Is the Criminal Justice System Bias Essay

Abstract This paper will ask several questions and hopefully answer most of those questions. Questions like is the criminal justice system bias against the poor and is the criminal justice system bias against minorities. We then explore some of the possible solutions to the problems that could cause biases. We then look at a study done on several communities where relations between police and the public had repaired their relationship. Body It’s easy to understand why people see the criminal justice system as biased. Our of all of our states prisoners forty percent can not even read; and sixty-seven percent did not have full-time employment when they were arrested. So there are more uneducated people in prison then there are educated people. This seems like then that our system of criminal justice is operated on an unequal system against poor or uneducated people. However, one of the problems we run into when we try to compare the wealthy lawbreakers to poor lawbreakers is the wide difference between the amount of wealthy people and poor people we have in our population. â€Å"In 1989, the wealthiest one percent of United States households owned nearly forty percent of the nation’s wealth. The wealthiest twenty percent owned more than eighty percent of the nation’s wealth. That leaves precious little for the rest† (Cole, 2000). This isn’t just true with adults, but with children and te enagers too. The number of poor/under-funded schools in America far outweighs the number of wealthy schools in America. That’s probably the main reason our system appears to be unfair against the poor. The reason that any pole or nation wide research will be bias against the poor or lower class is because there is a much larger poor/lower class population than a wealthy/high class population. Most American’s will probably not want to believe that our criminal justice system is not operated on equality. After  all our nations Supreme Court even has the saying â€Å"Equal Justice Under Law† written above the entranceway. There are several very famous Supreme Court’s decisions that uphold equality for the poor. In Gideon v. Wainwright they made it a law that the state must provide a lawyer to all defendants who have been charged with a serious crime and cannot afford a lawyer. In Miranda v. Arizona the Supreme Court decided that police must provide all suspects with an attorney. These court decisions might be a little misleading since both were decided during the time of Chief Justice Earl Warren, who was strongly liberal and very supportive of economic equality. Since then the principles of equality from both decisions for Gideon v. Wainwright and Miranda v. Arizona have been cheated and twisted so that neither decisions are upheld to the full extent that they were intended (Cole, 2000). That’s enough bashing our court system. There are actually many things that police officers do witch can be biased. For example the Fourth Amendment says that we have a right against unlawful searches and seizures. However, police officers all the time and request their consent to search them or their belongings (without ever having any basis for suspicion) without ever informing them of their right to refuse the search. This isn’t necessarily a bias against the poor but it makes sense to me that an officer would judge somebody on appearance. There is also the means of transportation we have to consider if law enforcement is bias to the poor. Say hypothetically some wealthy person is traveling across the country to a birthday party. How are they going to travel? Most wealthy people would probably travel across country like that by means of flying. While flying, people do not come in contact with that many police officers nor are they in many positions where they would normally break the law. However, say there is a poor person who is traveling the same distance to the same party but does not have the money to fly. The cheapest mode of transportation is definitely by way of buss. While traveling by buss there is definitely a larger chance of contact with the police than when traveling by air. There are also many more opportunities for crime to be committed while traveling on a buss. Again we have the situation where it’s not necessarily that the poor are treated differently but are maybe just in environments where c rime is committed more often, which would explain why it seems that the system is biased against them (Rothwax, 1996) So I feel like we could come to an  agreement now that the criminal justice system is not necessarily biased against the poor at the law enforcement side of the criminal justice system. However, the courtroom side of the criminal justice system seems indirectly biased against the poor, simply because each trial can be different depending on how much money they defense and the prosecution have available to them. Now lets talk about other ways that the criminal justice system could be bias. What about race? Are people treated differently depending on their ethnicity? Most people probably agree that there are some ethnic groups who are treated differently than other ethnic groups in the criminal justice system. Statistically minorities are disproportionately victimized by crime. â€Å"African Americans are victimized at a rate of 150 percent higher than whites† (Cole, 2000). Blacks are typically more involved in almost every kind of crime more so than whites. These crimes can include rape, aggravated assault, and armed robbery. Homicide is actually the number one leading cause of death among young black men. Most crime is interracial and so it could be argued, just as it can with the topic of biases against the poor that the reason for higher crime rates for black is because most poverty stricken areas, or the inner city, have majority black populations. Therefore the criminals would be black, the victims would be black, and all the statistics that came from that area would rate blacks more prone to commit crime than whites. Now lets look at some cases. For instance the videotaped beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles Police Department officers was a huge eye-opener for most of America. It was said of that beating that for many blacks saw that as trea tment they expected from the police. They were not surprised by that beating what so ever. Curtis Tucker, a California Assemblyman, was quoted saying at a subsequent hearing on Los Angeles Police Department practices, â€Å"When black people in Los Angeles see a police car approaching, they don’t know whether justice will be meted out or whether judge, jury, and executioner is pulling up behind them.