Categorising of employees - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 10 Words: 2875 Downloads: 3 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Law Essay Type Narrative essay Level High school Tags: Act Essay Did you like this example? LL.B (Wales) à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Employment Law Semester II à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Year III by Charis Lapertas Identify the definitions contained in section 230 Employment Rights Act 1996 and explain how statutes categorise those who are employees, workers, or otherwise engaged in the provision of services. The accurate and consistent interpretation of employment status of individuals insufficiently clear and userà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å"unfriendly as it may be, is of supreme importance in order to determine both their access to statutory rights but also to define the contractual arrangements under which such persons work. Although, as mentioned earlier, unclear and user unfriendly, may be, the employment status interpretation helps to determine who is responsible for matters such as liability for tax, national insurance contribution, injuries at the workplace or damages caused to others, what contractual rights the company is entitled in controlling the workersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ activities and what statutory rights as unfair dismissal, redundancy compensation, maternity rights, etc. Hence, working individuals wrongly defined whether innocently, by negligence or deliberately may be excluded from benefits or important rights at work. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Categorising of employees" essay for you Create order This statutory definition, broad as it may be, provides the necessary discretion of the judiciary to upgrade the law in view of the social and employment changes in such relationships.[1] Accordingly three broad categories/terms are used to describe the employment status of working people and classify them. According to the s 230 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 working people are classified as (a) employees (b) workers and (c) self-employed. The first type of employment is that of à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“employeeà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  s 230 (1) who is defined as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“an individual who has entered into or works under (or where the employment has ceased worked under) à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ a contract of employment that is defined as a contract of service or apprenticeship, whether express or implied, and (if it is express) whether oral or in writing.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  [2] The question whether a working individual is an employee or not can have serious implications on the rights he is enti tled to. Most working people have a contract of employment and are employees or, in the old-fashioned word still very occasionally used by some members of the judiciary until recently, servants. A builder building an extension to a house, a watch maker repairing a watch, or a plumber mending a tap are, however, more likely to be engaged on contracts for services that is, to be independent contractor.[3] The main traditional distinction centres around: (1) a contract of services (employee) and (2) a contract for services (independent contractor).[4] The second type of employment under which an individual (excluding à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“shopworkerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  and à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“betting workerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ) may be engaged is that of à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“workerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  as created by Statute. As defined in ERA 1996, s 230 (3) a worker is à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“an individual who has entered into or works under a contract of employment or any other contract express or implied and (if it is expressed) whether oral or in writing whereby the individual undertakes to do or perform personally any work or services for another party to the contract whose status is not by virtue of the contract that of a client or customer of day profession or business undertaking carried on by the individual.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  [5] This particular group of working individuals are entitled to some rights such as the right not to suffer unlawful deductions from pay. As mentioned earlier, an employee is someone who has entered or works under an  employment contract. Although all employees are workers, an employee has extra employment rights and responsibilities, which donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t apply to workers who arenà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t employees. On the other hand, a person is generally classed as a worker if: they have a  contract  or other agreement to do certain work or services personally for a reward whereby a contract doesnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t have to be written, their reward is for mo ney or a benefit in kind, e.g. the promise of a contract or future work, they only have a limited right to assign the work to someone else (à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"subcontractà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢), they have to appear whether want to or not, their employer has to have work for them to do for the duration of the contract or arrangements made, they arenà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t doing the work as part of their own limited company in an arrangement where the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"employerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ is actually a customer or client. The third type of employment status under which individuals may be classified is that of à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“self-employed.