Some people argue that ex-criminals, who have undergone punishment  and been left free, should be given the freedom not to mention about their criminal conviction while applying for jobs.

Argue for and against this view. 

 'Relax rules on declaring criminal convictions'

Former prisoners should no longer be forced to declare their convictions to employers to prevent ex-offenders being left jobless, according to Ofsted.

Ministers should scrap the existing “one size fits all” approach to criminal convictions because it acts as a “clear barrier to employment”, it was claimed.  The education watchdog said the courts should be given discretion to allow individual prisoners to keep their convictions secret after being released from jail – particularly if they study English and maths courses while behind bars.

It was also claimed that existing prison sentences failed to focus enough on boosting standards of basic skills and increasing an offender's chances of finding work. The comments came as figures from Ofsted showed that not a single prison had been rated outstanding – the top possible category – for education and training over the last four years. Matthew Coffey, the watchdog's national director for further education and skills, whose remit covers the justice system, said that almost two-thirds of prisoner education was not good enough. Speaking on Thursday, he said that every prisoner cost the taxpayer £34,000 a year – the same as sending a child to Eton – and more effort had be to be placed on cutting reoffending.

In a lecture at Wormwood Scrubs Prison, west London, he called on the Government to review existing rules surrounding the declaration of convictions after release from jail. Under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, a prison term of up to six months must be declared to prospective employers for seven years, while a sentence of more than two-and-a-half years must be declared for life. But Mr Coffey told ministers they should consider overhauling the rules, adding: “Rather than a one size fits all approach, consider empowering the courts to determine on a case by case basis the length of time that a conviction must be declared beyond the time spent in prison. “This may or may not be conditional on the offender gaining, say, qualifications in English and maths while in prison. This would remove, or at least lower, the clear barrier to employment that nearly every ex-offender faces.”

But the comments were criticised by Mark Reckless, the Conservative MP for Rochester and Strood, who sits on the Commons home affairs select committee. “It would be far too onerous to expect courts to make bespoke decisions on individuals in this way,” he said. “Employers currently know when convictions are declared and when they aren’t. This would be undermined by a system of bespoke judgments on different offenders.” Currently, almost half of adult prisoners, and three-quarters of juveniles reoffend, Mr Coffey said. He suggested that prison sentences do not focus enough on increasing an offender's chances of finding work, suggesting more judges should “give the directive that an adult prisoner must complete an English or maths qualification”.

"The challenge is to halt this cycle of re-offending, this revolving door, in and out of prison,” he said. “The situation is only marginally better than it was 10 years ago.

"Every prisoner costs the taxpayer on average approximately £34,000 a year. Coincidentally, one year at Eton will also cost you around £34,000." 

Daily Telegraph 10/10/013

 

Many studies have found that, when it comes parenting, working partners happen to enjoy different degrees of happiness and they say mothers are happier than fathers.  

·         Does this finding sound reasonable to you?

·         Do you think fathers are really at a disadvantage in terms of happiness?

Working partners and children generate a tough equation, and seeing it in a parenting angle, there are greater evidences to believe that mothers are more blessed in terms of happiness than fathers. This is not to say fathers are left in the lurch.

Motherhood in parenting shoulders the lion’s share of responsibilities. For example,  looking into the finer needs of tender children, keeping their emotional balance, talking and listening to them and giving them company when they are down are the things mothers are know for. Naturally, a working mother is actually taking up all the three mantles - of a professional, a parent and a homemaker - at the same time.

This rare multi-tasking is so tough that at the end of the day she happens to get more rewarding moments. It is a kind of agony leading to ecstasy. For such a mother, it is a kind of marathon which keeps her running all through her life. The degree of happiness such working mothers come to have is a little above the reach of their counterparts’.

Fathers, on the other hand, have got a different level of happiness. The first thing is that their better half will look a much better half than a fulltime mother who happens to be back at home all the time. Secondly, fathers are left with a rare happiness called flexi-parent who, in front of others, is willing to travel the extra mile to help his counterpart do her job happily. There is surely room for happiness because after all it is for their children.

My conclusion is that the finding of the study is not unfounded, but it is unfair to believe that fathers of working families are at a disadvantage in terms of happiness. They are happy in their own ways, if not happier than their partners.

290 words.

A jaypeesdoc. 10.10.2013

Mothers more fatigued than dads but still find jobs and child care meaningful, report finds

“Time doing child care is where we found the biggest gap between fathers and mothers feeling exhausted,” said report author Wendy Wang. “And when you look at what mothers and fathers are actually doing, it shows why: Mothers spend much more time than fathers doing physical care — feeding the baby, giving baths. They do more managerial and educational care, all of which requires a lot of energy. Only when it comes to playing with kids do fathers do almost the same amount as mothers.”

Time-use research shows that mothers’ time — like that of Manning, an associate professor at Georgetown University — tends to be more fragmented through the day as they switch from their roles as mother to worker to housekeeper and back again. Those exhausting “little sprints” of role switching, said Ellen Galinsky of the Families and Work Institute, are largely the result of women still being considered primarily responsible for home and family, as they have been for millennia.

Pencek’s husband has flexible hours, she said. But Pencek manages the household, interrupts her work schedule to care for sick kids, and directs or takes care of family business. “Because my husband works in an office, I don’t think he really gets that,” she said. “He thinks I can do it all because I’m home. Well, yes, I’m home. But I’m in my office. Working.”

Researchers have found that mothers also largely carry the psychic burden of parenting.

Author Katrina Alcorn chronicled her own exhaustion to the point of burnout in her new memoir, “Maxed Out: American Moms on the Brink.” Alcorn sent out a survey called “Who Clips the Nails?” to about 300 parents, asking which parent was responsible for the mundane tasks of parenting, as well as the planning and organizing — arranging birthday parties and summer camps, finding doctors — that can take up so much brain space, and consume physical energy and time.

“Not surprisingly, women were doing way more of the psychic burden stuff than men,” Alcorn said. “Half the women were really angry and felt their husbands weren’t aware of how much they weren’t doing. But the other half felt a lot of compassion for their partners, saying, ‘He would love to do more at home, but he’s under so much pressure to do more at work, he can’t.’ ”

The Pew report found that 43 percent of mothers reported feeling happiest during leisure time, about twice as many who felt very happy while doing work or housework. Slightly fewer, 37 percent, reported feeling very happy while caring for children, which was still higher than the 29 percent of fathers.

Most fathers, too, felt happiest during leisure time. Only 17 percent felt very happy at work, and just 10 percent — less than half the percentage of mothers — felt very happy doing housework.

But Galinsky found that women rarely let themselves fully enjoy their leisure time.

“There was this feeling that they were living like they were running a marathon — you’re never supposed to stop,” she said.

The internet is increasingly becoming a storehouse and showcase, at the same time, of text, audio and video content on everything under the sun. For some people, this one-stop solution provider is a big alternative for libraries, museums, zoos and similar public places of interest.

• Do you think the internet can replace libraries and museums and the like?
• Is the relevance of these places increasing or decreasing, in your opinion?      

The Net enabled cyberspace is so smart that it works as a stockpile and a showcase of all that is known to man. This fact notwithstanding, to me it is hard to believe that it would replace museums and libraries, and the latter are gaining greater currency these days. Let me prove it.

I believe that the IT enabled information superhighway is not as encouraging as museums, libraries or anything. For example, the Net displays things to those who surf it, and the contents it brings forth may not be as live as what we find in museums and zoos. Besides, the physical look, feel and presence of objects makes people enjoy times and things of the past and present in a more involved manner; ‘seeing is believing’, in short. To be exact, the Internet is an electronically generated no-man’s space whereas the said places of public interest are concrete creations of man of all ages.

Naturally, there is much to believe that these creations would be as relevant as they have always been today. Generations may come and go by leaving their contributions behind. For example, today’s path-breaking achievements are pieces of display for the rest of the world to see. Eventually, people of all ages would be pulled to the differences of lives seen in different parts of the world; let it be of animals, people, or pieces of history and heritage. The thriving tourism in such places of interest shows it vividly.  

My conclusion is the Internet serves a purpose much different from what museums, libraries and zoos do. They are not just places for stocking and displaying contents. Obviously, as they have always been, museums and libraries will stand the test of all times.

285 words

Ajaypeesdoc. 08.10.2013