of women are generally oriented towards their existing friendship networks whereas men were more interested in meeting new people and finding people who had similar interests — in other words, men would rather enjoy the adventure of reaching out to new people rather than cementing their existing relationships.

These results contribute to the growing research on social capital, networking and highlight the importance of examining specific interactive applications. The importance of distinguishing between strong and weak ties plays a major role in establishing new relationships. Also, it is necessary to consider the importance of taking into account gender differences in social interaction patterns. Whereas, women increase their bonding social capital as a result of using these sites but men do not. Women, on the other hand, show a decrease in bonding social capital with those whom they meet outside of their normal sphere of influence.

The fear of incorporating emotional intimacy into these association/relationships is mainly due to a fear of rejection and engulfment – a fear of losing the other and/or losing yourself. To overcome this obstacle you must be able to establish an inner bond with yourself. Inner Bonding is a transformational process for healing the fear of intimacy related ideas that have been carried from past experiences.

The mental visualization of these experiences often cause us to digress into a self-contained state of emotional security that hinders our ability to openly tolerate the inconsistencies we see in others. As a result, we ourselves are moved to a protective state and therefore unable to deal with the negative feelings that we will invariably experience. This barrier can block us from resolving issues that in reality are non-issues.

The Immaturity In Adolescence

Struggles with adolescent identity and depression usually set in when an adolescent experiences a loss. The most important loss in their lives is the changing relationship between the adolescent and their parents. Adolescents may also experience strife in their relationships with friends. This may be due to the activities their friends take part in, such as smoking, which causes adolescents to feel as though participating in such activities themselves is likely essential to maintaining these friendships. Teen depression can be extremely intense at times because of physical and hormonal changes but emotional instability is part of adolescence. Their changing mind, body and relationships often present themselves as stressful and that change, they assume, is something to be feared.

Your experiences in life help you to mature. The maturity is developed when you know you have no one to blame for the past but the circumstances and your immaturity. Oftentimes your immaturity stopped you from having a proper perspective of the facts facts and seeing things as they were. This made you blame others for your sufferings. You may have created and escalated your suffering without realizing the facts and circumstances and taking a easy way out by holding others responsible for it.

You feel you are always on the receiving end of every wrong or perceived wrong due to your immaturity. However, life has a knack of replaying memories and after few years it recreates the same circumstances but this time puts you on the opposite side (giving end), you are left with no choice but to accept the fact that you were so immature then and have grow-up with years. As you mature, life makes you see your ‘old you’ in somebody else now in these replaying of circumstances and you know that the other person still has to wait years ahead to grow and realize these facts.

Maturity slowly leads to wisdom when you know that it is only you who has to stand up and take responsibility for your past – action / inaction, sufferings / failures instead of holding others responsible. It is truly said that you create your own happiness. By blaming others and holding grudges you keep happiness at bay and give way to hatred and self pity. However, with time and wisdom when you accept the responsibility for your sufferings and embrace all your successes without pride -you are truly happy.

Divorce And Its Affects On Maturity

Children of divorced parents often bitterly vow not to repeat the same mistakes. They want to avoid putting themselves and their own children through the pain that comes from the dissolution of a marriage. But, according to University of Utah researcher Nicholas H. Wolfinger, these children’s aspirations face unfavorable odds. “Growing up in a divorced family greatly increases the chances of ending one’s own marriage, a phenomenon called the divorce cycle or the intergenerational transmission of divorce.” Dr. Wolfinger has spent almost a decade studying the marriages of children from divorced homes in America. These children are more likely to marry during their teenage years, cohabitate and marry someone who is also a child of divorced parents. And they are also one-third less likely to marry if they are over age 20.

“Understanding the Divorce Cycle: The Children of Divorce in Their Own Marriages,” by Wolfinger, published by Cambridge University Press, contains important information for those interested in divorce and its repercussions. “Divorce is an important topic because it has so many consequences for well-being,” writes Wolfinger,

“Its transmission between generations adds a whole new dimension by perpetuating the cycle of divorce. The divorce cycle, in short, can be thought of as a cascade. Ending a marriage starts a cycle that threatens to affect increasing numbers of people over time, a sobering thought in an era when half of all new marriages fail.” His research also suggests that if one spouse comes from divorced parents, the couple may be up to twice as likely to divorce. Spouses who are both children of divorced parents are three times more likely to divorce as couples who both hail from intact families.

Besides observing the marital stability of the offspring of divorced couples, Wolfinger’s book provides another perspective on how parental divorce affects offspring marriage timing, mate selection, cohabitating relationships as well as historical trends in the divorce cycle. Wolfinger also explores the divorce reform movement in America and argues in favor of no-fault divorce laws, arguing that a return to an age of tough divorce laws would recreate the social conditions that used to make divorce harder on children.

It is my opinion considering all that has been written on this subject that one reason children from divorced families get divorced more often is because they have a tendency to marry as teenagers. Social history demonstrates that the older you are when you marry, the less likely you are to get divorced. It’s good advice for everyone.”

On the other hand, the more transitions children experience while growing up, the more they will experience as adults. Taking this into consideration, the question that needs to be asked is, “What is the hardest for kids is how many disruptions they experience — the up-and-down cycles.

This is a valid question because many children will have stepparents, and some will see their new families dissolve. This type of disruption occurs any time they lose a parent — except from death. That’s different, and doesn’t have the same negative effects on children… whereas divorce is ambiguous. Children wonder whether the divorce was their fault or who is to blame. And they wonder ‘Is he coming back?’” It is certainly good news that people are less likely to stay in high conflict marriages than they used to. However, “ending a low-conflict marriage may hurt children as much as staying in a high-conflict family,” and the odds of divorce transmission are actually highest if parents dissolve a marriage after little or no conflict. It therefore behooves us to evaluate the effects divorce will have upon our children and their emotional well being should we decide to travel that road.

But before making that decision, we should honestly examine ourselves and the motivating things that are moving us in that direction. This inventory, if prayerfully done will allow us to see the other persons point of view more clearly and thereby make the necessary adjustments, where warranted, to resolve the issues that precipitated situation to begin with. If we are truly willing to continue the relationship, then we must take the necessary steps needed to resolve the issues of what is good or bad by first considering what we could have done to alleviate the problem rather than casting blame. When we allow the power of forgiveness to flow in us we cannot only deal with the past and present, but also the future as bonds are cemented.

Gray, Deborah. Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today’s Parents. Indiana:Perspectives Press Inc., 2002.

[ad_2]

Source by Franklyn T. Johnson, Ph.D

Views: 0
February 3, 2020
e-Marketing Strategy: 7 Dimensions to Consider (the e-Marketing Mix)

[ad_1]

What is e-Marketing?

e-Marketing is still quite a controversial subject to talk about, since no one succeeded to unify the various theories around it; however there is one thing upon which there is no doubt – that e-Marketing first appeared under the form of various techniques deployed by pioneer companies selling their products via the internet in the early 90’s.

The frenzy around these new marketing techniques created by e-tailers and supported by the internet rapidly gave birth to a new dimension of what we knew as Marketing: the e-Marketing (electronic Marketing).

There are many definitions to what e-Marketing is, the simplest and shortest one being formulated by Mark Sceats: e-Marketing is Marketing that uses the internet as manifestation media. A working definition is that coming from a group of CISCO specialists: e-Marketing is the sum of all activities a business conducts through the internet with the purpose of finding, attracting, winning and retaining customers.

e-Marketing Strategy

The e-Marketing Strategy is normally based and built upon the principles that govern the traditional, offline Marketing – the well-known 4 P’s (Product – Price – Promotion – Positioning) that form the classic Marketing mix. Add the extra 3 P’s (People – Processes – Proof) and you got the whole extended Marketing mix.

Until here, there are no much aspects to differentiate e-Marketing from the traditional Marketing performed offline: the extended Marketing mix (4 + 3 P’s) is built around the concept of “transactional” and its elements perform transactional functions defined by the exchange paradigm. What gives e-Marketing its uniqueness is a series of specific functions, relational functions, that can be synthesized in the 2P + 2C+ 3S formula: Personalization, Privacy, Customer Service, Community, Site, Security, Sales Promotion.