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  Self-employed, are individuals who are in business for themselves. They have no contract of employment with employers, they are their own boss, they may be contractual to provide services over certain time for fee, pay their income tax and national insurance contributions. They have no employment rights, since they decide how much to charg e or when and how much holiday to take, they cannot be discriminated against and they are entitled to healthy and safe of working environment on their clientsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ premises.[6] Servants, employees, workers, independent contractors, workers on the lump, agency staff, part-time workers, temporary workers, zero-hours contract working, self-employed workers, homeworking, teleworking, etc, the list is endless.It is exactly the nature of labour, the ways working patterns and relationships have developed that has caused difficulties in establishing a clear definition of employment status. This diversity of relations, with atypical forms of working becoming ever more typical,and new forms of business structures with agency work and bi-lateral, trilateral and even quadrilateral relationships coming to the attention of the courts (Evans v Parasol and another[2009] UKEAT 0536/08/2307), has made establishing clear rules even more problematic.[7] A variety of tests were develo ped by the courts in an effort to determine whether someone is employed or self employed. The numerous tests that have been developed are evidence that it is difficult to categorise working individuals. One of the main reasons for the numerous tests is the speed in which employment changes and, therefore, the courts have to constantly update their methods in order to accommodate the change. Moreover, many forms of employment, facts, arguments, policies, have been traversed by the courts and as a result attempts to revise, refine and upgrade were made in an effort to assist both the courts and the parties in their efforts to determine the employment status of working individuals more effectively and reliably. The main tests developed by the courts can be briefly summarized in chronological order, since the courts had difficulty in categorising working individuals in the constantly changing employment environment as follows.[8] The first test used to determine whether someone wa s an employee was the control test. It originates in the case of Yemens v Noakes (1881) focused entirely upon the degree of control the employer had over the worker, a large measure of control, i.e. where it could be said that the employer could stipulate not only what was to be done but how it was to be done, indicated a contract of employment, given that the exercise by lesser control would lead to self-employment.[9] Further, complications with this test arose with the increase in skill professions such as doctors, nurses; etc. The control test was taken to its logical conclusion when a court held that nurses were not employees of a hospital when carrying out duties in the operating surgeon and not from the hospital authorities, Hillyer v Governors of St Bartholomewà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s Hospital (1909). This rigidity led to criticism in Lindsey County Council v Mary Marshal (1937). As the pace of technological change hastened, it became obviously unrealistic to conceive of the e mployer having the knowledge to control many of its increasingly highly skilled employees. Consider for example the case of a surgeon, a research chemist, or an airline pilot, whose know-how is far beyond that of their employers. The breakthrough towards a more realistic approach came in a series of cases round 1950à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s in which hospitals were held vicariously liable for the acts of surgeons, radiographers and other specialist (for example Cassidy v Ministry of Health (1951)). It would be a mistake, however, to think that this was a change brought about entirely by technological and other forms of advance, (Wedderburn, Lewis and Clark). Very early cases were often concerned with employees who were more skilled than their employers.[10] However, in the middle of the last century, the courts were reluctant to disregard the element of control, and the result was that it became one of a number of factors, although sometimes still the determining one (see Montgomery v J ohnson Underwood Ltd, 2001). Thus Lord Thankerton, in Short v J W. HendersonLtd (1946), looked at whether the putative master had the power of selection of this servant, the right to control the method of doing the work, and the right of suspension and dismissal. Only if these plus other relevant questions, such as form of employment (full-time or part-time), self-employed temporary workers, wages or other remuneration, existence of employment contract, etc, were answered convincingly, would a contract of employment exist. As these notions developed, two general criteria that of integration and that of economic reality came into use.[11] The integration test set out in 1952, where Denning LJ considered that the most critical question was whether the person under consideration was fully integrated into the employerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s organisation, Srevenson Jordan and Harrison Ltd v Macdonald and Evans (1952). A chauffeur, a shipà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s master and a reporter on the st aff of a newspaper were thus all employed under a contract of service and were, therefore, employees, but a shipà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s captain, a taxi driver and a newspaper contributor were hired under a contract for services and were, therefore, independent contractors. He detected that: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“one feature which seems to run through the instances is that, under a contract of service a man is employed as part of the business and his work is done as an integral part of the business but under a contract for services his work, although done for the business is not integrated into it but only accessory to it.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  In a later case, Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaard NV v Slatford (1953), reversed by the House of Lords (1954), Denning LJ reformulated the question of whether the worker was part and parcel of the employers organisation. The great drawback of this approach lies in its failure to define exactly the meaning of integration and organisation. Indeed, it has been doubted whether Denning intended to lay down such a test more on a desire to retain the control test than on a correct interpretation of the judgement in Stevenson itself.