The Need for Variance Analysis Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Need for Variance Analysis - Term Paper Example Baker and Baker (2014) define variance as "The difference between standard and actual prices and quantities" (p. 201), and variance analysis as "Analysis of these differences" (p. 201). Variance analysis underscores or brings attention to deviations from what was initially intended. It is only after deviations have been identified that adequate and effective decisions can be made by the individuals in management positions (Baker and Baker, 2014). According to Berger (2011), lack of conducting a variance analysis may prompt leaders to overlook areas causing these deviations and hence fail to make relevant decisions. For variance analysis to be performed, a prior formulation of standards ought to be conducted, for instance, budgetary targets (Baker and Baker, 2014). This shows that variance analysis drives managers and other leaders to set targets or standards in advance. Decision making goes hand-in-hand with accountability in that individuals overseeing areas proved by the variance a nalysis to be causing the variations are answerable. Therefore, departmental heads are forced to make effective decisions and implement relevant strategies that forces them to operate within the budget (Berger, 2011). In the case study, new procedures for discharging patients have been implemented. A variance analysis conducted after six months showed that costs were running 25 percent higher than was expected. After conducting the variance and proving that there is actually a deviation from the budget by 25 percent, the next step would be to identify the causes of the deviation (Berger, 2011). There are many areas that may cause the deviation, for instance, extended working hours that increase the cost of labor. After identifying the cause of the deviation, then my next step would be to evaluate action plans under implementation to determine their effectiveness and investigate how they can be improved (Berger, 2011). If the action plans

Ecommerce Initiative Essay Example for Free

Ecommerce Initiative Essay This paper focuses on pointing out the way planning electronic commerce initiatives. In order to support the ideas that are going to be shown, four online articles will be cited. The articles are: Ethics in advertising by Dr. Gomathi Viswanathan, Advertising Regulation – How to avoid inciting the FTC’s wrath by Jay N. Sawyer, and New Online Marketing Regulation – The dos and don’ts by Alan J. Grainger. E-commerce initiatives Planning electronic commerce initiatives: There are steps that one should follow when planning for the e-business initiatives when one is using markets, processes, services and products that already exist. The first step is to come up with the e-business initiative objectives which are the accomplishments that the business intends to meet. The decisions about the objectives that the business should consider includes the risks that may arise when the initiative is being carried out and the expected costs and benefits of carrying out the initiative. The objective should also consider the way resources are to be allocated when carrying out the initiative (Schneider, 2011). One should also analyze the scope that the initiative functions and this involves the use of online specialists that would help in the implementation of the electronic commerce initiative. This should involve the use of the data analytics and also the visual designers, people who will be involved in the interaction design and information design. One should also involve the use of specialists in marketing channel who would help in ensuring that the initiative is well promoted through the best marketing channel. The organization should invest in the important functions that would help in promoting the online business (Mckenzie, n. d). The team carrying out the initiative should have good communication channels that would help the organization to meet their objectives and to promote change in the organization. The team should have strong leaders that would help push for the implementation of the initiative and those that will ensure teamwork so as to meet the set deadline. The leaders should be able to report problems that arise during the planning period so as to prevent faults that would affect the online business (Mckenzie, n. d). The business processes, planning and implementation should be integrated and they should all be carried out online. It is also important to come up with a plan that would help the team members perform their tasks depending on the set plan. The organization should also ensure that they are able to retain the employees because there is a great demand for the people with talents in digital retail. This is because most of the consumers prefer shopping online and therefore, most businesses prefer using electronic business. Most of the companies have come up with electronic commerce initiatives and therefore when one is planning for this initiative, it is important to hire qualified personnel that will help provide ideas for competitive advantage (Mckenzie, n. d). When carrying out the plan, the team should include the performance review, deployment, testing of the initiative, implementation and feasibility analysis. The company should also make the initiative a priority and there should also be the analysis of how sustainable the initiative should be regarding the benefits it will provide. The managers should use the needs of the customers so as to ensure that their needs are met when planning is taking place and also it would help the company to identify the type of market segment to focus on the plan should be one