These 7 functions of the e-Marketing stay at the base of any e-Marketing strategy and they have a moderating character, unlike the classic Marketing mix that comprises situational functions only. Moderating functions of e-Marketing have the quality of moderate, operate upon all situational functions of the mix (the classic 4 P’s) and upon each other.

1. Personalization

The fundamental concept of personalization as a part of the e-Marketing mix lies in the need of recognizing, identifying a certain customer in order to establish relations (establishing relations is a fundamental objective of Marketing). It is crucial to be able to identify our customers on individual level and gather all possible information about them, with the purpose of knowing our market and be able to develop customized, personalized products and services.

For example, a cookie strategically placed on the website visitor’s computer can let us know vital information concerning the access speed available: in consequence, if we know the visitor is using a slow connection (eg. dial-up) we will offer a low-volume variation of our website, with reduced graphic content and no multimedia or flash applications. This will ease our customer’s experience on our website and he will be prevented from leaving the website on the reason that it takes too long to load its pages.

Personalization can be applied to any component of the Marketing mix; therefore, it is a moderating function.

2. Privacy

Privacy is an element of the mix very much connected to the previous one – personalization. When we gather and store information about our customers and potential customers (therefore, when we perform the personalization part of the e-Marketing mix) a crucial issue arises: that of the way this information will be used, and by whom. A major task to do when implementing an e-Marketing strategy is that of creating and developing a policy upon access procedures to the collected information.

This is a duty and a must for any conscious marketer to consider all aspects of privacy, as long as data are collected and stored, data about individual persons.

Privacy is even more important when establishing the e-Marketing mix since there are many regulations and legal aspects to be considered regarding collection and usage of such information.

3. Customer Service

Customer service is one of the necessary and required activities among the support functions needed in transactional situations.

We will connect the apparition of the customer service processes to the inclusion of the “time” parameter in transactions. When switching from a situational perspective to a relational one, and e-Marketing is mostly based on a relational perspective, the marketer saw himself somehow forced into considering support and assistance on a non-temporal level, permanently, over time.

For these reasons, we should consider the Customer Service function (in its fullest and largest definition) as an essential one within the e-Marketing mix.

As we can easily figure out, the service (or assistance if you wish) can be performed upon any element from the classic 4 P’s, hence its moderating character.

4. Community

We can all agree that e-Marketing is conditioned by the existence of this impressive network that the internet is. The merely existence of such a network implies that individuals as well as groups will eventually interact. A group of entities that interact for a common purpose is what we call a “community” and we will soon see why it is of absolute importance to participate, to be part of a community.

The Metcalf law (named after Robert Metcalf) states that the value of a network is given by the number of its components, more exactly the value of a network equals the square of the number of components. We can apply this simple law to communities, since they are a network: we will then conclude that the value of a community rises with the number of its members. This is the power of communities; this is why we have to be a part of it.

The customers / clients of a business can be seen as part of a community where they interact (either independent or influenced by the marketer) – therefore developing a community is a task to be performed by any business, even though it is not always seen as essential.

Interactions among members of such a community can address any of the other functions of e-Marketing, so it can be placed next to other moderating functions.

5. Site

We have seen and agreed that e-Marketing interactions take place on a digital media – the internet. But such interactions and relations also need a proper location, to be available at any moment and from any place – a digital location for digital interactions.

Such a location is what we call a “site”, which is the most widespread name for it. It is now the time to mention that the “website” is merely a form of a “site” and should not be mistaken or seen as synonyms. The “site” can take other forms too, such as a Palm Pilot or any other handheld device, for example.

This special location, accessible through all sort of digital technologies is moderating all other functions of the e-Marketing – it is then a moderating function.

6. Security

The “security” function emerged as an essential function of e-Marketing once transactions began to be performed through internet channels.

What we need to keep in mind as marketers are the following two issues on security:

– security during transactions performed on our website, where we have to take all possible precautions that third parties will not be able to access any part of a developing transaction;

– security of data collected and stored, about our customers and visitors.

