Crime

How the Choices You Make Can Turn Your World Upside Down

Consequences of Choices

Choices have consequences; therefore, think before you act. The decisions a person makes can have a positive or negative outcome. Either way, it’s wise to select the right choices so you can be sure you’re on the right path. Here are some reasons why you should think before you act.

Committing a Crime

It might be intensely entertaining to watch someone commit a crime in a movie. The criminal seems brave and daring with a horrible attitude. Remember it is acting, thus stimulating your imagination, not reality. In your everyday, real life, committing a crime can change your life. You could go to jail or even prison. Legal action may be required, and you might need an attorney to represent you. Make intelligent decisions to avoid criminal activity.

Have quality friends, friends devoted to engaging in productive phenomena. Really cogitate about how your friends and family would feel about your poor choices. Would they be ashamed or feel sad that you ruined your life? Think about how the consequences of your actions could affect other people.

Severe Punishment

Spending even a small amount of time in jail isn’t in any way easy. Prison time can prove so trying, so mind-altering that an individual can decide to continue violating the law even after returning to civil society. Another prisoner may have learned a harsh lesson and choose to become more spiritual.

Even if you aren’t arrested, committing a crime can change your life. Your conscience will bother you whether you notice it or not. It could manifest itself in ways you don’t see. It could even lead to self-destruction: you possibly falling prey to alcoholism, substance abuse or worse.

Losing Everything

As if being in jail or prison isn’t awful enough, you’re friends and family could sever communication with you. Most people don’t want to communicate and hang around unsavory individuals. Law-abiding people don’t particularly enjoy tolerating someone with malevolent intentions. When you intentionally engage in pernicious activities, one practical reality is you can (and inevitably will) lose your job. Failing to reform your behavior, therefore, might just leave you broke, busted and disgusted.

Is that all you want for your life? Hopefully not.  

If you have problems with self-control, you might want to see a trusted therapist. Learn to love yourself because that’s who you’ll be hurting the most in the end.

Educate yourself on moral and ethical conduct by reading books and attending classes that offer sound advice and instruction on ordering your life in ways reflective of authentic love, truth, and justice. 

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Resources Consulted

Law Offices of Jeff C. Kennedy

Sam Silverstein

Thought Catalog

Pick the Brain

 

Keep Your College Student from Becoming a Victim of Identity Theft
Identity Theft

(Photo Credit: Identity Theft Protection)

Identity theft is the fastest-growing crime in the country, according to the FBI.  College students are especially vulnerable to this type of fraud for a couple reasons: They lack an understanding of how important it is to keep personal information safe, especially in this era of excessive sharing through social media, and because they come with clean credit histories which they are unlikely to monitor.  We have a responsibility to educate our college-age students about identity theft and how to prevent it.

Prevention Tips

  • Tell your children what identity theft is and how it could affect them if they are not careful. It is vital that anyone going away for college has a clear understanding of the issue and the consequences if certain measures are not taken.

  • Despite having a clean credit history, it’s necessary for college students to check their credit regularly. This is a good way to keep an eye out for fraudulent activity and accounts opened in their name.

  • Explain to your children that when shopping online, they must only use secure websites. This must be the rule if they are going to use a bank or credit cards online. The best way to recognize a secure website: There is an “s” on the end of “http.” This provides customers with peace of mind that payment information will be kept confidential.

  • Teach your college students to always use a firewall and a quality antivirus and malware program. This program should be updated regularly to ensure the latest version is being employed and the maximum protection.

  • Consider signing the whole family up for an identity theft protection service such as LifeLock. This is the ideal way to keep personal information secure. Such services monitor their clients’ accounts and offer them fraud alerts, guidance and resources on how to keep personal information safe.

Basic Security Measures

  • Your children should have a secure place to store their Social Security card, personal documents, credit cards and mail.

  • Teach your children to keep their campus apartments or dorm rooms locked to stop people from going through their personal belongings.

  • Invest in a paper shredder. This is the best way to eliminate documents no longer needed.

  • Instruct your college students to create a separate list of all their account information and banks’ phone numbers. This makes it easy to report a card as misplaced or stolen. They should also keep the phone numbers of the three major credit bureaus handy in case anything suspicious happens.

We are responsible for sending our children out in the world armed with good facts about protecting themselves. With these simple tips, we can educate these young adults so they don’t fall prey to identity thieves.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Related Articles

Men Get Raped Too

Grown men get raped too. For many people, they cannot even fathom the thought that it’s possible for a man to get raped. Some people think that if a man gets raped that he needed to get raped because he should have been man enough to prevent it. Of course, a man getting raped by another man or by a woman happens much less than a woman gets raped by a man. We still, however, need to engage in serious discourses about men who are raped. One of the dominant reasons why men who are raped is largely underreported to the authorities is shame. The shame that male victims of rape experience may be greater than the shame women face. When one thinks about the hypermasculine expectations that American society places on men, especially men in the African-American and Latino communities, the thought of a man who “lets himself get raped” is unacceptable. Men who are truly raped are not letting themselves get rapped—they are being victimized in the same ways as women who are raped.

We must create spaces where men who are victimized by rape can speak and where they can find support and refuge. Those of us who are committed to truth and justice need to include male victims of rape in the work that we do. There’s a true need to find real and innovative ways to counter the shame that men face when they are raped. Shame is keeping many men from coming forth or causing them not to immediately report the vicious sexual attacks on their body.

It’s important to give people some examples of how a grown man can be raped because many people don’t believe it’s possible. A grown man can be raped by a group of bi-sexual or down- low men who outnumber a man who is alone. You have to understand that sometimes a group of men will want to have sex with a man so bad that they will set him up to be sexually gang-banged. Moreover, a woman can use a date rape drug to rape a man. The date rape drug can render him powerless to her desire to rape him. Many men are too hypermasculine to see this as rape because they will see that he’s a man and he’s receiving something “good” out of the encounter. It’s rape! A gay man can overpower another gay man and rape him. It happens!

Just because you have never heard about a man getting raped does not mean that it has not and does not occur.

Rape is one of the most violent acts that can be inflicted on a person. Women are, of course, most often impacted by rape. We have to, however, become more sophisticated about the ways in which we discuss rape because men are not included in our popular discourses on rape. Since men are mainly the rapists, their relationship to rape is primarily as victimizers. There has to be an understanding that they are victims too when discussing rape. In no way am I trying to diminish the focus on the impact that rape has on women, but I want us to realize that men are being victimized by rape too.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison