Assignment 1: Examine Public Policy and Social Justice in the Criminal Justice System
Instructions:
People of color include Hispanics/Latinos, African Americans, Asians, Native Americans, Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders, and those of two or more races. The 2020 Census revealed that most Americans are White Americans at 61.6%, Black Americans at 14.4%, and Hispanics or Latinos at 11.2% based on population (Census, 2020). By 2022, the Hispanic population of the US rose to 19.1% making it the largest non-Caucasian racial or ethnic group based on population.
Scholars have found that some racial and ethnic people of color, particularly Black Americans, are disproportionately represented in the arrest and victimization reports which are used to compile crime rate statistics in the U. S.
Review the article Three Strikes Law found within your required resources in your course libguide.
Prepare a brief paper using 12-point font in Times New Roman and answer two of the following three questions:
Be sure to focus on the disproportionate representation of people of color in arrest and victimization reports in your responses:
1. Describe your thoughts on legislation and law enforcement strategies like the Three Strikes Law that have had a disparate impact on ethnic or racial non-Caucasian groups. Need Assignment Help?
2. Examine the impact of social and economic disempowerment of people of color resulting from discrimination in society at large.
3. Explore the impact of not being able to afford bail or hire a lawyer.
Length: 2-3 pages, not including title and reference pages
References: Support your assignment with at least 3 scholarly resources.
The completed assignment should address all the assignment requirements, exhibit evidence of concept knowledge, and demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the content presented in the course. The writing should integrate scholarly resources, and reflect academic expectations and current APA standards.
Assignment 2: Explore Social Justice in our Lives
Instructions:
Read the article entitled, Federal criminal sentencing: Race-based disparate impact and differential treatment in judicial districts, included in this Module's resources in your course Libguide.
The Supreme Court case United States v. Booker, in which the Supreme Court held that mandatory guidelines for sentencing violated the Sixth Amendment, changed the way jurists sentenced offenders. As a result of Booker, the prior practice of using strict sentencing guidelines was changed to being at the court's discretion.
Reflect and examine the statement, 'The federal government analyzes over one-half million sentencing records publicly available from the United States Sentencing Commission database, spanning the years 2006 to 2020. At the system-wide level, Black and Hispanic defendants receive average sentences that are approximately 19 months (about 1 and a half years) longer and 5 months longer, than whites" (Topaz et al., 2023, p. 1).
Prepare a reflective paper that includes the following:
- Discuss your thoughts on the Booker decision's impact, in your opinion, on racial biases in sentencing practices.
- What are your thoughts on eliminating restrictions on sentencing and the court using its discretion?
- Should there be additional oversight to ensure racial biases do not become prevalent?
- Given the knowledge of the disparity in sentencing practices, what are your thoughts? What additional questions or comments do you have on sentencing practices in America?
Length: 2-4 pages, not including title and reference pages
References: Support your assignment with at least 2 scholarly resources.
Reference:
Topaz, C. M., Ning, S., Ciocanel, M. V., & Bushway, S. (2023). Federal criminal sentencing: Race-based disparate impact and differential treatment in judicial districts. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 10, 366(2023).
Assignment 3: Recommend Strategies for the Criminal Justice System
Instructions:
This module's assigned reading by Bush and Matthews explores the distribution of federal funding for reintegration programs across the nation. Criminal justice professionals agree that more than one approach is necessary to address the emerging needs of the prison population. The assigned reading also explores the most prevalent recidivism reduction strategies in the U.S.
Law enforcement officers play a vital role in the process of reintegration. Their roles include relationship building in the community. To build trust within communities' law enforcement agencies, law enforcement professionals must maintain integrity, honesty, ethical conduct, and conduct police work unbiasedly. Bush and Matthews (2023) describe five strategies essential to building trusting collaborative relationships between law enforcement and the community.
Please review these strategies and create an action plan based on these strategies. The action plan can be geared towards the community or within a criminal justice institution. The action plan should be in a narrative format. You will list the strategy and follow the list with an explanation of how you would implement it in the setting you chose. Discuss and use at least two of the strategies, explain the logic used to determine why the strategies are important, and then summarize how to implement an action plan.
Length: 5-7 pages, not including title and reference pages
References: Support your assignment with at least 2 scholarly resources.
Assignment 4: Signature Assignment: Explore Accountability and Responsibility in the Criminal Justice System
Instructions:
In this module you will complete a Signature Assignment entitled "Explore Accountability and Responsibility in the Criminal Justice System."
Areas to address in your Signature Assignment submission include examining current and proposed criminal justice practices, disparities in the treatment of people of color in the criminal justice system, and the balance of social justice in America.
Your Signature Assignment task is to prepare a research paper on one of the following three topics:
- Investigate and discuss proven methods used to balance the scales of social justice while exploring how to reconstruct those deemed ineffective.
- Examine diverging perspectives on social justice issues while assessing accountability and responsibility.
- Illustrate how the skills and knowledge gained will be useful to all Americans, particularly criminal justice professionals, and others who make or are impacted by decisions made to ensure social injustice is mitigated for people of color in matters involving criminal justice.
Research Paper Format:
VI. Introductory Paragraph
1.
a. Introduction that grabs the reader's attention (quote from: famous person about person, an event, anecdote about the person, etc.).
b. Offer a concise summary of the main point or claim of the research paper.
VII. Body paragraph #1
1.
a. Topic Sentence (First information you found from researching your topic)
b. Facts, statistics, direct quotations.
c. Analogies, comparisons, expert opinions.
d. Your own ideas, opinions, and comments about what you found.
VIII. Body Paragraph #2
1.
a. Topic Sentence (Next idea you found out from researching your topic).
b. Facts, statistics, direct quotations.
c. Analogies, Comparisons, expert opinions
d. Your own ideas, opinions, and comments about what you found.
IX. Body Paragraph #3
1.
a. Topic Sentence (third piece of information you found out from researching your topic.
b. Facts, statistics, direct quotations.
c. Analogies, comparisons, expert opinions.
d. Your own ideas, opinions, and comments about what you found.
X. Conclusion
1.
a. Construct a discussion about the answers you found researching your topic.
b. Include what else you might like to know about this topic.
c. Explain why this topic was important to examine.
Length: 6-8 pages, not including title and reference pages
References: Support your assignment with at least 3 scholarly resources.
Essay One Assignment:
Write an essay of 750-1000 words in response to one of the topics below. (If you would like to create a topic of your own, check with me first.)
Here are some key points for success on this assignment:
- Your essay must have a clear thesis; see the thesis guidelines document for more detail.
- You must support your claims with concrete evidence from the text. Evidence can include details from the text, paraphrased passages, and, most importantly, carefully chosen quotations.
- Essays that do not effectively incorporate and analyze direct quotations from the text will receive minimal credit.
- Consider your audience for the paper to be other students in the class-in other words, people who have read the story but may not have thought about it as carefully as you have. Because your reader has recently read the story, you don't need to summarize the basic plot in your paper.
Remember, your goal in writing about literature is to show how an author (or authors) use language to create meaning and literary effects. You can only do that effectively by using direct quotations. You should use quotations whenever the exact wording is important to your argument or to remind the reader of a detail they might not remember. Always be sure to explain fully how the quoted material supports your point and/or creates the literary effect you've identified. Keep your quotations as brief as possible, quoting only those words necessary to your argument. Don't over quote to pad the paper.
You're welcome to use outside sources if they help your argument, but it's not required or even recommended. I'm most concerned to see that you can use carefully chosen textual evidence to make a coherent and interesting interpretation of the text(s).
Option 1: "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," "Lusus Naturae," and "A Hunger Artist" all feature characters (the "angel," the girl in Atwood's story, and the hunger artist) who can be viewed as misfits or outsiders. Write an essay in which you compare at least two of these stories, highlighting both similarities and differences. Discuss not only the characters and their lives but also the responses of others (including families and communities) to them. Your focus will vary depending on which stories you choose, but you could also talk about how the characters view themselves and their situations. Ultimately, what do the authors want to show through these stories and what do the stories say about the communities depicted?
Option 2: Write an essay in which you contrast the point of view in the stories "Araby" and "Hills like White Elephants." Begin by describing the differences between the points of view in the stories. Then, discuss why the point of view is appropriate for each story and how the authors' choices of point of view contribute to the meaning of each story. You might also think about how the stories would be different if they were told from different points of view.
Option 3: Write an essay in which you describe the nature and evolution of the relationship between the narrator and Sonny in Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues." Be sure to show how the relationship changes through time. There are many details you could discuss, including the story the narrator's mother tells him about his father and uncle and how Sonny's performance at the end of the story changes the narrator's understanding of his brother.
Option 4: What insights does O'Brien offer about the psychology of soldiers at war in "The Things They Carried"? There are many ways to approach this topic. You might want to talk about the intangible "things" the men carry, the way the soldiers speak, even the way O'Brien tells the story. The soldiers' views on fear, courage and valor could also come into play. Also perhaps discuss how key incidents and characters help answer this question.
Option 5: O'Connor's "Good Country People" and Lahiri's "Interpreter of Maladies" are largely about how people misunderstand each other, fail to communicate, and even deceive each other-and sometimes themselves. Choose one of these stories and use examples from the story to elaborate on these themes. What, in other words, does the story say about how and why people get things (and each other) so wrong?
Option 6: Using multiple perspectives has become a common narrative technique. Use examples from Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon to discuss some of the things multiple perspectives help a filmmaker (or author) do. Also discuss how using multiple perspectives helps Kurosawa create the meaning in his film. (You can use the Rashomon script available in Module One to find quotations to support your analysis.)
Option 7: The contemporary short story writer George Saunders wrote of Chekhov's Gooseberries that "The story is not there to tell us what to think about happiness. It is there to help us think about it. It is, we might say, structure to help us think." How does the story help us think? In particular, why does Chekhov have Ivan tell his brother's story (rather than telling it directly) and what is the effect of the other character's reactions to it? To put this more simply, what effect do you think Chekhov wants the story to have on his readers and how did the choices he makes in the story create that effect?