A honest marketer will have to consider these possible causes of further trouble and has to co-operate with the company’s IT department in order to be able to formulate convincing (and true, honest!) messages towards the customers that their personal details are protected from unauthorized eyes.

7. Sales Promotion

At least but not last, we have to consider sales promotions when we build an e-Marketing strategy. Sales promotions are widely used in traditional Marketing as well, we all know this, and it is an excellent efficient strategy to achieve immediate sales goals in terms of volume.

This function counts on the marketer’s ability to think creatively: a lot of work and inspiration is required in order to find new possibilities and new approaches for developing an efficient promotion plan.

On the other hand, the marketer needs to continuously keep up with the latest internet technologies and applications so that he can fully exploit them.

To conclude, we have seen that e-Marketing implies new dimensions to be considered aside of those inherited from the traditional Marketing. These dimensions revolve around the concept of relational functions and they are a must to be included in any e-Marketing strategy in order for it to be efficient and deliver results.

[ad_2]

Source by Otilia Otlacan

Views: 0

January 22, 2020
Relationships: Can A Relationship Allow Someone To Become More Integrated?

[ad_1]

When someone first starts to spend time with another person, they may find that they only experience good feelings. If there are moments when they don’t, these moments may soon pass.

The same could also apply when they are not in the other persons company, with this being a time when they will experience good feelings whenever they think about them. If there are moments when they don’t, these moments may also pass before long.

A Gradual Change

However, as the weeks and months go by, they may find that their emotional experience starts to change. There could be times when they don’t experience good feelings when they are with their partner and the same thing could happen when they think about them.

When this happens, one could end up experiencing a fair amount of emotional pain. One could come to believe that the reason they feel different is because of what their partner has done or because their partner has changed in some way, for instance.

One Direction

If they come to this conclusion, there is going to be no need for them to take a step back and to see if there is more to it. What is going on out there will be the cause and they won’t have played a part in how they feel.

The outcome of this is that they could end up blaming their partner, with it being clear that they the ones who are at fault. Their partner could end up going along with this or they could end up pushing back.

Out of Balance

If their partner goes along with it, it could show that their partner doesn’t have a clear idea of what they are responsible for and what they are not responsible for. Due to this, it will be normal for them to take the blame for things that have nothing to do with them.

On the other hand, if their partner draws the line and doesn’t take on what doesn’t relate to them, one may look into what part they are playing in how they feel. If they do this, it will have a positive effect on their relationship and it will also serve one’s own evolution.

A Different Outlook

The reason for this is that one will own their own wounds as opposed to blaming their partner for what has been triggered within them. This will stop them for projecting their issues onto their partner, thereby giving them the chance to work through their inner wounds.

These inner wounds can relate to what has taken place in their adult life and they can go back to what took place during their childhood years. Unlike a physical wound, an inner wound won’t just heal by itself.

Presence

An emotional wound can just be covered up and forgotten about by their conscious mind. The downside to this is that when it is brought up to the surface, months or even years later, one can blame another person for how they feel.

For an emotional wound to be healed, one will need to be with how they feel and to give the wound their full attention. One is then not resisting or trying to change how they feel, they are being with their emotional self.

A Big Impact

One way to look at these emotional wounds would be to say that they make it hard for one to operate as a whole human being. They are then going to look whole from the inside, but on the inside they will be anything but whole.

Another way of looking at this would be to say that one will have many different split-off parts within them. It will take a fair amount of energy for one to keep these parts at bay and it won’t be possible for them to fully show up.

Weakened

One could then be in great physical shape, for instance, but they won’t be completely in their power. What this illustrates is that if one ignores these inner wounds, they won’t be able to function at their best.

Still, what can happen is that one can get used to living in this way, which is why it can seem as though everything is fine. Their energy is unlikely to be as strong as it could be and their presence is likely to be diminished.

Strengthened

As they begin to work through their emotional wounds and to integrate these split-off parts, more of them will be able to show up. Furthermore, they will be less reactive and able to be more present around their partner.

