D.C. Area Organization Attempts to Prevent Juvenile Offenses

I interviewed Ronal Goff who is pursuing his doctorate in neuropsychology. Ronal currently works for a nonprofit organization that works with juvenile offenders in the Washington D.C. area. The organization that Ronal works for provides psycho-education to students through the school system. This type of education teaches children how to deal with bullies and avoiding criminal activities. If a child has already committed an offense, the organization Ronal works for places the juvenile in a social support group which attempts prevent the juvenile from another criminal offense. The organization also provides individual counseling, the counselor then tries to help the child identify goals they would like to achieve.

Ronal believes familiar support is needed to help prevent criminal behavior by juveniles. He believes that the children need mentors to help teach adolescents morals. Preventative education on crime shows to be one of the most effective methods in preventing juvenile offenses. It will be interesting to find out the actual stats on how effective these types of programs are.

Is D.C. Radio Keeping Up with it's Diverse Culture?

Ethnic radio stations are popular in the Washington D.C. area. Two of the known African American radio stations are WPGC 95.5 and WKYS 93.9. These stations consist of news, weather, and urban music. They are also known for the influential morning radio hosts Donnie Simpson and Russ Parr. WPGC and WKYS play current urban music and a bit of old school. These stations also include entertainment pieces such as gossip, skits, and prank calls.


While there seems to be several African American stations, there are also other stations that cater to the diverse DC area population. The population in D.C. is so diverse. The different media medium's have to keep with up with the changing population. Robel Worku says there are different radio stations for other ethnic groups. In his research he came across a Latin radio station, 99.1 El Zol. There are different radio stations throughout D.C. that are available for different ethnicities.

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Robel believes that there are enough radio stations in Washington D.C. to cater to the diverse population. Robel says that there are Middle Eastern radio stations in the Washington D.C. area.

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Banks Unfair Monthly Debit Usage Charge

In May some financial institutions started to impose monthly fees for using debit cards. The monthly charge ranged from three to six dollars depending on your bank. Customers were only charged for purchases made with the card. They could still use the ATM without being charged. Banks started to charge these fees in accordance to new federal rules that were not profitable for the banks. Some people were unaware of these changes that were taking place with their account. Mark Watson, communication major and a former employee of a financial institution was aware of these unfair charges.

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SunTrust, Wells Fargo, Regions Bank, and Bank of America are some of the banks that were imposing monthly charges. Wells Fargo tested out the new charge in a few states. As a Bank of America customer I was outraged to learn of this new charge to my account. I was considering leaving Bank of America and depositing my money into my credit union or moving to a bank free of fees.



Banks received a lot of backlash from their customers about these monthly charges. Recently SunTrust, Wells Fargo, and Regions bank abandoned the monthly debit usage fee. Mark believed that more customers will leave their bank and move to credit unions. Currently credit unions do not charge monthly fees. Bank of America stood alone when they said that they will not get rid of their five dollar monthly charge. Mark also believed that banks decided to stop charging the customer’s monthly fees because of a high volume of customer complaints. As of yesterday 10/31/2011, Bank of America dropped their monthly debit card usage fee. I guess they were tired of getting irate calls and complaints from their customers.


Hear what Mark has to say about these monthly charges:

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