that ensures that products that are offered are delivered on time and that there should be the best way to respond to the consumer queries (Muylle Basu, 2007). The people using e-commerce can also form joint ventures if they plan to carry out business online. People believe that these associations help in reducing costs of marketing and ensure that integrity and trust exists when carrying out business. People tend to rely on external and internal resources in maintaining and developing resources that are web-based. Associations that are more mature involve strategic partners and the core staff. Joint ventures are important in e-commerce because they encourage financial investment and competencies such as marketing, management and technology. It is therefore important for the organization to analyze the competitors before forming the associations (Lang, 2000). The organization should also identify and measure the benefits of initiating electronic commerce and that the managers should carry out the measurements by setting objectives that can be measured and the ones that that can increase the satisfaction of customers. In case the objective of the company is to build their brand, then the goals should be measured in terms of opinion polls and surveys from research that has been carried out. The aim of this is to increase the companys brand awareness. The company should come up with a team to carry out market research so as to find out the effects of a sales program and a marketing program. This team would help the organization to evaluate and to set goals for the initiatives of electronic commerce (Schneider, 2011). The company should also link the strategies with the objectives such as upstream and downstream strategies that would help the organization to focus on generating value and reducing costs and to improve value offered to customers. The initiatives inspire businessmen to carry out activities such as building web portals and virtual communities and also to manage the supply chain. The businesses are also inspired to purchase services and products, understand the needs of the consumers, and advertise their products and also to sell their services and products. These initiatives also help in improving the marketing programs that already exist and create brand awareness for the organization (Schneider, 2011).

Basic empirical beliefs and its importances

Basic empirical beliefs and its importances A basic belief for most people is the idea that we believe in something which has not been corrupted by other beliefs to change the core belief we initially have about certain things. They are not inferred from other beliefs and is known better as Foundationalism. From this is the idea of a basic empirical belief, a belief that is learned by observing it using our empirical knowledge; sight, hearing, touch etc. To try and understand beliefs more clearly and to grasp what knowledge is without empirical beliefs, if it can happen, I will look at Foundationalism its counter argument Coherentism and the basic idea of empirical/sensory belief. Foundationalism considers that we need a core set of beliefs, beliefs that our other beliefs we have are built upon in order to make the original belief become more real. Most of us have a foundationalist belief structure and our basic beliefs can be justified by beliefs that link to it in order to make it more factual and the basic belief makes the beliefs which tie in with it justified. However, this doesnt mean that they themselves are justified, just that the basic belief, if true, makes the beliefs that stem from it justified. Following from having a basic belief, The Regress argument/Trilemma puts across that a belief is justified by another belief which is justified by another, then another and so on. So a) It goes on forever, b) Ends with some of the beliefs justify themselves, c) Ends with some of the beliefs having no justification. Therefore, if it went on forever it would be a vicious circle and end up having no end or beginning. It is a vicious regress, which Lewis discusses further, if you believe in the chance of something occurring or being true is small, then you dont really believe it because to have belief in something you need to b e able to justify it, if nothing can be certain then how do we know anything? But the idea of regress can be reversed if something is certain and we believe in it, so some beliefs must be certain. In Agrippas Trilemma, the 2nd option relates to Coherentism, which is an alternative argument to Foundationalism. Coherentism considers that if there could be now way to justify our empirical sense beliefs, and if the idea that beliefs can be justified by one another forever is ruled out then the beliefs can only be justified by their unique properties in relation to other beliefs and how well they fit together in order to produce a organised system of beliefs. Consistency is a requirement of coherence, but a set of beliefs do not need to have flaws to have no coherence, beliefs, which are perfectly consistent, may also have no coherence. As said in Agrippas Trilemma, beliefs justify themselves instead of going on forever, this is shown by the idea that if a belief was to be justified by another belief and so on, then empirical justification moves in a circular motion. But, Coherentism moves away from this idea and towards the idea of a linear motion and that the belief is in a line, with the order of epistemic priority at the beginning and epistemic justification at the other end of the line. The belief justifies itself then, as it does not need to have another belief to rely on it to make it justified. Moving on from this, having empirical beliefs means to have