† There was even this one officer who earned the nickname â€Å"the Mechanic† because he would â€Å"tune people up† which apparently is police slang for beating up people. This â€Å"Mechanic† once testified that the beatings were widespread. When asked the question of weather he beat up people whom he arrested he replied, â€Å"No. We just beat people up in general. If they’re on the street, hanging around drug locations. Just—It was a show of force† (Rothwax,  1996). The officer even admitted that the majority of the beating victims were either black or Hispanic; although he claimed that the attacks were not motivated by racial tension. There have been very disturbing patterns of corruption and brutality in the police force of almost every high-crime area studied. These corrupt acts include stealing from drug dealers, engaging in unlawful searches, seizures, and car stops, even dealing and using drugs. If instances like this is what our police force has come down to then our country is far worse off then I ever realized. I do however believe that this is probably a much smaller percentage than what some statistics would lead us to believe but it is not a problem that I believe can be overlooked. So what can be done? Can something be done? Are we as a country so far gone that we can come back? I believe we can. I believe that we have become to far separate from the community. We have to bridge the gap that has grown between law enforcement/the criminal justice system and the public lower class people. How do we do that? â€Å"The thing we need most is perspective† (Walker, 1980). One thing that could be the answer to our problem is community based policing. In Canada they passed the Police Services Act of 1990 that might be a good refere nce for our current agencies to look back on. What the Police Services Act did was make the Chief of Police responsible for community-oriented policing (Kuck, 2004). â€Å"Community based policing is both a philosophy and an organizational strategy that allows the police and community to work together in new ways to solve problems of crime, disorder and safety. It really only has two elements: changing the methods and practice of the police and taking steps to establish a relationship between the police and the public† (Groenewald, 2004). The Philosophy of community based policing is based off of the idea that the public has a right to give their input on policing. It also relies on the idea that to find a solution for community problems both the police and the public must look past individual crimes and incidents, and instead try to find ways of confronting the more important community problems. What does community based policing look like though? Community based police officers need to be much more than mere crime fighters and must be public servants in many ways. Reforming the police alone, however, is not enough. Community support and assistance are also necessary. Community based policing therefore encompasses strategies to reorient the public who, for  good reasons, have been leery and distrustful of the police. Building partnerships between the police and communities is a major challenge that not many people or organizations have every really attempted. The philosophy of community based policing asks both the police and the public to take a leap of faith and a commitment to change. It would be a long process that would require drastic action to be taken at multiple levels meaning that there would be detailed planning necessary to turn philosophy into reality within the police and among the public. There was a study where Kuotsia Tom Liou from the University of Central Florida and Eugene G. Savage from Florida State University looked at the impact of community policing by looking at three neighborhoods in West Palm Beach, Florida before and after the implementation of a community oriented policing program. Lets take a look at what they found. They had 3 communities with the first consisting of mainly white residents, mainly single-family homes, apartments, and small businesses. The second community was primarily black consisting of a concentrated public housing project, single family homes, apartments, small businesses, several churches, and a public middle school. The last community consisted of whites, Hispanics, blacks, and Haitians. The community was made up of single family homes, apartments, small businesses, and several churches. It was their goal to find out how community policing affects difference types of communities. The results of their study showed that after the community based policing had been going on sixty-eight percent of surveyed citizens felt that crime had decreased. All age groups, race groups, and all three neighborhoods shared the belief that crime had decreased. Even if the crime rates had not gone down in reality it would still really help relations with police officers just that the citizens believe it had. In addition to the feeling like crime had gone down they also asked in their survey how they felt about the relationship after six months of the community policing. Among the respondents to the survey eighty-eight percent felt that the relationship between the police and their communities as getting better. We started this paper with the question of is the criminal justice system bias. We talked about the relationship between law enforcement and the public. We talked about one of the possibilities of how we could rebuild that relationship. We then looked at some research where a relationship was made better by use of community policing.  Hopefully we can use research like this to help make this world a more perfect world. Reference Page: Cole, D. (2000). No equal justice, race and class in the american criminal justice system. New York: New Press, The. Rothwax, H. (1996). Guilty: The collapse of criminal justice. New York: Random House. Walker, S. (1980). Popular justice. New York: Oxford University Press. Kuck, H. (2004). Racial pride and consciousness trilogy: Addressing hate crime and racial discord through community policing. Canadian Journal of Police and Security Services. Dec. 2004: 243. Criminal Justice Collection. Web. 29 Oct. 2012. Groenewald, H. and Peake, G. (2004). Police Reform through Community-Based Policing. New York. Liou, Kuotsai. and Savage, Eugene. (1996). Citizen perception of community policing impact.

