The discussion component is an important part of your grade, so please take care to give this part of the class sufficient consideration and effort.

You must make an original post by Thursday, and respond to at least two other posts by the Sunday.. Late initial posts will be docked by 10% of the grade otherwise earned, daily. Posting on the last day limits the amount of discussion and interaction and will result in a point deduction when posts are all listed on the same day. Overall tone for discussion boards should remain formal. Remember accuracy is important. Emoticons and acronyms should be avoided and no creative spelling should be used. Proof-read your posts, as you will be graded on accuracy as well as content. In your original discussion post, it is required that you cite at least two pieces of concrete evidence. This means that you need to cite, at least twice, from a source in this class: the textbook, information and media shared in the “required” material or optional articles in the “additional resources”. Information outside of the course (if used) should be fact based. These are the only options because your discussions need to be based in evidence – your responses need to be substantive. Further, this is a 400-level class where we are reading, writing, and thinking about research in a concrete manner. Your posts are considered academic writing. When asked to support your positions, please cite correctly to avoid plagiarizing and to receive full credit. This means not including direct, or long direct quotes which is not proper APA. Proper citations are paraphrased information with a reference to the author at the end of the sentence or paragraph. Paraphrasing information into your own words indicates comprehension and understanding of concepts, and direct quotes do not. All original posts should meet the minimum word count (500) requirement but will likely need to be longer to adequately address question prompts. All response posts should be at least 150 words each, and be non-repetitive, substantive sentences. Please remain primarily in the third (and not first) person for original posts. For more information on writing and proper APA please see the two tutorials below. Please see the grading matrix as well:

CRJ Writing Guidelines Helpful Info.pdf

PROPER CITATION OF REFERENCE MATERIAL.pdf

Grading Matrix Discussion Boards.pdf

Respond to the following:

In the final chapter of our text we addressed both criminal justice and public health responses to crime prevention. The criminal justice response tends to focus on preventing existing crime (neighborhood watches/security systems) or addressing it after it happens (deterrence and punishment/re-entry and rehabilitation programs). These tend to focus on individuals. As our text points out most policy makers, practitioners, and researchers now agree that the best way to combat violence in U.S. society would be through prevention rather than intervention strategies. The “violence as a public health problem” response is preventative by focusing on macrolevel, multilevel, and community wide factors that influence violence. It seeks to address crime before it happens and lessen or prevent it. Please discuss this approach including factors of primary and secondary prevention and their strategies. From this perspective what strategies and/or programs (found in the text OR in your outside research) are most beneficial for crime prevention? Please include a generally focused strategy (works on crime in general) and one program specific to a certain type of crime (DUI abatement, school violence etc.). Please present information and research (not opinions) to support your conclusion.

REMEMBER – This is not an opinion only based assignment, it is a research-based discussion where applying course material to support your points is required. Make sure all arguments for each part include references to course materials and credible sources to support your opinions. If you include only personal opinions and anecdotes in lieu of research based material this will result in a point loss as they cannot and will not be graded.

Your initial post (500) minimum word count) is due Wednesday by 11:59 pm.

Reply to a minimum of two peers, commenting on their original post in a substantive, non-repetitive and insightful manner. Your two response posts (150 minimum word count each) are due Sunday by 11:59 pm.

Replies may include paraphrased citations/references as well. Replies should also include new information. Just liking and agreeing with other students’ initial posts (and/or just repeating in your reply what you stated in your initial post, or repeating the same information from your first response again in the second reply) is not likely to be satisfactory.