â€‹

So by viewing their emotional pain in a totally different way, it will make it easier for them to grow and develop. They will realise that whenever emotional pain comes up, it will be calling out to be acknowledged; it won’t want to be pushed down or changed into something positive.

Awareness

If one can relate to this, and they want to become a more integrated human being, they may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided by the assistance of a therapist or a healer.

The reason one may need external support is because they might not be able to handle these wounds by themselves, which will stop them from being able to work through them. By having someone else to hold the space for them, they will be able to go where they wouldn’t go by themselves.

[ad_2]

Source by Oliver JR Cooper

Views: 0

January 10, 2020
A Substantive Due Process Challenge to the War on Drugs

[ad_1]

Substantive Due Process Analysis of the Incarceration of Drug Offenders

A. Framework

In Washington v. Glucksberg, Chief Justice Rehnquist described the framework for substantive due process analysis:

Our established method of substantive-due-process analysis has two primary features: First, we have regularly observed that the Due Process Clause specially protects those fundamental rights and liberties which are, objectively, “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” such that “neither liberty nor justice would exist if they were sacrificed.” Second, we have required in substantive-due-process cases a “careful description” of the asserted fundamental liberty interest. Our Nation’s history, legal traditions, and practices thus provide the crucial “guideposts for responsible decisionmaking,” that direct and restrain our exposition of the Due Process Clause. As we stated recently in Flores, the Fourteenth Amendment “forbids the government to infringe . . . ‘fundamental’ liberty interests at all, no matter what process is provided, unless the infringement is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.”

Applying this method, one must first examine freedom from incarceration to determine if it is a fundamental right. If so, government policies that require the incarceration of offenders, including drug offenders, must serve compelling interests and be narrowly tailored to achieve them. This article assumes for the sake of argument that drug problems give rise to compelling state interests. It then reviews the interests asserted by the government in its pursuit of its drug war policies and the results of those policies to determine whether the policy of incarcerating drug offenders is narrowly tailored to those asserted interests.

B. The Fundamental Liberty Interest: Freedom from Incarceration

Federal and state laws subject drug offenders to incarceration. Incarceration is a tremendous deprivation of liberty that triggers the protections of the Due Process Clause. The Supreme Court has recognized this right on a number of occasions. In DeShaney v. Winnebago County DSS for example, the court held:

[I]t is the State’s affirmative act of restraining the individual’s freedom to act on his own behalf–through incarceration, institutionalization, or other similar restraint of personal liberty–which is the “deprivation of liberty” triggering the protections of the Due Process Clause . . . .

Perhaps the earliest explicit recognition by the Supreme Court of freedom from incarceration as a fundamental right under substantive due process came in Allgeyer:

The ‘liberty’ mentioned in [the fourteenth] amendment means, not only the right of the citizen to be free from the mere physical restraint of his person, as by incarceration, but the term is deemed to embrace the right of the citizen to be free in the enjoyment of all his faculties; to be free to use them in all lawful ways; to live and work where he will; to earn his livelihood by any lawful calling; to pursue any livelihood or avocation; and for that purpose to enter into all contracts which may be proper, necessary, and essential to his carrying out to a successful conclusion the purposes above mentioned.

An 1891 law review article noted that Blackstone described “freedom from restraint of the person” as “perhaps the most important of all civil rights,” and that Lord Coke felt “the liberty of a man’s person is more precious to him than everything else that is mentioned [in the Magna Charta].” Blackstone states that “the rights of all mankind . . . may be reduced to three principal or primary articles; the right of personal security, the right of personal liberty, and the right of private property.” Indeed, the original Latin in the Magna Charta’s “law of the land” clause uses the term “imprisonetur.”

No court has invalidated a criminal statute through the application of substantive due process analysis to the fundamental right of freedom from incarceration. At the same time, no court has ruled to the contrary. The Supreme Court avoided the question in Reno v. Flores:

The “freedom from physical restraint” invoked by respondents is not at issue in this case. Surely not in the sense of shackles, chains, or barred cells, given the Juvenile Care Agreement. Nor even in the sense of a right to come and go at will, since, as we have said elsewhere, “juveniles, unlike adults, are always in some form of custody,” and where the custody of the parent or legal guardian fails, the government may (indeed, we have said must) either exercise custody itself or appoint someone else to do so.