What It Means To Be A Senior

What It Means To Be A Senior Free Online Research Papers The last year at LCC is a struggle for many senior students, as they are busy with their final academic projects, which consume almost all of their time. If you ask a fourth year student about his/her leisure time, they will tell that they do not have much of it. Business majors especially face the challenges of writing a thesis, a business plan, or taking a comprehensive examination. Besides the tension of writing and completing the final academic project, this year business majors also struggle with disturbing technical issues in the Comprehensive Examination class. This year’s Comprehensive Examination class is disadvantageous because of the unfavorable time period, the big number of students, and the students’ attitude towards their fellows who are willing to learn. Business majors have an opportunity to choose a thesis defense, a business plan, or a comprehensive examination as their final academic projects for the last year at LCC. The Comprehensive Examination class is held every spring semester. The students have to analyze real global business companies and come up with solutions to the problems the companies face at the moment. The students are responsible for the analysis of two individual cases, one team case, and a team case presentation. Students receive 50 percent of their grade during the semester. Another 50 percent is earned by taking a comprehensive examination at the end of March. The examination itself is held on the weekend from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and lasts for 12 hours. Students get a business case and they need to write an analysis during that day. Due to the big number of students taking the exam and not enough computers in the computer lab, students are divided into two groups. One group takes the exam on Saturday, while anot her group on Sunday. After the examination the students are finished with this course and the only thing left for them is to wait for the results, which come at the end of the semester. The first negative aspect of the class this year is that it is held at a very inconvenient time. The course starts at 6.30 p.m. and ends at 9.45 p.m. every Thursday. Many students are not satisfied with this schedule, as they are already tired after several classes held in the morning and in the afternoon. Naturally, their mind is not working the same as it was in the first half of the day. Besides, it becomes very difficult to concentrate and motivate yourself to stay attentive and focused for one more class. The main complaint coming from the fourth year students is that such an important class for them is held so late. Such a distracting technical issue as a late class time limits their attention and motivation to learn the material that would be valuable during the final examination. Another negative issue concerning the time frame of the class is that it lasts for three hours. Again, attending a late class is already a challenge, but when the students have to sit at one place for three hours, then it becomes even more of a struggle. For this reason, many students are attentive and stay awake for one hour at most. After that, the interest in the class material and the motivation to listen is lost and everyone starts looking at their watches to find out how much time is left to sit there. Many students even leave and simply go home, as for most of them sitting and learning nothing is just a waste of time. When asked, seniors say that they would prefer to have a three hour Comprehensive Examination class early in the morning rather than late in the evening. Basically, the evening class time and the length of it are two major disadvantages towards the students’ motivation and eagerness to learn. Besides the unfavorable time period, the large number of students registered for the course also is a challenge. Providing only one block for this course results in having all 79 fourth year students at the same time in the same room. This semester this class is held in Neufeld Hall. It is reasonable to choose such a room, but at the same time it becomes very difficult to control such a huge group of people. The professor struggles to keep everyone in the room silent and to get everyone’s attention to what she is saying. Especially it is difficult to control the students sitting in the back rows. They are chatting aloud, laughing, drawing, anything except listening carefully, which is very rude for both the professor and the students. So this class is always accompanied with disturbing noise coming from the back rows. The professor tries to calm everyone, but only for the short time because many students will start chatting again after several minutes of silence. The late time frame of the class is also related to the difficulties of controlling the big number of students. All of them are tired and not motivated anymore. Such a big number of students in the room at the same time is the basis for the chaotic atmosphere. The last negative aspect of the Comprehensive Examination class is the students’ attitudes and behavior towards their fellow students. Many of them do not understand that there are students who are willing to learn new material from this class and appropriately prepare for the final examination. The disrespect is perfectly illustrated during the team oral presentations of the analysis of the company. The teams orally present the analysis and the recommendations for the solutions to the problems. Presentations last for 30 minutes and after