knowledge of our beliefs by gaining it through our senses. Foundationalism believed that basic beliefs were infallible, but by looking at Infallible sensory beliefs, what we believe to be seeing might not be infallible after all and most of our beliefs make us sure of our sensory beliefs. So it seems that we cannot have beliefs without our senses. For example, the belief in a religion, a God, that England are the best at Rugby, all these beliefs cannot be justified unless we have our sense to prove so. Furthermore, we cant have these beliefs to begin with unless we use our empirical knowledge to understand what we believe. If we had no sight then we could not read Holy Scriptures, which reveal religions, if we had no hearing then we could not hear classical music which you may believe to be the best music made by man and so forth. Our empirical knowledge is intertwined closely with our beliefs, and if we were unfortunate to not be able to use all our empirical senses and to have 1 of them taken away, this still hinders our chances of having a true belief in something and being able to justify it. However, a belief can make us more certain of our sensory beliefs e.g. I think I felt a spider run across my back. Later we discover it was a feather duster. Why cant other beliefs lower how sure we are of our sensory beliefs? If we are to accept the foundation of sensory beliefs, how does this relate to the belief structure? Following on from empirical beliefs is a priori knowledge. It is common to most that all the knowledge we hold comes from experience, experience we gain through using our senses. Our experience is not doubted and is gathered by using raw material of our sensible impressions, our empirical knowledge is formed by our interpretations of our own knowledge. A priori knowledge is very different from this, it does not come from experience, and it comes from innate knowledge we are born with. In example, a man who undermined the foundations of his house, that he might have known a priori that it would fall, that is, that he need not have waited for the experience of its actual falling. A priori knowledge is totally separate from experience, its opposite being posteriori, knowledge through experience. With beliefs, we adapt what we know from posteriori and a priori knowledge to justify and understand what we know about our beliefs. Before we are born are we are believed to have this previous knowledge, which Piaget talks of in relation to conscience and children. A child develops internal representations or mental and physical actions, some Schemata that are already present in a newborn, such as sucking, gripping and crying. Others develop as the child grows. The Schemata are built through 2 processes: 1. Assimilation- fitting newly acquired knowledge into what the child already knows. 2. Accommodation-as new experiences occur which do not fit into existing schemata, the child adapts them t fit, or creates new ones. This is similar to beliefs and knowledge, we can have a priori knowledge of a religion, like a blueprint in our mind of a God and we can build on our belief of this by using empirical knowledge to know more about it and by adapting what we already know and interpreting it with our senses. Overall, arguments show that mainly, if we cannot have empirical beliefs then we would find it hard to now anything. Our senses play a huge part in creating thoughts of belief, and without them it is hard to understand what beliefs can be justified if we were to for example have no sight or hearing. We would not be able to believe in a religion, except for the idea that we have a priori knowledge of a God. However, the basic belief of this is not enough to justify it and requires other beliefs to justify it, so this makes it hard for us to know anything. Or for that matter, anything true. I believe that we cannot know anything other than what we are innately born with, but this knowledge alone is not enough to create beliefs or pure knowledge, which solidifies these beliefs. Our empirical senses are key to establishing what we believe and whether we can justify them further therefore without empirical beliefs we can know nothing sufficient. Bibliography The Structure of Empirical Knowledge- Lawrence Bonjour 1986. London, Harvard University Press, ch.5 Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Immanuel Kant 1929. Norman Keep Smith, New York, St. Martins Press, 41-55 Piaget and the Foundations of Knowledge- Lynn S. Liben 1983. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, New Jersey, ch.6

Soliloquy and Revenge in Hamlet Essay -- Shakespeare Soliloquies

Soliloquy and Revenge in Hamlet      Ã‚  Ã‚   The soliloquy is a literary device that is employed to unconsciously reveal an actor's thoughts to the audience. In William Shakespeare's, Hamlet, Hamlet's soliloquy in Act II, ii, (576-634) depicts his arrival at a state of vengeful behaviour through an internal process. Hamlet moves through states of depression and procrastination as he is caught up in the aftermath of the murder of his father and the marriage of his mother to his uncle. The soliloquy serves to effectively illustrate the inner nature of Hamlet's character and develop the theme of revenge.    In the soliloquy, Hamlet's depression, due to his "dear father['s]" (612) murder and the incestuous family relationship, is revealed as he compares his situation to that of King Priam and Hecuba. The pain that the player feels, acting as the mythological King Priam symbolizes the loss that Hamlet experiences. Hamlet feels that he has enough cause to "drown the stage in tears." (589) Arising from Hamlet's depression comes a paralysis to act. By not acting upon the...