This analysis would not apply to adult drug offenders. The Fourth Circuit also avoided addressing freedom from incarceration as a fundamental right in Hawkins v. Freeman:

Hawkins’s rhetorical reference to the right as being “freedom from unjust incarceration,” and that of amicus, American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, as the “right to be free from arbitrary incarceration,” are issue-begging generalizations that cannot serve the inquiry. A properly precise description can, however, be found in the facts and legal authorities relied upon by Hawkins in support of his claim. From these, we deduce that the precise right asserted is that of a prisoner to remain free on erroneously granted parole so long as he did not contribute to or know of the error and has for an appreciable time remained on good behavior to the point that his expectations for continued freedom from incarceration have “crystallized.”

Hawkins is distinguishable because it deals with an inmate whose parole was revoked. In any event, the casual dismissal as an “issue-begging generalization” flies in the face of nearly 800 years of common law tradition and over a century of Supreme Court decisions recognizing freedom from incarceration as a fundamental right. Indeed the language of the Supreme Court’s Ingraham decision supports the application of substantive due process proposed in this paper:

While the contours of this historic liberty interest in the context of our federal system of government have not been defined precisely, they always have been thought to encompass freedom from bodily restraint and punishment. It is fundamental that the state cannot hold and physically punish an individual except in accordance with due process of law.

The Court also stressed this fundamental liberty interest in Foucha v. Louisiana, a case involving the confinement of a person found not guilty by reason of insanity:

Freedom from bodily restraint has always been at the core of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause from arbitrary governmental action. “It is clear that commitment for any purpose constitutes a significant deprivation of liberty that requires due process protection.” We have always been careful not to “minimize the importance and fundamental nature” of the individual’s right to liberty.

While the Foucha Court indicated that “a State may imprison convicted criminals for the purposes of deterrence and retribution,” the remark was dicta and did not involve any discussion of substantive limits on the police power. In Meachum v. Fano the Court made a similar remark in the context of a case dealing with prison conditions: “[G]iven a valid conviction, the criminal defendant has been constitutionally deprived of his liberty to the extent that the State may confine him.” Again there was no discussion of substantive limits on the police power. Indeed the previous sentence noted: “The Due Process Clause by its own force forbids the State from convicting any person of crime and depriving him of his liberty without complying fully with the requirements of the Clause.”

Recently in Zadvydas v. Davis, the Court noted:

The Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause forbids the Government to “depriv[e]” any “person … of … liberty … without due process of law.” Freedom from imprisonment–from government custody, detention, or other forms of physical restraint–lies at the heart of the liberty that Clause protects.

Freedom from incarceration is not just a fundamental right. It is the one of the most fundamental of rights.

C. Identifying the State’s Interests

Governmental drug policy interests identified in federal statutes include “demand reduction,” “supply reduction,” and “reducing drug abuse and the consequences of drug abuse in the United States, by limiting the availability of and reducing the demand for illegal drugs.”

Federal law sets specific goals for the National Drug Control Strategy. These include:

“Reduction of unlawful drug use to 3 percent of the population”;

“Reduction of adolescent unlawful drug use to 3 percent of the adolescent population”;

“Reduction of the availability of cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine”;

“Reduction of the respective nationwide average street purity levels for cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine”; and

“Reduction of drug-related crime.”

Goals are also set forth with regard to drug-related crime:

(i) reduction of State and Federal unlawful drug trafficking and distribution; (ii) reduction of State and Federal crimes committed by persons under the influence of unlawful drugs; (iii) reduction of State and Federal crimes committed for the purpose of obtaining unlawful drugs or obtaining property that is intended to be used for the purchase of unlawful drugs; and (iv) reduction of drug-related emergency room incidents . . . .

D. Defining “Narrow Tailoring” in the Context of Substantive Due Process

Assuming that the governmental interests are compelling, we must determine whether the incarceration of drug offenders is narrowly tailored to achieving them. The government must show that its policy passes strict scrutiny. The concept of narrow tailoring is not well defined in the context of substantive due process, but has been fairly well defined in regard to the First Amendment and Equal Protection. Equal Protection cases also arise out of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Education the Supreme Court held: “Under strict scrutiny the means chosen to accomplish the State’s asserted purpose must be specifically and narrowly framed to accomplish that purpose.” In a footnote, the Court described narrow tailoring in even further detail:

The term “narrowly tailored,” so frequently used in our cases, has acquired a secondary meaning. More specifically, as commentators have indicated, the term may be used to require consideration of whether lawful alternative and less restrictive means could have been used. Or, as Professor Ely has noted, the classification at issue must “fit” with greater precision than any alternative means. “[Courts] should give particularly intense scrutiny to whether a nonracial approach or a more narrowly-tailored racial classification could promote the substantial interest about as well and at tolerable administrative expense.”

It is important to note here that a policy that does not advance the government’s interests violates substantive due process regardless of how it compares with the alternatives. If it does not accomplish its purpose, logic dictates it cannot be specifically and narrowly framed to accomplish its purpose.

E. Advancing Governmental Interests

Congress has identified certain tools for assessing the national drug control strategy. The National Household Survey is the measure for “unlawful drug use.” Similarly, “adolescent unlawful drug use” is to be measured “by the Monitoring the Future Survey of the University of Michigan or the National PRIDE Survey conducted by the National Parents’ Resource Institute for Drug Education.” On these measures, the goals are not being reached.

The measure of adolescent drug use that was specifically identified by Congress, illicit drug use in the past 30 days, worsened in 2001. More than 25% of US twelfth graders reported using illicit drugs in the past 30 days. That is nearly double the figure for 1992 and more than eight times the stated goal of 3%. Over 40% of 12th graders tried an illicit drug in the past year.

The PRIDE Survey and National Household Survey show similar results.

The drug war has also failed in its other goals. The Monitoring the Future Survey tracks how twelfth graders perceive the availability of drugs. Reducing availability is an explicit goal of the drug war. The perceived availability of marijuana in 2001 was slightly higher than in 1975. The figures for harder drugs are more disturbing. From 1975 to 1986, roughly 20% of twelfth graders said heroin was easy to get. That number shot up in the late 1980s and has remained consistently higher than 30%. Cocaine remains widely available to our youth, with nearly 50% of twelfth graders saying it is easy to get. The survey began measuring the availability of ecstasy in 1989, when only 22% of twelfth graders felt it was easy to get. In 2001, that number went over 61%, having jumped from 51% the year before.

Drug war policies are not achieving the stated drug war goals. They cannot be “specifically and narrowly framed to accomplish their purpose” because they are not accomplishing their purpose. Drug use has not been reduced in any significant way, and levels of drug use are far above the stated goals. Our children have easy access to drugs. We can’t even keep drugs out of jails. The drug war and the incarceration of drug offenders have also failed to achieve secondary goals regarding supply, demand, purity, drug-related health problems and drug-related crime. The policy of incarcerating drug offenders does not “directly advance[] the governmental interest asserted.” The War on Drugs is not working.

F. Alternative Means

Even if a court is persuaded that incarceration advances the government’s interests, the government must also show that its policy choice fits better than the alternatives. Critics of the drug war encompass a broad spectrum of backgrounds, and the range of “solutions” is just as wide. Libertarians and others favor outright legalization of drugs. The legalization of marijuana is a somewhat popular variation of overall legalization, and there are other variations such as the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes and decriminalization of drugs or marijuana. Another leading approach, known as harm reduction, looks at drugs from a public health perspective.

The effectiveness of some of these alternatives is difficult to assess. Even so, certain comparisons can be made. Advocates of treatment point to studies showing that treatment is much more effective than incarceration. Spencer notes:

The recidivism rate for first time Dade County drug offenders was sixty percent, but for those who successfully completed the Dade County Drug Court treatment programs, the recidivism rate reported by Dade County officials was only seven percent. Drug court treatment programs are also cost effective. It costs Florida only $2,000 to put a drug offender through a drug court program, as compared to $17,000 per drug offender for incarceration. As a result, other drug court programs are being established throughout the country.