that presenters expect questions from the audience. However, once the team starts presenting, the audience begins doing whatever it wishes. Some are chatting, eating, and even sleeping. Nobody is listening to the team, and because nobody asks questions afterwards, presenters say that they feel as if they are talking to the wall. The behavior of fellow students is inappropriate and rude, which creates a feeling that students do not care about their final academic project and do not even motivate themselves to give it a try. The other options for the final academic project, such as thesis defense and business plan classes, also have a similar situation. The classes start at 6.30 p.m. and also are held for three hours. For this reason, all students graduating in 2007 and taking either thesis defense, business plan, or comprehensive examination have no other choice except attending these classes at a late hour. However, the main difference between the other options for the business majors and the comprehensive examination is the number of students attending the class. The majority of LCC graduates choose the comprehensive examination as their final academic project. As a result, the students who have a thesis defense or a business plan have an advantage of working in a smaller class, which allows them to study more efficiently. The previous year’s Comprehensive Examination class was better organized and managed. Last year this course was divided into two time blocks and students attended two morning sessions of the class. There were no problems concerning time, because students are better motivated and not tired in the morning. Also, having two time blocks for this course solved the problem of having a big number of students in one room. This definitely had a positive effect on the efficiency of students’ learning. Overall, last year’s organization of the Comprehensive Examination class was very helpful to the students’ final academic projects. Despite all the negative things of this year’s Comprehensive Examination class, there are also some positive aspects of it. First, the content of the course itself is beneficial to the students. They are introduced to and learn to analyze big, global companies, becoming familiar with the tools for analyzing such cases. Students learn to spot the immediate problem of a particular company through reading numbers and interpreting financial and other information. Another positive aspect is that the professor also understands that the time schedule and the three hour length are a struggle for the students and her as well. For this reason, she makes at least two breaks, so that all students could refresh their minds. This year’s Comprehensive Examination class has many disadvantages for the graduates. Hopefully, this situation will not be repeated next year because then even more LCC graduates will suffer from it. As there are many students’ complaints about this issue, the Registrar Office should take them into consideration. Keeping in mind that it is the major final academic course for LCC graduates, the Registrar Office should admit that this course is organized poorly this year. For this reason, the Registrar along with LCC Business Department should not experiment with the fourth year students. Instead, it should create good conditions to study and appropriately prepare for the final comprehensive examination, business plan, and thesis defense, which lead students into the successful business career. 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Free Essays on After Life

The afterlife, in many cases, sounds more magnificent than life as we know it. Beliefs about an afterlife are, in fact, beliefs and not perfectly accurate information. Having specific beliefs about a person’s destiny after death is a way for many people to cope with death and have a sense of closure. Ideas about the afterlife may vary greatly, but one thing all religions and cultures have in common is that they trust that their own specific beliefs are the only way. There is, and always will be, a broad range of views on the ideas of afterlife, from traditions as diverse as apocalyptic Judaism to Hellenistic religious culture. For more than 3,000 years Egyptians have supported their initial, original ideas of the afterlife. The Egyptian afterlife is very detailed and is described thoroughly in the Book of the Dead. Once an Egyptian passes away they transform into two parts, the Ba and the Ka. The Ba is described as being the breath or soul and looks like a human-headed bird while the Ka is a carbon copy of the deceased and is the guardian spirit or life force (Lewis 123). Both parts travel in a boat to the underworld and once they reach their destination they proceed through seven different gates. At each gate they have to give certain names and formulas to be able to pass. Once they make it through the gates, the Ka’s continue to the Hall of Justice. Similar to most courtrooms, there is a judge, a prosecutor, and jury members. Thoth, the god of wisdom, is the prosecutor, while forty-two divine figures make up the jury, but the final decision is based on Osiris, the judge (Lewis 125). The deceased a re to give a detailed account of their lives. After they have completed the account, their heart is placed on a scale opposite either a feather or an image of Maat. Maat is the goddess of truth and to Egyptians, a feather is symbolic of the same. If the heart outweighs the symbol of truth, it is a clear sign that the person has been sin... Free Essays on After Life Free Essays on After Life The afterlife, in many cases, sounds more magnificent than life as we know it. Beliefs about an afterlife are, in fact, beliefs and not perfectly accurate information. Having specific beliefs about a person’s destiny after death is a way for many people to cope with death and have a sense of closure. Ideas about the afterlife may vary greatly, but one thing all religions and cultures have in common is that they trust that their own specific beliefs are the only way. There is, and always will be, a broad range of views on the ideas of afterlife, from traditions as diverse as apocalyptic Judaism to Hellenistic religious culture. For more than 3,000 years Egyptians have supported their initial, original ideas of the afterlife. The Egyptian afterlife is very detailed and is described thoroughly in the Book of the Dead. Once an Egyptian passes away they transform into two parts, the Ba and the Ka. The Ba is described as being the breath or soul and looks like a human-headed bird while the Ka is a carbon copy of the deceased and is the guardian spirit or life force (Lewis 123). Both parts travel in a boat to the underworld and once they reach their destination they proceed through seven different gates. At each gate they have to give certain names and formulas to be able to pass. Once they make it through the gates, the Ka’s continue to the Hall of Justice. Similar to most courtrooms, there is a judge, a prosecutor, and jury members. Thoth, the god of wisdom, is the prosecutor, while forty-two divine figures make up the jury, but the final decision is based on Osiris, the judge (Lewis 125). The deceased a re to give a detailed account of their lives. After they have completed the account, their heart is placed on a scale opposite either a feather or an image of Maat. Maat is the goddess of truth and to Egyptians, a feather is symbolic of the same. If the heart outweighs the symbol of truth, it is a clear sign that the person has been sin...

Does A Star is Born Represent the Real Judy Garland Essay

Does A Star is Born Represent the Real Judy Garland - Essay Example The story is used as a Hollywood flick to grab the attention of the audience and to create a strong basis to help with advertising and production of the film. The concepts that are approached in â€Å"A Star is Born† comes from the ideology of asking Garland to perform after she had not produced a movie for over four years. This particular method is one which immediately grabbed attention, specifically because those in public were interested in what had happened to the young actress since her growth and fame. This approach drew the attention of society and was able to form a sense of culture and ideologies around the actress that everyone had loved as one of the brightest of Hollywood. Since this was the main ideology, Hollywood attempted to change the main approaches which were taken while trying to highlight Garland as one that had continuous success with every part of her life (Haver, 7). The need to enhance the publicity of the movie was followed with trying to highlight G arland as a success story. The first part of the movie, which is inclusive of Nelson helping Garland to get her start in the movies and to build her success with her first musical are parts of Garland’s career that were true. ... r first movie and went and out of fame, specifically which could be seen with the decision not to make a film in four years and the problems which occurred with some of her later films in terms of critiques and acting styles. The double standard which was a part of her career, including the heightened success and the lower aspects, were not highlighted in the movie and only were able to show the positive parts of her career (McGilligan, 217). The other parts of Garland’s life were fictional, specifically with the relationship that was highlighted throughout the story and the effects which this had on the character of Garland. Norman is the husband of Garland who helps her to get her start as a famous actress. However, in doing so, he loses his prestige as an actor. He moves into gambling, drinking and other lifestyle dependencies that cause Garland to be the main character of him in the household. This leads him to acting up on stage as a drunk, being arrested for gambling and continuing to use drugs. This also leads to his tragedy of committing suicide because of his downfall. These particular concepts are a reflection of Garland; however, it was Garland who had the several problems. She was known to be millions of dollars in debt, went through four divorces and was on drugs as well as faced several illnesses throughout her life. She gave birth to three children during her marriages; however, she remained caught in between the illnesses, stardom and problems with the several drugs and other influences that were surrounding her personal life (Clarke, 5). The several known facts about Garland’s life were not presented in the film. Instead, Garland is seen in â€Å"A Star is Born† as one who only carries the problems of her husband. She is seen as wealthy, takes care

Amazon.com Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Amazon.com - Case Study Example It has a competitive advantage over traditional companies that are physically based. Contrary to its online businesses, Amazon operates online and, has access to a large market. It has a strong financial and computer technology background. It has strength in partnership and affiliations with other businesses. A strong customer care service is an important aspect explored by the company to gain market dominance (Wheelen & Hunger, 2008). Most customers are not familiar with web-based sources of bookstore. In some situations, the company may undertake poor market analysis causing wasteful investment in online retail as pets.com , drugv store.com and home grosa.com that were never successful. Online retail business has the potential of generating high operating profits. There is growth in the number of household accessing the internet and, therefore, increased market dominance. Presence of new product lines in the market promotes entrance of new customers for the company. There is pressure from financial markets to abandon the companies stated goals, of sacrificing short time profit. There are existing book-selling companies established in the market that present competition to Amazon.com. Competition is from established home page websites such eBay and yahoo. Poor economic environment such as high sales tax on eco-mass transactions affects the company’s performance (Wheelen & Hunger, 2008). Products provided by the company include books, music, video, toys, electronics, tools, kitchen, and apparel. It provides services such as partnerships, online auctions, web services and retail shop service. The main problem faced by Amazon.com is increased operating expenses through advertisement. The best to address Amazon.com’s problem is cutting down on expenses based on the advertisement by collaborating with affiliate companies to help share the cost of

Watch a movie and write about it "The Milagro Beanfield War" Essay

Watch a movie and write about it "The Milagro Beanfield War" - Essay Example It is important for the audience to understand the motives and influences that make the characters do what they do and considering their backgrounds as well. In this case, the small village is denied water for reasons that they cannot understand. Powerful people in the society probably picked such a small village since most of its inhabitants are very poor and are likely to offer very little protest if any at all. The residents are not given any explanations and they also do not do anything about it until Joe Mondragon in a fit of anger unplugs the water into his bean fields. The developers are known to change any piece of land that they come across as resorts and golf clubs that are used by the rich people. It is clear that the poor people are not of any importance such that even heir source of livelihoods are manipulated in order to create space for the rich people in the society. The poor do not have anyone to stand for them and it takes the action of Joe Milagros who was angered by the fact that he could no longer farm to help the residents get back their source of livelihoods. However, this does not happen without major confrontations as people unite against the said developers. There are some villagers who are against it while majority of the other villagers prefer not to get involved in the issues. The reluctance to get involved shows how meek the villagers are and it also shows that they believe that nothing can be done to help them in their situation and would rather suffer in silence. They may also fear for even their lives as the developers ar e rather powerful people who could do anything they wished. The movie shows the plight of the poor against the rich in that the rich most of the time can do anything that they wish with minimal consequences. While there are people who are willing to fight for their rights, most people just believe that they should let things be as they are even if they are suffering.

Persulphate and Potassium Iodide Essay Example for Free

Persulphate and Potassium Iodide Essay The rate of which the reaction happened can be found out by using the simple formulae: Speed = Distance Time Distance is what we call the persulphate because we are measuring the amount of persulphate needed to react. The amount of persulphate will always be the same at the end so it doesnt matter how much we use. So to make it easy we can call this 1 (unit). Therefore Rate = 1 Time Therefore rate is the inverse of time and we can draw a graph of this. The faster the rate of reaction takes place, the shorter is the time needed for the reaction to finish. To be more precise, the speed of the reaction is inversely proportional to the time taken for the reaction to finish. In my prediction I stated, I predict that when the concentration of the reactant, Potassium Persulphate, is increased while all other factors are kept constant then the rate of reaction will increase. From the graph we can clearly see that this is the case. At 5% concentration the rate of reaction is very slow as it takes 720. 29 seconds for the cross to disappear but at 100% concentration the rate of reaction has increased dramatically and is very fast, taking only 16. 