Assignment:
You must prepare a four to six page paper (not including cover page, table of contents, reference pages, diagrams, charts, or tables) that uses a single criminological theory to evaluate the following criminal event and propose policy solutions to the problem. You must use this criminal event as the focal point for your paper:
The theory you choose to explain the criminal event must be one of the theories covered in the first several weeks of the course (any theory up to and including labeling theory). When applying your selected theory to the criminal event, you must clearly discuss how all the characteristics of good theories match up with the criminal event and the theory you selected (see Chapter 1). When proposing your policy solution to the problem, you must clearly and explicitly address the following issues:
1. If criminal justice agencies decided to take your recommendation (which must be based off of your selected theory) and implement it, what would the implications be?
2. What might happen to crime, criminals, victims, communities?
3. What economic or legal consequences might occur?
You must use either Times New Roman or Calibri 12 font, 1" margins on all sides, have page numbers at the bottom of your paper, and the work must be double-spaced - no exceptions. If tables, charts, graphs, images, etc., are used, they must be placed as appendices at the end of the paper. Do not include them in the body of the paper. If you do not follow all of these requirements, it will result in the drop of THREE points of your paper grade per requirement violation.
In addition to using your textbook, you should reach out to other academic sources to get information on your theory. You can use up to five outside references in your paper to support your information. At least three of those references must be academically sound refereed journal articles.
What is an academically refereed journal? Here is a succinct definition: A periodical that only includes articles that have been evaluated by experts in the field. These publications are usually issued two to four times a year; are published by a university or scholarly press; include footnotes, bibliographies, or references; and list author(s) and his/her/their credentials. Magazines such as Police Chief, Corrections Today, and American Jails are NOT academically refereed journals. Most of the articles in the magazines are written by criminal justice practitioners (police officers, corrections staff who work in jails, prison, probation or parole). The magazines are published by practitioner organizations (International Association of Chiefs of Police, American Correctional Association, and American Jail Association, respectively), not scholarly organizations and associations. Periodicals like TIME, NEWSWEEK, PEOPLE, etc. are NOT academically refereed journals either. Nor are newspapers. Finally, Wikipedia is not an acceptable source of information.
Make sure you know and understand what IS and what IS NOT an academically refereed journal. If you are unsure what constitutes an academically refereed journal article, ask a librarian.
Make sure you list your references in alphabetical order AND format them according to the American Psychological Association (APA) style. Use the Style Manual of the American Psychological Association to format your paper, cite your sources, cite direct quotes, and compose your reference page.