首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Two sides almost never change: That you can manipulate people into self-sufficiency and that you can punish them into good citiz
Two sides almost never change: That you can manipulate people into self-sufficiency and that you can punish them into good citiz
admin
2016-04-30
18
问题
Two sides almost never change: That you can manipulate people into self-sufficiency and that you can punish them into good citizenship.
The first manifests itself in our tireless search for the magical level at which welfare grants are big enough to meet basic needs but small enough to make low-paid work attractive. The second has us looking to the criminal justice system to cure behavior that is as much as anything the result of despair.
The welfare example is well known. We don’t want poor people to live in squalor or their children to be malnourished. But we also don’t want to subsidize the indolence of people who are too lazy to work. The first impulse leads us to provide housing, food stamps, medical care and a cash stipend for families in need. The second gets us to think about "workforce".
We’ve been thinking about it for two reasons: the "nanny" problems of two high-ranking government officials(who hired undocumented foreigners as household helpers, presumably because they couldn’t find Americans to do the work)and President Clinton’s proposal to put a two-year limit on welfare.
Maybe something useful will come of Clinton’s idea, but I’m not all that hopeful. It looks to me like one more example of trying to manipulate people into taking care of themselves.
On the criminal justice side, we hope to make punishment tough enough to discourage crime but not so tough as to clog our prisons with relatively minor offenders. Too short a sentence, we fear, will create contempt for the law. Too long a sentence will take up costly space better used for the violent and unremorseful.
Not only can we never find the "perfect" punishment, our search for optimum penalties is complicated by our desire for fairness: to let the punishment fit the crime. The problem is that almost any punishment—even the disgrace of being charged with a crime—is sufficient to deter the middle class, while for members of the underclass, probation may be translated as "I beat it. "
So how can you use the system—welfare or criminal justice—to produce the behavior we want? The answer, I suspect is: You can’t.
We keep trying to use welfare and prison to change people—to make them think and behave the way we do—when the truth is the incentives work only for those who already think the way we do: who view today’s action with an eye on the future.
We will take lowly work(if that is all that’s available)because we believe we can make bad jobs work for us. We avoid crime not because we are better people but because we see getting caught as a future-wrecking disaster. We are guided by a belief that good things will happen for us in the future if we take proper care of the present. Even under the worst of circumstances, we believe we are in control of our lives.
And we have trouble understanding that not everybody believes as we believe. The welfare rolls, the prisons and the mean streets of our cities are full of people who have given up on their future. Without hope for the future, hard work at a low-paid job makes no sense. Working hard in school, or pleasing a boss, or avoiding pregnancy makes no sense. The deadly disease is hopelessness. The lawlessness and poverty are only the obvious symptoms.
I’m not advocating that we stop looking for incentives to move poor people toward self-sufficiency or that we stop punishing people for criminal behavior. There will always be some people who need help and some who deserve to be in jail.
All I’m saying is that the long-term answer both to welfare and the crime that plagues our communities is not to fine tune the welfare and criminal justice systems but to prevent our children from getting the disease of despair.
If we encourage our young people to believe in the future, and give them solid evidence for believing we’ll find both crime and poverty shrinking to manageable proportions.
Which of the following is the most appropriate tide for the passage?
选项
A、Lawlessness and Poverty.
B、Criminal Justice System.
C、Welfare Grants.
D、Disease of Despair.
答案
D
解析
主旨题。本题考查的是在把握全文大意的基础上拟定文章标题。首先,全文都在谈两个方面,一个是刑事司法体系,一个是福利补助,二者缺一不可,因此排除[B]和[C];其次,从原文第十三段可知,福利和犯罪的长期解决方案不是微调福利和刑事法律体系,而是要防止我们的孩子染上绝望这种疾病。因此,答案为[D]。[A]是产生刑事法律体系和福利补助的两个诱因,并非文章讨论的重点及目的所在,故排除。
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/b6BMFFFM
0
专业英语四级
相关试题推荐
Itwassuggestedthatallgovernmentministersshould______informationontheirfinancialinterests.[2004]
Thepolicelethimgo,becausetheydidn’tfindhimguilty______themurder.[1999]
AIDSissaid______thenumber-onekillerofbothmenandwomenoverthepastfewyearsinthatregion.[2002]
Accordingtothepassage,manylanguagesdie______.
Heusuallyspendshisholidaysinthemountainsthough______hegoestotheseasideinstead.
Electricityissuchapartofoureverydaylivesandsomuchtakenforgrantednowadays【C1】______werarelythinktwicewhenwes
Electricityissuchapartofoureverydaylivesandsomuchtakenforgrantednowadays【C1】______werarelythinktwicewhenwes
Ifonlythepatient______adifferenttreatmentinsteadofusingtheantibiotics,hemightstillbealivenow.
Theyencouragedoctorsto______cheapergenericdrugsinsteadofmoreexpensivebrandnames.
Youradvicewouldbe______valuabletohim,whoisnowatalossastowhattodofirst.
随机试题
长期应用糖皮质激素突然停药或减量过快出现反跳现象,其原因可能是
执业医师法规定,医师有下列情形之一的,县级以上人民政府卫生行政部门应当依法给予表彰或奖励。其中不属于法定表彰或奖励的情形是
(2013年真题改编)长管并联管道各并联管段的()。
[背景资料]某建设单位投资兴建一大型商场,地下二层,地上九层,钢筋混凝土框架结构,建筑面积为71500m2。经过公开招标,某施工单位中标,中标造价25025万元。双方按照《建设工程施工合同(示范文本)》(GF—2013—0201)签订了施工总承包
甲公司2010年1月1日发行在外普通股8000万股;5月1日按平均市价增发普通股1500万股;11月1日回购普通股600万股,以备将来奖励职工之用。该公司2010年度净利润为3738万元。则该公司2010年度基本每股收益为()元。
古代的庠、序都是指——,中国早在4000多年前的——就有了学校教育的形态。
下列哪种情形构成交通肇事罪?()
设f(x)是二阶常系数非齐次线性微分方程y″+py′+qy=sin2x+2ex的满足初始条件f(0)=f′(0)=0的特解,则当x→0时,().
Neverunderestimatethelearningpowerofplay.OneofParks’findingsisthatchildren【C1】______valuablelearningopportunitie
在E-R图中,用来表示实体的图形是
最新回复
(
0
)