Malibu Fires Essay examples -- essays research papers

Malibu Fires Human beings are able to adapt to almost any environment, unfortunately sometimes we take advantage of our natural surroundings. We find ourselves amidst a struggle between our lifestyles and nature. Although we affect nature profoundly with our activities, we in turn are shaped by nature's potent forces. Nature can be brutal to humans, but we must remember that it merely is following its course. As a result, we must learn to coexist with it. Fire is a naturally occurring phenomenon which humans have learned to deal with throughout history. Yet when fire burns uncontrollably, there is great potential for monumental damage to all surrounding biomass. The Malibu wildfires are an example of one such instance. Historically, wildfires had been left to burn uncontrolled for weeks. Fires were caused by different sources such as lightning or human hunters who wanted to chase animals out of the woods. As prolonged as these fires were, they had limited catastrophic effects on the nomadic humans. This is due to the low population density and the fact that the fires were not very intense. As people began to change from a hunting-gathering society to agriculturists, they settled in communities. Homes built among the wild brush were perfect prey to wildfires. Initially, wildfires were put out immediately and people were barred from setting fires in open spaces. Due to the policy of fire suppression, only one percent of all wildfires escaped early control. The land was safe from fires temporarily, but this set the stage for catastrophe as the brush grew more dense. There have been more than 20 catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles County since the beginning of organized fire protection. The first "big one" happened in December of 1927. The fire started in the La Crescenta Valley, climbed over the Verdugo Mountain range and destroyed more than 100 homes. In addition to the damage caused in 1927, fires have profoundly affected the Southern California environment. Almost every square mile of chaparral land in Los Angeles county has been burned at least once, since 1919. There are basically two large fire breeding grounds in Los Angeles county: the San Gabriel Mountain range and the Santa Monica Mountains. In 1993, the Kinneloa Fire ... ...xperience. Human beings attempt to fight nature by trying to change or disturb its natural surroundings for the sole benefit of consumption. This is not only bad for the environment, but also for its inhabitants. When Malibu was home to the Chumash Indians, old vegetation was periodically burned to foster growth of new vegetation. The Chumash, who were more closely connected to nature than we are now, learned how and when to cause fires. "A long time ago the Chumash were here and they used to burn the brush every once and a while. It did wonders for the vegetation. the flowers were so beautiful. Then we built houses in their way. we really should not be here (Resident of Malibu)." Perhaps we should learn from their techniques: rather than allowing the chaparral to dry out and die (causing a high fire risk), we should clear out old vegetation to prevent massive fires and learn to respect the environment in which we live in, not abuse it. Nature is not man's enemy, but should be seen as an ally. Humans need to learn about their environment in hopes that a better understanding of natural processes will help humans to peacefully coexist with it.

