SOCL 227: CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEMS

FALL 2011

NEWS REVIEWS

WHAT:  Students are responsible for turning in 3 papers reviewing recent news about crime.  Each paper will be at least one page, double-spaced and typed.  There are 2 steps that you will need to follow.  First, you will need to find a news story that relates to one of the topics we have discussed in class.  They may be stories that are linked to any of the topics that have been or will be discussed during the current unit (There are 3 units in this course, look at the syllabus to see what topics are contained in each unit).  You should look for news stories on web sites that provide news content. 

Some examples:

• yahoo.com
• cnn.com
• foxnews.com
• abcnews.go.com
• cbsnews.com
• msnbc.msn.com
• news.bbc.co.uk (use to compare UK and US CJ)

            Once you have found a relevant news story, print it.  The next step is to write your one page review.  In this review I want you to briefly discuss the story (about a 1 or 2 sentence summary).  The remaining portion of your paper needs to be devoted to your examination of the article.  You should frame your review in terms of ideas and concepts that we have discussed in class.  Here are some questions that you could address:

• What does this story mean for the current and future status of the US criminal justice system?
• How is this story and its participants embedded in one of the various criminal justice perspectives?
• What are the potential positive and negative consequences of new laws and court rulings?
• Most importantly, how does this relate to topics in the textbook and lectures? (Use concepts and vocabulary from the class or the textbook)

Please note that these are only a few potential directions in which you may take your review.  The key element that I am looking for in these papers is that you use CRITICAL THINKING and that you provide an in depth analysis of the story at hand.  Finally, these papers need to be STAPLED, with your review on top, with your name and the date at the top of the review.  Papers that are not stapled or are not in the correct format will receive grades of ZERO.

WHEN:  Papers will only be accepted on three set dates: 9/20, 10/27, and 12/1.  Papers will NOT be accepted by email.