[12] This led to the 1960s. The judiciary recognised that no single test or set of criteria can be decisive and began to identify more sophisticated tests in recognition of the increasing complexity and diversity of an educated, professional workforce. Thus, the adoption of something similar to the American notion of an economic reality composite test clearly illustrated as applied in the most significant case Ready-Mixed Concrete (South East) Ltd v Minister of Pensions and National Insurance[1968]. Following a question as to who was responsible for the payment of tax and National Insurance contributions of so-called owner drivers, McKenna J identified the following three questions for a contract of service: (a) The servant agrees that, in consideration of a wage or other remuneration, he will provide his own wo rk and skill in the performance of some service for his master; (b) He agrees, expressly or impliedly, that in the performance of that service he will be subject to the others control (implied submission to control) in a sufficient degree to make that other master; and (c) The other provisions of the contract are consistent with its being a contract of service (nothing inconsistent with employment).[13] On the facts, his Lordship decided that the workers were independent contractors, most particularly because the third test (c) was not satisfied since most of the terms pointed to a contract of service. Moreover, in Hall v Lorimer [1994], LJ Nolan says that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“it implies a test of economic dependence, in the sense that employee status is the result of the extent to which the individual is dependent or independent of a particular paymaster for the financial exploitation of his talent.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ [14] However, in practice, it may not always be possible to identify the genuine self-employed. Some self-employed may have a relationship of economic dependence on an employer.[15] With the advent of the flexible workforce, courts have faced new problems in deciding the nature of the relationship between parties where the worker (e.g. workers, homeworkers and some catering workers) regularly although not continuously performs certain tasks for the employer.The difficulty is that while the work is done regularly, and there is an expectation that it will continue to be offered to and performed by the same people in the future, there is no binding legal obligation either on the employer to offer it or on the workers to perform it in the future. This has led to much judicial discussion of whether mutuality of obligation is a necessary factor for the existence of an employment contract.[16] The issue arose directly, however, in Oà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢kelly v Trusthouse Forte [1983], where the industrial tribunal held that there was no legal mutual obl igation, although the economic power of the employer and corresponding weakness of the workers meant that in practice the workers were obliged to accept work when it was offered. Largely because of this, they held that the workers were not employees, a decision upheld eventually by the Court of Appeal.[17] It is necessary that mutuality of obligation exist in order for a contract of service to arise. This fundamental point was stressed by the Court of Appeal in Clark v Oxfordshire Health Authority [1998]. It was held that the nurse was was not an employee because there was no mutuality of obligation since she could refuse work as she wished. In the case of Carmichael v National Power plc [2000] Lord Irvine LC said it was necessary to consider not only the documents but also the way in which the relationship had worked in practice in deciding that, outside the period of actual work, there was no irreducible minimum of obligation on the part of the two parties so that no relationsh ip of employment was created.[18] The experience of using the tests examined above has shown the courts that it is not possible to focus on one particular aspect of the working relationship and to use that to determine whether or not there is an employment relationship. On that basis, the most commonly used test in the courts today is the multiple test. In using the multiple test the courts look at every aspect of the relationship as described, and use them to determine the nature of that relationship. This is best illustrated in the case of Ready-Mixed Concrete v Minister of Pensions (1968) which was analysed above.[19] Accordingly, the Court of Appeal has stated that any decision on employee status does not involve a mechanical checking off of factors. An overall view must be taken of the facts and circumstances (including whether or not the individual makes his or her own arrangements for tax and social security contributions). This overall view would involve weighing the s ignificance of particular factors and considering, if appropriate, the intentions of the parties of their behaviour. No factor is seen as sufficient in itself. Nevertheless, control, the payment of wages and mutuality of obligation are seen as essential in Hall (Inspector of Taxes) v Lorimer (1994).[20] Most employers expect that both employees and workers will personally undertake the work offered. The implication is that if there is no personal service then the person may be self-employed. However, in case law, there have been specific rulings which suggest that the issue is not clear-cut. In Express Echo Publications v Tanton [1999] the Court of Appeal ruled that: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“an irreducible minimum for their being a contract of employment is personal service; and that a provision in a contract allowing the substitution of a suitable person was fatal to him acquiring status as an employee.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  Further, continuity of service is significant in three related res pects, (a) considering a personà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s status as an employee; (b) access to statutory rights, which may be service-related and (c) qualifying for employment benefits under a contract of employment (e.g. enhanced holiday entitlements, sick pay, access to flexible benefits).