Similarly, a Rand study found treatment to be seven times more cost-effective than current supply-control policy in reducing cocaine consumption.

G. The Incarceration of Drug Offenders is Not Narrowly Tailored

Incarceration involves a far greater infringement of fundamental rights than alternatives which are both more effective and less intrusive. The incarceration of offenders is not advancing the state’s asserted interests. The drug war is not narrowly tailored, failing the Supreme Court’s “established method of substantive-due-process analysis” as described by Chief Justice Rehnquist. The laws requiring the incarceration of drug offenders are therefore unconstitutional, if substantive due process analysis is applied.

IV. CONCLUSION

It is true that the approach suggested in this paper would limit the police power. Constitutional protection of individual rights exists for that very purpose. We face coercive government action, carried out in a corrupt and racist manner, with military and paramilitary assaults on our homes, leading to mass incarceration and innocent deaths. We can never forget the tyranny of a government unrestrained by an independent judiciary. Our courts must end the War on Drugs.

For the full article, with endnotes, see: http://www.redlichlaw.com/crim/substantive-due-process-drug-war.pdf

[ad_2]

Source by Warren Redlich

Views: 0

October 8, 2019
Family Doctors Are Important To A Person’s Health

[ad_1]

A family doctor is essential to all people who need health care. Doctors help people in a variety of different ways. They keep close records of their patient’s medical history and they are able to diagnose and treat people when they become ill or are injured. A family physician can even screen their clients to figure out if they have a disease or if they are developing some type of condition that could negatively impact their lives.

Most families must have insurance to receive help from a family doctor. A primary care physician wants their patients to have insurance because they receive payments from them. Most people cannot afford to pay out-of-pocket for health care. Doctors know this and rely on insurance to receive payment. Without insurance, most doctors just could not afford to see patients.

Doctors are also trained to provide care in specific areas of medicine or for general health problems. Their training is important because it gives them the ability to help people to resolve basic medical issues. A doctor will be able to treat and diagnose patients for medical issues related to their body. They will also deal with infections, broken bones, physical and they should be able to detect when their patient is having a medical issue.

Many hospitals and health clinics often employ doctors and physicians. They can also work within private offices. These offices typically located in various locations within a city. Some doctors serve inner city neighborhoods and some medical professionals help people who are located suburban neighborhoods. Most doctors offices are located in areas that best serve specific communities where the population can pay or are in need.

Private practices are very lucrative for doctors and for their patients. This is because doctors can charge their own fees and set their own prices for visits and care. Many doctors no longer make house visits. However, they might perform this service in rural locations. Many doctors can also be found inside of hospital facilities where they are also needed to provide care.

Family doctors also help to ensure that children remain healthy and strong. They know that children face a lot of problems during the early developmental stages of life. Doctors ensure that children are receiving adequate check ups and physical and that they have safe environments to live. They also help to safeguard a child’s emotional and mental state.

In modern times, doctors have to closely monitor their patient’s mental health. No longer are they just concerned with the physical aspects of health care, they must make sure that their clients mental state is functioning normally. Doctors routinely diagnose their patients to determine if they are suffering from ailments such as depression or emotional instability.

They also focus on sport related problems such as concussions and broken limbs. These areas of sports related health issues are impacting people on a greater degree and is impacting people more than ever before. Athletes and sporting teams also have their personal family doctors that are designed to help them to prepare for sporting events and to stay in good condition during the season and when they have time off.

Having a personal doctor just makes sense. As people get older in life they typically need more medical care because their bodies break down. Since this is the case, doctors have a tendency to serve seniors within their communities. Older people also need more care and frequently visit the doctor more so than younger people.

A good family doctor will also endorse the benefits of good health care and stress its importance. As a matter of fact people with family doctors could live longer and healthy lives under normal circumstances. Some people could even extend their lives by at least 15 years with the proper care from a licensed and trained doctor. Family doctors are important to help families to live healthy and productive lives for many years to come.

[ad_2]

Source by Ryan A Buffington

Views: 0

October 8, 2019