Kourtney
Kramer
Debra
Reese
English
2010
Synthesis
Paper
How to Better Young Offenders and Their
Future
The
articles that I chose for this paper are first, Speech and language therapy
intervention with a group of persistent and prolific young offenders in a
non-custodial setting with previously undiagnosed speech, language and
communication difficulties
written by authors Juliette Gregory, and Karen Bryan. This articles main focus
is testing and categorizing the young offenders in a particular facilitation into
groups to test on their level of speech and education. They study the background of each qualified
individual and then create a statistic about young offenders being the way that
they are because of a history of speech or language disabilities. The second article I have chosen is Give young offenders speech and language therapy,
urges Labour MP written by Adrian Bailey. This
article then takes it the next step forward by talking about the ability of
those young offenders to go on and get jobs to have the possibility of a normal
future not jeopardized by the speech or language difficulties they had as a
child. They want to help improve the
application policies for those who have committed a felony. I will be connecting these two articles
through out my paper because I believe that they go hand in hand. In order for the programs that help them
improve or remove their speech or language impediments we need to give them
those opportunities and each article helps us resolve this.
Can
we trust the young offenders of today to work for our companies, and our business’? Adrian Bailey, talks about how in
order to help reduce the number of young offenders of reoffending, we need to
give them the opportunity to work.
Bailey states that if we strengthen their speech and language therapy
that we can help better them to be hard workers, and to be more determined.
We
would start by looking at who was at risk of becoming an offender because of
the way they were raised, who they were and the kind of environment they were
raised in. In my very first article they preformed studies on each individual
in a juvenile center and tested individuals to see where their education level
was at, to reinstate their suspicion about speech and language troubles being
the cause of teens that become young offenders.
To better categorize each of them and to also see if they were eligible
to be in a working environment they categorized each individual as eligible for
having speech and language therapy or not being eligible. This is important because then you can better
see who needs the language therapy that the facility can provide for them. Helping them in the future of feeling more
confident and lowering the opportunity of them making the mistake of
reoffending again.
Yes,
you can give them the opportunity to work but they are going to need to be able
to succeed in their new career, to prove that they can work hard and better
themselves. If they do not take the time
to work on their speech impairments then they are going to always have the
struggle of either that being the reason they do not get employed or if they do
get hired the reason they probably wont keep their job. If you are going to be setting them up to be
able to work, they are going to need to be able to fully communicate by
themselves. We want to teach them to be
independent so that they can fend for themselves and work harder as an
individual. Considering their background
as having committed a felony, they will probably start towards the bottom of
the company and with helping them improve their speech impairment we can help
them climb the corporate ladder and create a more successful future for them.
There
is however, still the hiring part of this whole situation. Hughes said “the tick box
excludes applicants at the very first part of the recruitment process as a
previous criminal conviction was often seen as "shorthand" for bad
employee. "We need to change the
perception," she said. "We need to say that, actually, one in five
adults in the UK has a criminal conviction more serious than a driving offence.
So get real: you're already employing people with criminal convictions whether
you want to admit it or not.’” The fact
that businesses are already hiring people who have committed felonies yet we
are shutting out teens that have this same background needs to change.
When
you look at it, you want these teens to have a better chance. Anyone with a heart would understand that
every child needs a chance. These teens
are the next generation, the next in line to work in our stores, to run our
businesses and to help mold the next generation. If we don’t give them a fighting chance then
we are setting the future up for failure.
From multiple people you will hear the constant reply that we can fix
the problem before it ever happens. We
could strengthen the communication help in our school programs to prevent their
language disability from holding them back but we need to realize is it’s the child’s
decision. In the end they chose to
except the help or to fall behind with their disability. So no matter how much we strengthen the
educational department we are still going to be dealing with this problem. So we should focus on strengthening all places
that the teen or child can find help.
The
second article mentions how we need to fix the Tick Box in Juvenile Centers so
that more teens have opportunities to get job interviews even though they have
committed a felony. Edwina Hughes,
campaign manager at Business
in the Community, urges “..Companies to drop the tick box that demands
applicants disclose criminal convictions in recruitment forms, said the
campaign would "ensure people are assessed on their skills and abilities
first, rather than their convictions".” Bailey insists that if you look at
the person and see who they are rather then a piece of paper that states what
they’ve done wrong, you can see them for who they truly are giving more teens a
chance to work and create a better future for themselves. It’s hard because we live in a world that
would be very hard to trust, and the constant worry for how the employee would
represent you and your company. But even
the smallest job and opportunity for them to work is giving them a fighting
chance in this world. I know that a
local grocery store in my hometown takes the time to hire individuals who have
speech and language disabilities to work in the day at a less busy time. Even though they are smaller jobs around the
store they still give these individuals a chance to work for themselves
probably giving them a sense of accomplishment.
This is contradicting though, because we want to also help them improve
their disability so that they can improve from where they are rather than
accepting that they will always have this speech and language disability.
I
very much agree with what Bailey has to say to some extent. On one hand I think that giving them a hard
working job is going to better them and help them in so many aspects but on the
other hand I don’t know how I would feel if my co worker has committed a felony
or multiple felony’s considering the person.
It is hard though because it is all very depending on the individual and
the situation. Considering where I work
at a bank, the hiring process is more difficult seeing as the bank is trusting
you with their customers’ personal information and dealing with the banks
money. But I do, however, agree that
there are jobs out there that are better suiting. I think that through working their hardest to
prove that they can be trusted that they can be hired and become successful
like those who do not have a speech disability or felony in their past. In all the two articles help to show the
background and history of the story for young offenders. Both Bailey, Gregory and Bryan help to show
us that you really cant judge a book by its cover.
Work
Cited
Bailey, Adrian.
"Give Young Offenders Speech and Language Therapy." The
Guardian.
N.p., 2014. Web.
Gregory, Juliette,
and Karen Bryan. "Speech and Therapy Intervention."
International Journal of Language &
Communication Disorders.
N.p., Mar.
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