Volume 8

Table of Contents

Alcohol culture

Drinking alcohol is normal for English teenagers. The legal drinking age in the United Kingdom is 18, yet many buy and drink alcohol at a younger age. As an English exchange student, I always assumed that I could drink a beer in a public place, a local tavern, a beer garden or even my own dorm. I admit to have broken the law, walking into a pub at 17, looking the bar tender straight in eye and asking in a casual tone of voice like I had said it a million times before "A pint of Carling please, mate."

English teens who do not go to bars and clubs can always get something alcoholic to drink from a supermarket, or a corner shop on a Friday night. Many English leaders feel that underage drinking is out of control because the age limit is so high. Historically, age limits were enacted to prevent parents from taking children into bars at a time when people drank gin because the water made people sick. If there were no age limit today, children could learn about alcohol and its effects at home. Many English citizen feel that drinking at a young age can build respect for alcohol and that rather than treating alcohol as a forbidden fruit, teens would learn to enjoy it sensibly. The brute fact is that some people everywhere abuse alcohol. In England, pubs, bars and night clubs are concentrated in town centers. On Friday and Saturday nights at my university town center, the police always park a wagon to pile drunks into the back. This might be avoidable.

College lifestyles at an English University are very different that on the NDSU or MSUM campuses. Firstly, in England, alcohol is an accepted part of student life, with an on-campus Bar and Nightclub which is open 7 days a week. Bars and restaurants around the campus encourage 7 day a week, lunch time and evening drinking, with special drink deals for students to loosen their educated minds for the evening.

On my arrival to the United States I was prepared to live without alcohol, because my campus organizer advised me about the higher legal age. I was not surprised at how many people drank in dorms and at parties. I was surprised that local campus authorities and police claim that only a minority drink alcohol and that they should be deal with heavily. Enforcing alcohol laws just means that youngsters drink in secret, rather publicly in bars or restaurants. This may cause social and health problems, as drinking illegally at a party pressures people to consume a lot in a limited time. This could mean that when people do come of age, they will continue established drinking habit, leading higher rates of irresponsible drinking

America's size and reliance on cars is an applaudable reason for a high legal drinking age. Drink driving is as big an issue in England as it is here. The only thing is that a lot more people in England can walk or roll home after going to the pub or party whilst many people in the United States have to rely on cars to get home, increasing their risk of crashing whilst under the influence. In 2003 there were about 17,000 road deaths involving alcohol which accounted for 40% road death on Americans roads. Every year drink-driving causes around 560 deaths and 2,820 serious injuries in Great Britain

In America, a young man or women can go to war at 17 and fight for their country. They can vote for the next president at 18. According to Arizona state law, people can marry at 16 and younger with a court order and a guardian's permission. To purchase a shotgun or low caliber rifle you can be 18 yet these same people cannot sit and have a drink until they are grown up! Yet one more thing about your country I don't get.

Identity Theft

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Throughout the course of a busy day you may use your credit card to get gas, write a check to buy concert tickets, apply for a loan, or mail monthly bills. Most people don't give these transactions a second thought but, an identity thief does.

In 2004, over 9 million Americans were victims of identity theft, resulting in over $5 billion of damage (Identity Theft, 2005). A thief can access personal information in many ways. They may get information from businesses by stealing records, bribing employees, or hacking into records. A thief may also steal your mail, including financial statements or credit card offers. Another way would be to rummage through your trash or a businesses trash to recover personal information. They could also simply steal someone's purse or wallet and then change addresses so mail was routed to a different location. Once an identity thief captures personal information, they can open new credit card accounts or bank accounts, they may establish a phone line, buy a car, and get identification with your name and their picture or they may even file bankruptcy to avoid paying debts in your name (Take Charge, 2005).

There are many different points of vulnerability. A few are bank accounts, credit cards, driver's licenses, and mail. Bank account theft can include counterfeit checks and electronic funds transfers. There are different laws for bank account theft. The state laws protect against counterfeit checks and federal laws apply to electronic funds transfers. Credit cards become vulnerable because not only can someone use your credit cards but they can open their own accounts under your name with you receiving the bills. If someone steals your driver's license or driver's license number, they would be able to apply for a driver's license with their photo and your information, leaving you to deal with any tickets or citations from the misuse. Finally, mail theft leads to much of the problems. To avoid mail from being the source of the theft, never leave mail in your mailbox overnight and use the postal drop box to send mail out (Take Charge, 2005).