Drama vs. History in Shakespeares Henry V Essay -- Henry IV Henry V E

Drama vs. History in Shakespeare's Henry V      Ã‚  Ã‚   It is not necessary to have authored seven historical dramas, as Shakespeare had when he set to work on Henry V, to conclude that history is frequently not very dramatic. Chronicles of the past have the subjectivity and subtly of national anthems - they are about appropriating the truth, not approaching it. Noble causes and giant killing abound in these documents, often at the cost of fact and explanation. All this adds up to an account of the past in which the winners reign victorious before the battle even begins, while the losers' natural iniquity contributes as much to their defeat as enemy swords and soldiers. Readers in the present may wonder that their ancestors ever felt twinges of suspense as the events wore on, for according to historians, the outcome of these clashes was, as King Henry would say, "as gross/ As black on white" (2.2.104). It is as predictable, the Elizabethans might have said, as a bad play.    And yet there was suspense and anxiety in days gone by, as surely as political maneuvering in the present sows seeds of unrest. Shakespeare realized this and came to a startling conclusion - there is a gap between the events of the past and historical narrative. The proclivities of the historian become the very shape of history, cramming the past with mighty deeds and epic heroes. But this shape is warped, fashioned, as it is, in the likeness of famous men and dubious motives. Historians see the past as a straight and singular line; Shakespeare knew its course could neither have been quite so direct nor quite so simple. Henry V is his attempt to reinsert the complexities of the past into the straightforward narrative of history, to ... ...0. Becker, George J. Shakespeare's Histories. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1977. Bloom, Harold.   "Introduction."   Modern Critical Interpretations William Shakespeare's Henry V.   Ed. Bloom.   New York:   Chelsea House Publishers, 1988. 1-4. Brennan, Anthony. Henry V. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992. Granville-Barker, Harley.   "From Henry V to Hamlet."   Studies In Shakespeare.   Ed. Alexander.   London:   Oxford University Press, 1964. Rabkin, Norman.   "Either/Or:   Responding to Henry V."   Modern Critical Interpretations William Shakespeare's Henry V.   Ed. Bloom.   New York:   Chelsea House Publishers, 1988.   35-59. Shakespeare, William. Henry V. Ed. A. R. Humphreys, New York: Penguin Books, 1996. Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Ed. John Dover Wilson. London: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Mental illness and prison

From the 1960’s to the 1980’s, the deinstitutionalization movement demanded that the mentally ill be treated in the community, using new drug therapies that appeared to control even the most extreme behaviors of the mentally ill.   This liberation of psychiatric patients was reinforced by court decisions that awarded certain legal rights to the emotionally ill.   But few community-based programs were developed to treat psychiatric patients effectively.   Released to the community without adequate support and treatment services, the mentally ill gravitated to criminal confinement facilities for offenders, particularly the jail but also to the prisons of the United States. It is estimated that about 15 percent of offenders imprisoned at any time have severe or acute mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, manic-depression illness, and depression.   Approximately 10 to 15 percent of persons with these three illnesses die by suicide.   Yet current treatment is extremely effective, if given.   Prisoners tend to be in poor mental health and about 80 percent of male prisoners and 80 percent of female jail inmates will, over their lifetime, have at least one psychiatric disorder. The greater the level of disability while in prison, the more likely the inmate is to receive mental health services.   In practice, proportionately more female prisoners use mental health services than do males, and whites are more likely to seek or secure prison mental health services than others.   At least half of the inmates who need such treatment go without it (Sigurdson, 2001). While the U.S. Supreme Court has not found that inmates have a constitutional right to treatment, it has ruled an inmate’s constitutional right to medical treatment includes the right to treatment for serious emotional illness.   The correction system is caught in the middle.   Institutions are not required to provide services simply because their clients are criminals, and thus have shifted critical funds to other uses, such as increased security staffing.   The threat of potential litigation has meant that some revision and provisions of mental health services for seriously ill inmates is necessary. As the mentally ill become a larger segment of the population in jails and prisons, professionals in the mental health field became essential to the correctional administrators.   