[21] From the above it can be argued that the employment relationship is contractual and two types of employment status have traditionally existed, that of the employee and that of the self-employed. However, the rise of the a-typical worker has led to the emergence of a third à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“workerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  category. This has created an additional tier which has made some workers more equal than others. Key issues for the employment relationship are determining who is an employee and who is a worker. A number of problems with both definitions of the categories and the current tests applied in case law have identified the need of reform to bring greater clarity and ensure consistency. [1] https://webjcli.org [2] https://www.thefriendlyemploymentlawyer.co.uk [3] Honeyball, S. (2012) Employment Law, 12th edition, Oxford University Press [4] Lecture handouts [5] Ibid 2 [6] www.gov.uk/employment-status [7] Ibid 4 [8] Ibid 4 [9] Ibid 4 [10] Ibid 3 at pg. 24-25 [11] Ibid 3 at pg. 25 [12] Bowers, J, 2002, Bowers on Employment Law, 6th edition, Oxford University Press, at pg. 15 [13] Ibid 3 at pg. 26 [14] Ibid 4 [15] Ibid 4 [16] Pitt, G, 1992, Employment Law, 1st edition, Sweet Maxwell, at pg. 48 [17] Ibid 16 at pg. 49-50 [18] Ibid 12 at pg. 23 [19] https://www.cipd.co.uk [20] Ibid 4 [21] Ibid 4

The Mass Killings The Holocaust Vs. The Rape Of Nanking

The Mass Killings: The Holocaust Vs. the Rape of Nanking Most people in the world never seem to realize the mass number of raping or killings that are going on around them. Meanwhile, during the holocaust, no one understood how much it was happening around them then either, except for the people it was happening to. Most people are aware of the savagery that occurred during the holocaust in Germany, but few have ever even heard of Nanjing, much less the rape of Nanjing. Both genocides share very close similarities, and they both also share their differences. While there were many similarities when it comes to the cruelty and degradation of the individuals that were involved, they were different. These events occurred for very different†¦show more content†¦They got tortured, brutally slaughtered, and raped. The perpetrators of the Holocaust are Adolf Hitler, all Nazi Soldiers, and SS/ Gestapo. The reason behind the blaming of Adolf Hitler is because at the time, he was their (german people) leader. He wanted a genetically perfect world. He murdered anyone who was different. Dark skinned people such as the Jews would be put in the concentration camps. They would be gassed, then thrown away like trash. All Nazi Soldiers are to blame because they murdered, kidnapped, and gassed the Jews.. The SS/ Gestapo are to blame because they were the special â€Å"Soldiers† that tortured the Jews and killed them. The perpetrators of the Rape of Nanjing would have to be Japanese soldiers and all Japanese Military. The reason behind their blame is they bombarded the city and slaughtered the innocent civilians, and they raped innocent woman and children. They even murdered newborn babies and fetuses. The Holocaust and the Rape of Nanjing were similar based on what was happening during the time of each event. During the Holocaust, the Jews had a loss of rights. Better well known as Nuremberg Laws. They lost their homes and had to live in what they called the ghettos. Numerous families were located in one house, there was no bathrooms, no showers, and they were not allowed to leave the â€Å"home.† Once they were taken from the Ghetto, their next trip was to the concentration camp, basically known as death chambers. They would take the Jews intoShow MoreRelatedOne Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. Explain the Impact This Change Has Made on Our Lives and Why It Is an Important Change.163893 Words   |  656 Pagesprevious history combined. During the same time span, however, state tyranny and brutal oppression reached once unimaginable levels—in large part due to the refinement or introduction of new technologies of repression and surveillance and modes of mass organization and control. Breakthroughs in the sciences that greatly enhanced our understandings of the natural world and made for major advances in medicine and health care were very often offset by the degradation of the global environment and

Beyond Quality and Accessibility System †Free Samples to Students

Question: Discuss about the Beyond Quality and Accessibility System. Answer: Introduction The growth of technology, as well as the evolution of technology in the modern world, has arguably brought a great impact in different sectors among them been the education sectors. Studies have shown that technology has greatly influenced the students information seeking behaviors (Mills et al. 2014, p.327). Before then, many of academic research in institutions of higher learning were done under university libraries and were considered to be traditional methods of research. With advancement in technology or with increased technological change students information seeking behavior has greatly changed. Information seeking habits helps us to understand who needs what kind of information, why he needs the information, how the information would be found as well as the understanding of how the information will be evaluated and used by the students. It also explains the way people seek for and utilize information. This study will, therefore, provide an understanding of the impact or effec ts of information technology on information seeking behavior of individual students in the selected case of Holmes College. The Holmes Community College is an educational institution that was established in 1963. The institution is committed to providing the highest quality education to enable and empower its students to self-improvement irrespective of their gender, nationality or belief (Tahira Ameen, 2016, p. 111). The institution has continued to enjoy over 50 years of education excellence through developing from one level to the other. The success has regarding educational resource development has grown due to changes in technology that has had a great impact on information seeking behavior of the students. To understand the impact of the technological changes to students information seeking behavior, it is important to get an understanding of factors that give rise to a student perception of need of information, the factors that affect individuals perception for need as well as the understanding of the processes or