Victims of identity theft can take immediate steps to recover their good name. The first step taken should be to place a fraud alert on your credit reports. Fraud alerts can be placed on your report for up to seven years. When a fraud alert is on your report, a business must verify your identity before issuing credit. The second step, is to close all accounts that have been tampered with or opened fraudulently. Another step is to file a police report. Finally, file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. FTC can assist law enforcement officials to track down identity thieves (Take Charge, 2005)

Whether you have been a victim or not, there are ways to minimize the likelihood of a recurrence and to protect yourself so you aren't a victim. Some things you can do today are to put strong passwords on bank accounts, credit cards, and phone accounts; secure personal information at your home and ask about security procedures at your work place and doctor's office for personal information. In maintaining vigilance, don't give personal information over the phone unless you initiated the call, don't carry your social security number with you, and be careful with mail and trash. Shred any mail with personal information on it (Take Charge, 2005).

Overall, becoming an identity theft victim can happen to anyone at anytime. But knowing ways to protect yourself and how to overcome the loss of being a victim can save you a lot of money and time by taking extra precautions.

Works Cited

Identity Theft is America's Fastest-Growing Crime. (2005). Retrieved October 19,2005, from http://www.usps.com/postalinspectors/idtheft_ncpw.htm

Take Charge: Fighting Back Against Identity Theft. (2005, February). Retrieved October 19,2005, from http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/idtheft.htm

Comment on privacy law: In the United States, there is no comprehensive privacy law and each area of social life that has protections got them because specific legislation addressed these areas. Today, student information, health information and a few other areas have some protection from Federal law and a few state laws. Businesses are able to collect and preserve immense amounts of information and to sell some of that information to other businesses. A good popular treatment of surveillance and Privacy is O'Harrow's, No Place to Hide.

Comment on strong passwords: Passwords are a problem! Names, nicknames and pet names, even when modified with birth dates are easy to crack. Random strings are the most secure, but they are difficult to remember. One way to construct strong passwords is to compose a phrase that is easy to remember, select letters from the phrase in some systematic way, capitalize some, and then intersperse punctuation and/or numbers in a regular way. Thus, I might compose "Moorhead is the Greatest City on Earth", pick first letters: mitgcoe, capitalize every other one (MiTgCoE), put in some puncutation (M!iTgCoE.) and numbers (M!iT3gCoE.) and I have a password I can reconstruct if I forget it and one that is very difficult to crack.

DNA Helps Correct Unreliable Eyewitness Testimony

Eyewitness testimony is very powerful evidence that has a strong effect on juries. Yet, there is no scientific evidence that supports its reliability and much that suggests it is very unreliable. Eyewitness testimony accounted biggest single reason for convictions of innocents in the 1990s. Some of these innocent men had been convicted of murder and were on death row. Even if they are exonerated, the court system operates very slowly and these people usually spend many years in prison.

Eyewitness testimony has been the most persuasive evidence for many convictions. When it is combined with circumstantial evidence, prosecutors can build a powerful case. However, several psychological studies show that humans are not very good at identifying people they see for a limited amount of time. This evidence shows that eyewitness people often pick innocent familiar faces from police line ups or photo spreads. This is called an unconscious transference phenomenon. In addition, eyewitness testimony sometimes changes after long interviews or after long delays between a crime and the arrest of a suspect. This evidence has forced police, lawyers and judges to carefully examine the methods used for line-ups and to evaluate alternative approaches.

The conviction of innocent people based on eyewitness testimony is a serious problem. Mistaken eyewitness identifications are the most common factor in wrongful convictions. There have been 174 DNA exonerations as of January 30, 2006. Most of these had been identified in a line up or had their names given to the police because an eyewitness believed they were the person who committed the crime. Testimony by these witnesses sometimes was the primary reason they were convicted by a jury.

Seventy one percent of wrongful convictions that were overturned as a result of DNA evidence, according to the Innocence Project at Cardozo School of Law in New York. The Innocence Project provides legal assistance to convicted individuals who have claims of actual innocence that can be proven by the analysis of physical evidence.

The Midwestern Innocence Project provides pro-bono investigative and legal assistance for cases in the Midwest. They accept cases that can be exoneration with non-DNA evidence. Work is done by students, volunteers, law schools students, and other justice programs.

Wrongful convictions are very serious. Sometimes, people elevate security above justice. Conviction of innocent people sharpens the contradiction between ideals of justice and hurried convictions that promise security. The injustices focus public interest on more reliable evidence, such as forensic DNA. Most people who have been exonerated by science were initially convicted due to bad eyewitness identifications. Innocence Projects help overturn wrongful convictions and they give freedom back to wrongfully convicted persons. Correcting injustices also suggest that more the justice system can produce greater reliability. Improving the system may provide the best future security.

Works Cited

Barry Scheck, Peter Nuefeld, and Jim Dwyer, Actual Innocence, 2001.

Wrongly Convicted; "Perspectives on Failed Justice" 2001.

The Innocence Project: www.innocenceproject.org

The Midwestern Innocence Project: http://www.innocenceprojectmidwest.org/