The ratio of mental health practitioners to inmates remains much too low, there has been some progress.   Because many institutions must deal with mental health issues on a priority basis, few to no services are provided for the majority who do not exhibit violent or bizarre behavior.   It is a practical fact that in corrections â€Å"the squeaky wheel gets the grease† (Steadman, 1991). For some inmates, the impacts of prison life overwhelm their usual coping patterns.   Some factors that lead to prison psychosis include the routine of prison, fear of other inmates, forced homosexual behavior, assault and fear of assault, deteriorating in affairs and circumstances of family on the outside of prison and depression.   When the psychological crisis comes, correctional administrators frequently transfer affected inmates to prison infirmaries or psychological treatment words, or initiate inmate transfer to a mental health system. Long-term and intensive psychotherapy for mentally ill inmates is believed to be rare.   Treatment for episodic mental crisis tends to remain at the first aid level in many states.   Death rows do not usually contain a large proportion of a prison’s population but subsume a disproportionate share of the per inmate cost due to the demands of observing, caring, and maintaining death row.   That includes a lower staff-inmate ratio, mail processing, death-watch officer workload, closer custody during recreational periods and so on.   Some inmates on death row become mentally ill and as such cannot be executed (Ford v. Wainright, 106 S. Ct. 2595, 1986). The state has an additional burden of determining if the death-row inmate is insane, establishing some procedure to restore the inmate to sanity, and then certifying the sanity of the patient-inmate.   Because this would be tantamount to a death sentence and not a favor for the inmate, it is unlikely mental health physicians would undertake that process alone or with any great enthusiasm.   It remains for the states to develop procedures for identifying, diagnosing, treating, and certifying the sanity of death row inmates who claim to be insane (Steadman & Monahan, 1984). For the extreme behavior cases, there are special units for more intensive treatment, such as the one in Washington State.   That unit is a model of how to deal with extreme mentally and behaviorally disordered prisoners.   Unfortunately, that facility can handle only 144 inmates.   The figure is only about one-tenth of the commonly recognized population of inmates who could use more intensive mental health services.   One quickly finds that only the really severe cases are able to be referred to the Special Offender Center. It appears that the relationship between crime and mental disorder has no real cause effect.   It is essential for society to learn more about distinguishing between different kinds of mental illness and their impacts on safe and secure administration of correctional institutions.   It is important to remember that the real link to look for is one that indicates the potential for harm to the mentally ill person and others.   It may be a long time before such options are available to the already overcrowded corrections system in the United States (Wessely & Taylor, 1991). There are two justifications that defendants can invoke in an attempt to relieve themselves of criminal responsibility for a criminal act.   The first is not guilty by reason of insanity and the second is incompetent to stand trial.   In the first instance, offenders do not deny the commission of the act, but assert they lacked the capacity to understand the nature of the act or that it was wrong. The second instance is based on the common law criterion that defendants must be able to understand the charges against them to cooperate with their counsel in the preparation of their own defense.   The procedures for determining competency vary considerably among jurisdictions, but most make it a court decision based on psychiatric testimony.   If defendants are found incompetent to stand trial, then they are usually committed to a mental institution until declared competent (Hans, 1986). Psychiatric judgment of mental abnormality enters into the criminal law in three ways.   Aside from fitness to stand trial and criminal responsibility, if an individual is convicted, psychiatry is often consulted in designing a custodial or treatment program for him or her. One problem in the use of psychiatry in the legal system is that there are vast and irreconcilable differences in the legal standards; fairness is achieved by responding to a specific act with a specific type of reaction while ignoring a mass of details about the accused. On the other hand, in the mental health approach of psychiatry the whole personality of the accused is relevant in determining the state’s response to criminal behavior.   Psychiatry is an applied science, but legal practice makes no such claim.   