12 seconds for the cross to disappear. From my predicted graph, we can see that it is very similar to that of the actual graph and therefore my prediction has been supported by the experiment. In this experiment only one concentration was altered. A variation is to keep the concentration of iodide constant and alter the concentration of Potassium persulphate. Then the speed of the reaction is found to be proportional to the concentration of the Persulphate. If the Persulphate concentration is doubled then the speed doubles. The reason for this is that the ions are closer together in a concentrated solution. The closer together they are, the more often the ions collide. The more often they collide, the more chance they have of reacting. Collision Theory for Rates of Reaction Before looking at the factors that can alter the rate of reaction, we must consider when happens when a reaction takes place. First of all, the particles of the reacting substances must collide with each other and, secondly, a fixed amount of energy called the activation energy must be reached if the reaction is to take place. If a collision between particles can produce sufficient energy (i. e.if they collide fast enough and in the right direction) a reaction will take place. Not all collisions will result in a reaction. A reaction is speeded up if the number of suitable collisions is increased. Effect of Temperature on the Rate of Reaction When one of the reactants is a solid, the reaction must take place on the surface of the solid. By breaking up the solid in to smaller pieces, the surface are is increased, giving a greater area for collisions to take place and so causing and increase in the rate of reaction. This explains why mixtures of coal dust and air can cause explosions. The experiment was done on the same day trying to keep the temperature the same. Effect of Light on the Rate of Reaction The rates of some reactions are increased by exposure to light. Light has a similar effect, therefore, to increasing temperature. This is why the paper had to be used. Effect of Concentration on the Rate of Reaction The more concentrated the reactants, the greater will be the rate of reaction. This is because increasing the concentration of the reactants increases the number of collisions between particles and therefore, increases the rate of reaction. This also explains why the greatest rate of reaction are usually as soon as the reactants are mixed i. e. they are both at their highest concentrations. As the reaction precedes the concentrations of the reacting substances decrease and the rate of reaction decreases. The effect of concentration is shown in this experiment using potassium persulphate and Iodine showing a colour change and cloudiness due to the precipitation of potassium. Effect of Light on the Rate of Reaction The rates of some reactions are increased by exposure to light. Light has a similar effect, therefore, to increasing temperature. Thats why paper is used to surround the beaker. Effect of Catalysts on the Rate of Reaction A catalyse is a substance which can alter the rate of a reaction but remains chemically unchanged at the end of the reaction. Catalysts usually speed up reactions. A catalyst, which slows down a reaction, is called a negative catalyst or inhibitor. Catalysts speed up reactions by providing an alternative pathway for the reaction, i. e. one that has much lower activation energy. More collisions will, therefore, have enough energy for this new pathway. So the factors, which affect the rate of a chemical reaction, include: 7. Concentration 8. Particle Size 9. Pressure (for reactions involving gases) 10. Temperature 11. Light 12. Presence of a catalyst The difference in the rate of reaction can be explained in terms of a simple collision theory. Evaluation The procedure used wasnt the most accurate procedure but it was good enough to give us firm enough results and conclusion. The experiment shows a reasonably high accuracy of results to a hundredth of a second. Although, when dealing with the solutions it was taken to the nearest cm3. This was because we only had equipment to this degree although it was good enough to give accurate results. The experiment has shown to produce no anomalous results. As you can see from the graph that all the results follow the line of best fit and none seem out of place. I think the experiment shows quite a high standard of reliability. The preliminary experiment showed that the right amount of starch was used and even when repeated no anomalies were found. I can say therefore from this that I can support a firm conclusion. There are only a few things that could produce anomalous results. If the constants were not kept constant then this may produce some misleading results. This was done as best of our abilities although if a different batch of starch was used through the experiment this would produce inaccurate times also if the pipettes were accidentally mixed up or the observer of the cross changed or stopped the clock not as accurately as before. The number of results taken from the experiment though was a suitable number, although to make it a lot more accurate the results could have been repeated 3 times and then an average taken, although this would take a long time. This experiment has shown to be very suitable for its purpose and given some accurate and reliable results. If, for any instance, it was necessary to have extremely high accurate results the experimental procedure may have to be changed. If this experiment were to be changed in any way it would only be to do more repeat readings and measure and time more accurately; this then would give more accurate results. Improvements outside the school laboratories, with this experiment, can be changed by using very accurate equipment. Keeping all things, which affect the rate of reaction constant, for example light and temperature. If done in a cabinet with a thermometer and light sensor these two things can be kept constant to a high degree. By observing a colour change can be improved by a colour detection sensor. Fresh solutions in apparatus, which is cleaned thoroughly after use an also using a photocell linked into a clock rather than the visual way These differences can produce some very highly precise results. Chemistry: Scientific Investigation.