Research Paper

Students will choose a topic in the field of community justice that they are interested in exploring further.

According to the course learning objectives, students in this course will:
 Investigate learning opportunities beyond the classroom, community
participation/placement;
 Identify what is a criminal justice ‘community resource’ and articulate its role functions
and limitations;
 Conceptualize reasons why criminal justice community resources are important and how
their clients benefit;

Learn to identify how government and community resources reduce crime, address the

needs of all stakeholders, (victims, offenders, and communities, etc.) and enacts justice;
 Have the ability to research and explain the funding sources of criminal justice
community resources;
 Present a final report and presentation on community resources experience;
 Work with diverse others on issues of common concern; and
 Uncover and interrogate one’s own biases and predispositions.

Selecting a Topic for your Paper

Your research topic should emerge from your own individual curiosities. Questions that
spontaneously come to us in the course of our experiences are precisely the type of questions that
make for excellent research topics. As a first step in determining your research topic, I suggest
you make a list of researchable questions as they arise for you. A critical part of development as
a scholar is knowledge development through investigation and research. This research practicum
paper targets the development of students’ research skills with these specific goals: (1) to provide
research/investigation experience through participation in efforts personal to them; (2) to involve
students in doing research early in their academic career (3) to increase students’
/investigation/research skills; and (4) to develop skills in writing for possible publication.
This paper should be 8 – 9 pages (not including references & cover page) and incorporate at least
2-3 assigned readings which must be referenced, plus 3 additional references to scholarly journal
articles, scholarly books, and/or other academic sources. In addition, you must have talked with
two individuals connected with your topic, and those conversations must be referenced in your
paper.

Compare and contrast two incidents of a child killing their family, and explain why one case was tried as an adult and the other as a juvenile.

***Make sure to express your thoughts/opinions on each of the cases you choose, explaining why you believe they decided to do what they did and what you think of their decisions.

Do you believe either case could benefit from restorative or retributive practices?

*the essay should be written in first person, write the essay based on your opinion