Writing About Literature:
The essays you write in literature courses attempt to answer interesting questions about works of literature. These questions are interesting for at least two reasons: a) their answers are not obvious, and b) their answers (or at least the attempt to answer them) can enrich other readers' understanding and experience of those works of literature. In short, you should strive to make your essays interesting to a reader who is familiar with the stories by making nonobvious points and offering insights can enrich the reader's understanding of the story.
Note that your textbook provides a very useful and detailed discussion of writing about literature starting on page 1994.
Essay Two Assignment:
Write an essay of 750-1000 words in response to one of the topics below. (If you would like to create a topic of your own, check with me first.)
Here are some key points for success on this assignment:
- Your essay must have a clear thesis; see the thesis guidelines document for more detail.
- You must support your claims with concrete evidence from the text. Evidence can include details from the text, paraphrased passages, and, most importantly, carefully chosen quotations.
- Essays that do not effectively incorporate and analyze direct quotations from the text will receive minimal credit.
- Consider your audience for the paper to be other students in the class-in other words, people who have read the poems or play but may not have thought about it as carefully as you have. Because your reader has recently read the poems or play, you don't need to summarize the basic plot in your paper.
Remember, your goal in writing about literature is to show how an author (or authors) use language to create meaning and literary effects. You can only do that effectively by using direct quotations. You should use quotations whenever the exact wording is important to your argument or to remind the reader of a detail they might not remember. Always be sure to explain fully how the quoted material supports your point and/or creates the literary effect you've identified. Keep your quotations as brief as possible, quoting only those words necessary to your argument. Don't over quote to pad the paper.
You're welcome to use outside sources if they help your argument, but it's not required or even recommended. I'm most concerned to see that you can use carefully chosen textual evidence to make a coherent and interesting interpretation of the text(s).
Option 1: Write an essay in which you analyze either Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" (964- 966) or Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" (packet) in detail. Don't feel that you have to explicate the poem in its entirety. Rather, I suggest you focus on a handful (maybe three or four) key poetic features and how they contribute to the meaning of the poem. For example, you may want to discuss key images, metaphors, word choices, imagery, or the structure of the poem. (There are certainty other possibilities.) Also, note that these are both Romantic poems, and you may want to discuss how they reflect Romantic ideas. (See the introduction to Romanticism videos in Week Three and feel free to consult outside sources.)
Option 2: Choose three or four poems by Romantic poets; the Romantic poets on the syllabus are Blake, Shelley, Wordsworth, and Coleridge. Analyze these poems to show how they illustrate aspects of Romanticism. Be sure to discuss poetic devices, such as metaphor, symbolism, allusion, and imagery in your analysis. Remember that Romanticism was a very diverse movement and that individual poems (and poets) may illustrate different aspects of it.
You can refer to the videos in the Module Three Videos folder for information about Romanticism. You're welcome to consult outside sources, but it's not required.
Option 3: Read all the poems in our textbook by Shakespeare, W.B. Yeats, Emily Dickinson, Pat Mora, OR Adriene Rich. Write an essay in which you discuss common themes in the poems by one of these authors and how the author conveys those themes in different poems. Don't feel that you necessarily have to discuss every poem by the author, but you should discuss at least three or four. [Note: this topic requires you to read poems not on the syllabus. Check the "Index of Authors" on page A45 near the end of the book to find all poems by an author; they aren't always together.]
Option 4: Read all the Harlem Renaissance poems on pages 1094-1102. Write an essay in which you discuss common themes in the poems and how the authors convey those themes in different poems. Don't feel that you necessarily have to discuss every poem, but you should discuss at least three or four. You may want to read and perhaps refer to the contextual material on pages 1089-1094, the "Contextual Excerpts" on pages 1102-1119, or both. [Note that this topic requires you to read poems not on the syllabus.]
Option 5: A Raisin in the Sun takes its title from Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem," which begins with the question: "What happens to a dream deferred?" Write an essay in which you discuss the "dreams" of various charters (such as Walter, Mama, Beneatha, Asagai). How do these dreams come into conflict? Does Hansberry seem to approve of any of these dreams more than others? Does the play answering Hughes's question? If so, how? It might be worth looking at the rest of the poem to help you answer this question. (The poem is quoted in full at the beginning of the play on 1555.)
Option 6: Write an essay exploring the psychological and emotional effects of racism and discrimination as shown in A Raisin in the Sun. You will need to discuss how multiple characters-and perhaps their relationships-are affected.
Option 7: Write an essay in which you discuss the role of gender in A Raisin in the Sun. Be sure to discuss the relationship between Ruth and Walter and the one between Beneatha and Asagai, though Mama's role as head of the family might also be worth analyzing in this context. The piece by Weaver in your textbook (1636-1640) contains some material that might be relevant to this discussion.
Writing About Literature:
The essays you write in literature courses attempt to answer interesting questions about works of literature. These questions are interesting for at least two reasons: a) their answers are not obvious, and b) their answers (or at least the attempt to answer them) can enrich other readers' understanding and experience of those works of literature. In short, you should strive to make your essays interesting to a reader who is familiar with the stories by making nonobvious points and offering insights can enrich the reader's understanding of the story.
Note that your textbook provides a very useful and detailed discussion of writing about literature starting on page 1994.