actions involved in that response. Understanding the information needs of the studen ts in Holmes Community College calls for an individual student need across all disciplines, for instance, the information needs of a scientists student in the institution were found to vary from the information needs of a social scientist or humanities student. The information needs of the students dictated their information seeking behavior. An information need is an individual, groups or in this case a students desire to locate and obtain some useful information to satisfy their conscious or unconscious needs. Therese needs may be to research on given assignments, to obtain general knowledge about a certain topic or subject of interest, to establish whether some information is available or not, to improve their competencies in different fields and to get to understand the current issues (Zhang, 2014, p. 916). However, the student information seeking behavior is greatly influenced by their information need as well as their usage of the information. The revolution of the student information seeking behavior in Holmes Community College began with the use of library sources for information materials where students could search for this information from journals, periodicals, newspaper articles and other publications in the libraries. However, the amount of data required and the demand for more and new publications rose as t he existing ones could not meet the students or researchers demands as they were deemed insufficient and unreliable (Shah, 2014, p. 222). For instance, the information seeking behavior of a social scientist student from the institution showed that these types of students frequently visited their libraries daily and their preferred research method was through indexing and abstracting periodicals as well as citations in articles. The understanding and experience of information technology were limited to the institution in the last decade as compared to the current situation where most of the research work is being done in the school using information technologies through the use of networked computer systems (Mai, 2016, p.1). Such a move has been brought about by the increased need of information materials coupled with the increased publications which needed maintenance to avoid losing the information contained in publications. The growing data have been generated every day on education literature materials also necessitated for the use of information technologies or systems to improve the accessibility and access to the information. The factors that have been found to create a significant impact on students information seeking behavior include their educational background and cultural back ground as well as the surrounding environment and student participation. There are students in the institution who were found to embrace the use of the traditional information seeking other than the ones you have been doing. Therefore the students information seeking behavior will only be inclined towards the traditional methods of acquiring information (Soulier et al. 2014, p. 490). Their cultural backgrounds is also a key determinant in this case as the students with a cultural mindset tend to be more towards receptiveness compared to the open minded ideas of information seeking from liberal minds. These factors, therefore, have been found to have a very high positive impact on information needs as well as the information seeking behavior of students. It is, however, important to note that the level of access to information in addition to other aspects depends on the individual information seeking behaviors and skills (Conroy et al. 2014, p.651). The student information needs should, therefore, be specific and relevant to their research and therefore in order to fulfill these needs, the students interact with various online or digital sources. The pursuit of knowledge by the students of this college has therefore been revolutionized especially through the vast explosive of data, data accessibility through internet but the most important feature is to understand whether or not the information meets the student needs. The use of digital resources in this college is frequent however the college still needs an advanced training for using the digital or information technology resources (Holmes, and O'loughlin, 2014, p. 337). However, most technological changes have impacted or had a great impact on the social science students as well as the humanities researchers. The training would offer the students with an opportunity to learn more about how to conduct their research online or to use digital sources as well as how they could make the information available to them online more useful to them. Therefore the development and use of new technology in information seeking by students in colleges are seen as the source of totally new information seeking landscape (Pokhrel Herzog, 2014, p.184). The first major institutional, technological change that affected information seeking in colleges was the introduction of computers in the libraries which were characterized by the limited use of computers. These computers were able to capture the college information library catalog which made it much difficult for the students to access the catalogs of another branch of academics or public library or even any other library for that better. Therefore the computers needed in this case were supposed to provide a wide scope or collection of relevant materials for them to be more effective. The students were therefore limited to access certain sources of their information. The second technological change that had a great impact on Holmes Community College was the development of an online database which was more practicable which was developed through searching against other larger databases (Gropper 2014, p. 337). This was referred to as online searching but required more qualities which not every student had this, therefore, called for further training on the use of the internet or information technology to conduct academic research (Vigdor et al. 2014, p. 1108). Such a database would provide the students with a platform to search the required information through the established database in the information system. The other technological change was in the development of the internet and world web. This is normally considered to be the most significant development in technology that brought a great