Task:
Select one, just one (1), that's only one, of the topics below. Your task is to craft an essay that summarizes the attitude and opinions of the group. Yes, some knowledge of these topics is required and for some students some research will be needed to develop the essay.
Based on your knowledge of crime and the administration of justice offer an essay of about a page that responds to the question that is related to the topic in bold text.
Criminal justice as a rational legal system, per Beccaria
To what extent are crime policies rational in the sense that the costs of enforcement are created in the ways Beccaria stated as being effective in deterring crime? Are some crimes so severely punished that respect for law is lost: or, conversely, are some crimes (or "social harms," such as illegal dumping of pollutants) so minimally punished to negate the deterrent effect?
Criminal justice as politics
What forces move criminal justice policy and is criminal justice policy relevant to crime issues in the US? How do (or have) politicians use crime to achieve broader goals such as to get elected?
Social construction of criminal justice (moral panics, social reality, etc.)
How is the crime problems constructed and is that construction in any way related to the reality of crime? What themes, images, slogans, data, rhetoric, or policies are (or have been) used to convince the population that a there are crime problems that need to be addressed in the creation of new laws or new control strategies?
Criminal justice as an industry
What factors are relevant to the fact that crime is now a venue for profit making, and what impact does this have on the criminal justice process? To what extent is the profit motive a driving factor in law creation or the decriminalization and does this serve the public good or just the good of government (speed traps) or business (home security systems)
Criminal justice as oppression
What are the dimensions of race, gender, class and other oppression in the criminal justice process and our imagining of a fair and unbiased system of crime and justice?