The Paper is going to be about simple assaults that juveniles commit.
Draft of your Theory Paper: Part 1
Objective 1: Investigate a type of crime or form of criminality in detail
Objective 2: Debate the linkage between human nature and the occurrence of a type/form of criminality
Part (A): Describe the nature of the crime you are interested
How is it defined under legal statute (state or federal)
Why is it of public interest
What is the frequency of its occurrence
When and where does it most often occur
Who are its victims and offenders
What are the physical and financial costs
Part (B): Describe your basic assumptions of human nature
What do you see as motivating our decisions
Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to get you to think as a developing criminologist, to link crime as a social phenomena of study with our understandings of the social factors that drive humans perceptions and engagement with crime. There are a variety of available data sources for criminologists to utilize in their pursuit of understanding crime and criminality. In furtherance of the intent of this assignment, I want you to become familiar with just a few of the more frequently relied upon data sources for criminological study.
The websites listed below offer a variety of links and search tools to the types of crime for which they have data available. The Uniform Crime ReportsLinks to an external site. gives us information all street crimes[i] (Totals, Rates, National, State, and Local Levels) both reported and arrests. It also contains more detailed links to Homicide data through its Supplemental Homicide data sets, and information on Hate crime. The National Crime Victimization SurveyLinks to an external site. provides trends on a variety of crimes through victim based reporting. Insights can be gleaned about the trends in victimization by gender, race, age, relationship, time-of-day, location, etc. Finally, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency PreventionLinks to an external site. offers access to a variety of reports and data related to a host of types of juvenile delinquency.
Using data from one of the following three criminal justice datasets:
FBIs Uniform Crime ReportsLinks to an external site.
National Crime Victimization SurveyLinks to an external site.
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency PreventionLinks to an external site.
You are required to write a theoretical paper constructing your own theory of crime that borrows from one or more of the variety of theories we cover in this course.
Theory Paper: A Final Paper merging the revised sections A and B from Part I, with these new sections of C and D is due at the end of Week #8. You should integrate Part I of your paper (A and B) into Part II of your paper (C and D).
Learning Objectives:
Construct a theory for a type/form of criminality
Report on the social policy applications of your theory
Compose a final paper combining the objectives from Part 1 and 2
Part (C): Describe the nature of the casual relationship you see for the type or form of criminality you have chosen to examine
What are the structural (Macro) or process-oriented (Micro) components involved?
Use a notable crime or criminals to demonstrate
What variables would you examine to test this causal relationship
Part (D): Describe the social policy implications of your theory
Give the broad outlines of a social policy that exists or you would develop to deter or treat those affected by the crime examined.
Note the specific ways your policy addresses the ideas presented in C (above)