impact not only to the education world but the entire online research platform. The development of this website provided a platform where users of different information systems can use the internet features available to them such as Google (Spitzer 2014, p. 83). This product made research work easier as information was stored in this product database and was made available all the time for the users. It, therefore, enabled the students of this college as well as staff to gain access to information all over the world from anywhere. It made their learning easy, and students did not have to be much concerned with the issues of maintaining so many material publications. Since the idea of the problem of where to look for the information was solved, the students also suffered a major concern on where to save their research work once they are done. This however led to the development or the idea of creating digital libraries of all manner of both textual as well as the image material and also to create an online portal to access the resources (Poole and Sky-McIlvain 2014, p. 2). Such digital libraries allowed the institution to keep all its relevant information or documents online where they could be easily accessed or retrieved in the event of a need. The students could also save their data under such a digital library and be able to retrieve them when in need. Therefore, technological change has indeed revolutionized the information seeking behavior of students and particularly those of the above case study of Holmes Community College. A great transformation and change have been experienced from the traditional information seeking methods to online or internet and website information seeking methods (Alnahdi 2014, p. 2). The information has become more useful to the students as it was before as it can meet the needs of the user or the researcher. However more developments and more technological development, advancements and innovations have continued to be experienced, the management of the school should adopt a technology that supports the needs of the user. The technological changes have also changed the students mentality towards research which many were of the view that it is a hard or tough discipline just because they were unable to get the required information resource materials. Improved technology has made it easier for them to engage in more research work due to the availability of online research materials (Spivakovska et al. 2014, p.203). It is also important to note that information technology helped to remove disciplinary constraints. Such constraints required that some disciplinary required less extensive information gathering from the published resources. However, the success of the use of technology was found to be affected by lack of awareness of the relevant electronic resources. Conclusion Throughout the history of development, it is important to note that research forms an important part of daily lives of some people. The success of an educational institution in bringing up a generation that is all round is depended on the information they gain from their institution and how its applicable in different areas of their life. Technological change has played an important role in the development and understanding of information seeking behavior of students. It is the need of the information that dictates how a student will interact with certain information. The effectiveness of technological change is achieved in education if the needs of the supporters have been met as well as the purpose intended. Holmes Community College has therefore continued to enjoy years of excellence in the provision of highest quality education which has helped many students to seek self-improvement. List of References Alnahdi, G., 2014. Assistive technology in special education and the universal design for learning. TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 13(2). Conroy, D.E., Yang, C.H. and Maher, J.P., 2014. Behavior change techniques in top-ranked mobile apps for physical activity. American journal of preventive medicine, 46(6), pp.649-652. Gropper, R.J., Gotlieb, H., Kronitz, R. and Tannock, R., 2014. Working memory training in college students with ADHD or LD. Journal of Attention Disorders, 18(4), pp.331-345. Holmes, K.M. and O'loughlin, N., 2014. The experiences of people with learning disabilities on social networking sites.British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 42(1), pp.1-5. Mai, J.E., 2016. Looking for information: A survey of research on information seeking, needs, and behavior.Emerald Group Publishing. Mills, L.A., Knezek, G. and Khaddage, F., 2014. Information Seeking, Information Sharing, and going mobile: Three bridges to informal learning. Computers in Human Behavior, 32, pp.324-334. Pokhrel, P., Little, M.A. and Herzog, T.A., 2014. Current methods in health behavior research among US community college students: a review of the literature. Evaluation the health professions, 37(2), pp.178-202. Poole, B.J. and Sky-McIlvain, E., 2014.Education for an information age. Shah, C., 2014.Collaborative information seeking.Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 65(2), pp.215-236. Soulier, L., Shah, C. and Tamine, L., 2014, July.User-driven system-mediated collaborative information retrieval.In Proceedings of the 37th international ACM SIGIR conference on Research development in information retrieval (pp. 485-494).ACM. Spitzer, M., 2014. Information technology in education: Risks and side effects. Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 3(3), pp.81-85. Spivakovska, E., Osipova, N., Vinnik, M. and Tarasich, Y., 2014, June. Information competence of university students in ukraine: development status and prospects. In International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies in Education, Research, and Industrial Applications (pp. 194-216).Springer, Cham. Tahira, M. and Ameen, K., 2016. Information needs and seeking behavior of science technology teachers of the university of the Punjab, Lahore. Pakistan Journal of Information Management Libraries (PJIML), 10. Vigdor, J.L., Ladd, H.F. and Martinez, E., 2014. Scaling the digital divide: Home computer technology and student achievement.Economic Inquiry, 52(3), pp.1103-1119. Zhang, Y., 2014. Beyond quality and accessibility: Source selection in consumer health information searching. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 65(5), pp.911-927.

The Death Penalty in the US Criminal Justice System

Introduction The death penalty has been a largely debated form of punishment in the U.S. since its inception. The law supporting this unkind and unfair sentence was thus, put under scrutiny and consequently several death sentences were either overturned or could only be carried out on proportionate grounds by the supreme courts heralding a new era in the criminal justice system of the US.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The Death Penalty in the US Criminal Justice System specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The legal arguments for this decision made by the higher courts were cited in line with the 8th amendment that called for the exclusive considerations on several factors that mainly touched on racial disparities, age of a convict, proper evidence that can incriminate the accused persons, respective human rights action plans against such people, satisfactory judgment delivered either by unanimous decision or a majo rity of votes by the judges and so on (Burns 1). Age The Supreme Court made a decision based on the 8th amendment to relook into criminal cases viewed as cruel or unusual, and instead provided an alternative favorable form of punishment. Most death sentences were slashed down to life imprisonment, leaving only deserved cases as death sentences. For instance, some states were forced to repackage their judicial laws after realizing that the judgment commonly delivered never materialized particularly when the cases involved were referred back to the supreme courts, which in turn, after careful hearing, overturned the rulings in favor of the accused. This occurred in cases that were considered to lack the 8th amendment thresholds for the death penalty. These circumstances made several states to re-enact laws governing the death penalty, which was a major concern to the supreme courts’ contradiction to the imposition of death sentence arbitrarily. The application of such fair tria ls justifying the subsequent sentences handed down by the supreme courts began from the year 1972. This was after the capital punishment was found to be unconstitutionally biased and cruel. An exception to this is in cases where sentences were delivered after considering the extra routine endorsement. The cases and the respective judgment on the death penalty jurisprudence handed by the supreme courts entirely depended on the moral significance culpable by the law and factors of discretion (Head 1). The Supreme Court in accordance with the laws governing the 8th amendment decided that death penalty for a minor is a harsh kind of penalty. This is supported by the fact that in a 5-4 court ruling, it was labeled unconstitutional when any convict at the time of committing the crime is below the age of 18.Advertising Looking for essay on government? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Thus, it is morally incorrect to implicate children who commit crime in relation to adults who has acted in the same way since their respective intentions cannot apply together. Example of such ruling involving a minor was a criminal case for Christopher Simmons who was sentenced to death but later overruled; Case, Roper v Simmons. Another example of such case in which the age of a convict was contested involved a 15 year old at the time of committing the crime. William Thompson was sentenced to death after being convicted of murder. Due to this, the Supreme Court overturned the decision of an Oklahoma court by explaining that the execution of the minor violated the eighth amendment statute. The case here is, Thompson v. Oklahoma. Racial disparities Another main issue surrounding the death penalty is the racial inequality that has been historically characteristic with handing of the penalty in the U.S. For instance, consider a case involving an African American who was convicted of two counts of robbery plus one count of murder. Aft er convictions in county courts and subsequently condemned to death, his plea was heard whereby the Supreme Court ruling overturned the death penalty imposed. The final ruling stated that the majority should not dictate matters of humanity since it is unconstitutional. For example, it was viewed that those accused of killing white people could easily be handed the death sentence compared to murderers for black persons. After much consideration and scrutiny of the penalty, the courts offered a platform for the voiceless like the accused person in question.i.e case, McCleskey v kemp. Mental state of the convict Mental instability in most people is believed to have unnatural rage subconscious to a person’s mind. It is for this reason that informed the Supreme Court to offer a reprieve on death penalty for mentally retarded persons who commit a criminal offence. As a result of this, the death sentence was found to be unconstitutionally excessive thereby restricting the state†™s power to deliver death penalty as a form of punishment on similar cases under the same state of mind. For instance, Daryl Atkins was convicted of murder even though his IQ score was 59 hence; the Supreme Court reversed the earlier ruling which did not evaluate his condition as that of mild mental condition; Case, Atkins v. Virginia (Jacobs 1). Proper evidence of aggravating circumstances Proper reasons were to be evaluated so as to be used against a convict. For instance, in order to incriminate a person, the Supreme Court made a decision to provide a clear distinction on where imposition of death can be allowed. It was unanimously passed that there could be circumstances when the evidence produced could exempt on the death penalty for non-murder offenses like rape except for crimes comparable to treason.