Clearly, as long as a judge and jury have such important roles in the court process, convicted criminals cannot be treated primarily according to scientific standards.   While it is customary for a judge and jury to participate in the legal process, we would find their dealing with matters of mental health bizarre and while the legal process is typically open to scrutiny by all people affected, the procedures of psychiatry are almost never made public.   The types of accountability of the legal and mental health systems are quite different. If a court correctly describes the facts of a case and chooses the correct legal response to these facts, the court is never held accountable for any negative consequences flowing from its actions, such as the suicide of a convicted offender.   What ultimately happens to the convicted offender or whether the offender’s family must go on welfare is not the court’s concern.   The judge is not bound to such utilitarian considerations.   However the judge is bound by law to a specific range of responses.   Psychiatry, on the other hand, is responsible for how its decisions affect the individual in the future (Galliher, 1989). With the advent of legal insanity and legal incompetence as defenses against criminal conviction caused the development of special asylums for the criminally insane, in most cases just another form of prison without due process protections.   In more recent years those claiming to be not guilty by reason of insanity have been the subjects of considerable debate.   President Nixon sought to have the not guilty by reason of insanity defense abolished.   More informed criminologists point to such problems with the insanity defense as excessive media coverage, suspicion of malingering by the defendant, and conflicting and suspicious testimony by mental health professionals testifying for either the defense or the prosecution. The insanity defense is used in less than 1 percent of all felony cases and of those only one in four are found to be not guilty by reason of insanity.   One study found only the most emotionally and behaviorally disturbed defendants to be successful in their plea and that the successful petitioners had committed more serious offenses.   The decision to acquit is more frequently made in court b y prosecutors, defense attorneys, and the judge, and less frequently by jury members.   Persons acquitted by the not guilty by reason of insanity are generally found less likely than their cohort offenders to commit crimes after release (Hans, 1986). Prosecutors often hope that those accused offenders acquitted through the plea of not guilty by reason of insanity will be institutionalized for a period sufficient to reduce their dangerousness, and to provide both public and safety and some retribution.   The debate continues.   Perhaps the most reasonable solution would be to determine guilt first and then sift the issue of diminished capacity or insanity in that case to the sentencing or case disposition state.   The American Psychiatric Association, following the attack by John Hinckley on the life of President Reagan, recognized that position. As a response, by 1986, twelve states abolished the insanity defense entirely then created guilty by mentally ill statutes in its place.   Under those statues, an offender’s mental illness is acknowledged but not seen as sufficient reason to allow him or her to escape criminal responsibility.   If convicted, offenders are committed to prison.   Some states will provide mental health treatment in the prison setting, but others may transfer the offender to a mental health facility for treatment.   In Georgia, defendants who entered insanity pleas but were determined guilty by mental illness received harsher sentences than their counterparts, whose guilt was determined in trial suggesting increased punishment for the disturbed offender (Callahan, McGreevy & Cirincione, 1992). Persons with mental disability, such as mentally disturbed or disorders, were once scorned, banished, and even burned as evil.   But in more enlightened times we have built backwoods fortresses for them to protect ourselves from contagion.   They have been executed as witches, subjected to exorcism, chained or thrown into gatehouses and prisons to furnish a horrible diversion for the other prisoners.   Before the Middle Ages persons with a mental illness were generally tolerated and usually cared for locally by members of their own family, tribal system, or primitive society. However widespread poverty, disease, and religious fanaticism seemed to trigger intolerance for any unexplainable deviation from the norm.   The mentally disturbed were thought to be possessed by devils and demons and were punished harshly because of it.   The first insane asylum was constructed in Europe in 1408.   From that date until recently the asylum was a dumping ground for all the mentally disordered people that could be neither understood nor cured. In the United States, one after another of the individual states responded to that compelling method of ridding society of misfits, and built numerous institutions during the mid 1800’s.   The inflated claims of cures for mental illness could not stand up against the process of institutionalization and long-term commitments sometimes for a lifetime and not cures became the rules of the day (Ives, 1914). Asylums became yet another invisible empire in America with the punitive excess and lack of care or caring ignored by society. â€Å"Out of sight, out of mind† was the catch phrase of these unfortunates.   With the discovery of tranquilizing drugs, these places became a place where patients were put into a controllable stupor, until a cure could be found.   Because of longer and longer periods of institutionalization usually by family members finally got the attention of the courts. In the 1960’s the rights of all citizens, including the mentally ill and convicts, were being re-examined at every level. The abuses in the back wards of the asylums were brought to light and the counter-reaction was extreme.   In the early 1970’s, state after state adopted policies under the Community Mental Health Act that swept the country.   The essential goal was to release all inmates of the asylums who were not a clear and present danger to themselves and society.   This act flooded the central cities of America with tens of thousands of mentally impaired street people and created poorhouses.   The response by most jurisdictions has been to transfer the problem to the criminal justice system, filling the jails and correctional institutions of America, a process known as transintitutionalization (Arrigo, 2002). There appears to be some confusion between physical disease and mental disease.   Because physicians have made great strides in gaining knowledge about physical disease, it is assumed by some people that this is also true of physicians’ knowledge about mental disease.   That is the tendency is to apply the same standards of competence to both areas of practice, even though this is hardly warranted. The distinction between crime and mental illness is unclear.   Some of the writers assume that nearly all criminal behavior is a manifestation of mental disease.   It seems that the reason for both of these ambiguities is that we really do not know what mental illness is, and that is the reason we cannot distinguish between mental illness and physical illness on the one hand and mental illness and crime on the other.   It is unfortunate that the long indeterminate sentences often given to mentally disordered offenders reflect a fear that those committed might be a problem in the future. It is the expectation that someone is capable of predicting criminal inclination that makes so questionable the programs for treating the mentally disordered.   So, one can see the paradox of requiring psychiatrists to predict behavior and to attach a label to offenders, when that might result in an indefinite or even lifelong commitment to a mental institution for someone who is not really dangerous, such as a false-positive prediction.   The individual is then labeled for custody and treatment in a special area within that institution.   When you consider the wealth of folklore surrounding mental institutions, it becomes clear that a dreadful lifelong stigma accompanies the label of criminally insane.   While the public remains upset by the gaping loophole in the net of justice, the courts continue to seek out equitable ways to deal with the offender who has diminished mental capacity. Reference: Arrigo, B. (2002). â€Å"Transcarceration: A Costructive Ethnology of Mentally-Ill    Offenders†.   Prison Journal 81(2), 162-186. Callahan, L., McGreevy, M., & Cirincione, C. (1992).   â€Å"Measuring the Effects of the   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Guilty but Mentally Ill Verdict: Georgia’s 1982 GBMI Reform†.   Law and   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Human Behavior 16(4), 447-462. Galliher, J. (1989).   Criminology: Human Rights, Criminal Law, and Crime.   N.J.:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Prentice Hall. Hans, V. (1986).   â€Å"An analysis of Public Attitudes toward the Insanity Defense†.   Criminology 24(3), 393-413. Ives, G. (1914). A History of Penal Methods.   London: S. Paul. Sigurdson, C. (2001).   â€Å"The Mad, The Bad and The Abandoned: The mentally Ill in   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Prisons and Jails†.   Corrections Today 62(7), 162-186. Steadman, H. (1991).   â€Å"Estimating Mental Health Needs and Service Utilization Among   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Prison Inmates.†Ã‚   Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law    19(3), 297-307. Steadman, H. J. & Monahan, J. (1984).   Crime and Mental Disorder.   Washington, D.C.:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   U.S. Department of Justice. Wessely, S., & Taylor, P.J. (1991). â€Å"Madness and Crime: Criminology versus   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Psychiatry†.   Criminal Justice