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The Death Penalty in the US Criminal Justice System specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This was seen during the trial for Antonym Coker who escaped from custody but got re-arrested and condemned to death penalty for rape. The Supreme Court in turn overturned the first sentence arguing that it was too harsh on the ground that most rape cases may not involve murder. Another similar case in which a sentence by the lower court was annulled by that of the Supreme Court took place in Lousiana.The criminal case involved Patrick Kennedy accused of raping his 8 year old step daughter. The Supreme Court then scrutinized his case after a successful appeal against a capital punishment handed earlier. The argument of the higher court then concluded that imposing the death penalty against the convict was against the 8th amendment and therefore unconstitutional because the crime neither resulted nor was intended to terminate the innocent life of his victim (Radelet Akers 1). Therefore, the ruling decided that the accused should instead be sent to life imprisonment; Ca se, Kennedy v. Louisiana. Method of delivering the death sentence In cases where the method used to administer the death penalty is considered cruel and painful, the Supreme Court could then deliberate on a particular ruling by a junior state court. This was observed during the sentencing of Ralph Baze who was convicted for murder and sure enough condemned to death by a Kentucky state court by lethal injection and instead appealed against the ruling, only for the sentence to be re-affirmed by the Supreme Court since the method for its application was considered safe after all. The same scenario was also witnessed during the trial of Jimmy L. Glass who was sentenced to death according to the legal argument of Louisiana court by electrocution. Through his lawyers, he argued that the application and the intensity when passing the death sentence through electrocution can cause serious injuries and pain and therefore do not meet the humane standards as required by the constitution (White 1). The final judgment by the Supreme Court thus dismissed the petition thereby allowing the lower court’s ruling to go ahead; Case, Jimmy L. Glass v.Lousiana. Improper judgment Pending cases provided relevant provisions to re-appeal the death sentence if the trial is perceived to be as a result of discretion of a judge determining the outcome of a case almost single handedly. Take for example, the trial of Timothy Ring, a convict of first degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment only for a state judge to step-up the penalty to another sentence by death. Consequently though, the Supreme Court reversed the decision citing that statutory maximum sentence should be put before a jury panel since the judge was found to have acted improperly without a sitting legal bench who could have delivered a unanimous decision; Case, Ring v. Arizona.Advertising Looking for essay on government? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Special procedure for capital penalty It was realized that rulings could impose the death penalty by ignoring the nature or circumstance preceding a crime. Therefore, it was required that a jury must be able to cite a possible statutory aggravating legal requirement before delivering any formal penalty by death. Such a case where the judgment was allowed to stand as it was involved Troy Leon who was convicted for robbery and murder for which he was handed over death sentence (Head 1). On challenging his trial, the Supreme Court rejected his plea and instead maintained the earlier verdict by dismissing the robbery factor since the statutory system was not found to violate the constitutional statutes; Case, Gregg v. Georgia. The legislative judgments of some states Several courts in some states decided to respond to the modification of the death penalty especially for murder committed in relation to a felony. Such states that rejected the death penalty arising from committing a felony therefore illegalized the practice hence the Supreme Court found it as an appropriate way by providing more options for fair trial. This was arrived at after establishing the fact that, the death penalty usually imposed may be too harsh for a convict who did not participate in a murder or intended to carry out such heinous act. A case of study featured Enmund in which the death penalty was outlawed when determining the ultimate ruling by the supreme judges since they decided that it could not be imposed under circumstances of felony; Case, Enmund v. Florida. Contrary to the above case where a reprieve was provided by the Supreme Court, in Tison’s case, several state supreme courts amended their interpretation of the death penalty during such a case involving a felony by allowing capital punishment to take precedence in such future cases (White 1). This particular case was determined by analyzing noticeable circumstances of felony during the murder. The death penalty verdict was thus delivered since inquiries revealed passion and recklessness; Case, Tison v. Arizona. Conclusion From the above discussion, it is apparent that the suitability of imposing a death is questionable. From a number of precedents set on the death penalty, it is apparent that giving a life imprisonment instead of a death penalty will be more humane than a death penalty in permissible situations. All in all, a death penalty should be avoided as much as possible. Works Cited Burns, Kari. â€Å"Punishment: Death penalty†. 2011. Web. Head, Tom. â€Å"The Eighth Amendment†. 2011-May 6. Web. Jacobs, Nancy. â€Å"Death Penalty Essay†. 2011. Web. Radelet, M Akers, R. â€Å"Deterrence and the Death Penalty? The Views of the Experts,† (1995) White, Debora. â€Å"Pros and cons of the death penalty†. 2011. Web. This essay on The Death Penalty in the US Criminal Justice System was written and submitted by user Kristen Knight to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. 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