Posted: May 8th, 2015

Sociology of Crime

CCJ27: Sociology of Crime

Research Essay: Guidelines and Suggestions

Griffith University, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice

 

Essay Guidelines

Word limit:                     2000 words

Due date:                         5pm Thursday of Week 11

 

The essay is worth 40% of your total grade. As such, it is very important that you follow the instructions below and attend tutorials to ensure that you receive a good mark. Allow at least three weeks for writing your essay. Plan to finish writing it several days before the due date to allow time for checking and revision. To complete the essay, you need to follow the steps listed below:

Choose ONE of the following research questions. You need to insure that your work has focus, an argument and an analytical discussion. You should present a clear, thoughtful, reflective and well-presented piece of work. All essays should be carefully referenced with a complete reference list.

 

QUESTION 1:

Recently, the Queensland Government discontinued the use of court-referred youth conferencing, choosing instead to pursue other options for youth offenders. One of these options is the use of boot camps, which has been controversial in other places such as the United States. In Queensland, there is strong media and public support for these camps.

 

Conduct research into the use of youth boots camps in other countries, and address the following questions:

1. What other places than Australia have these camps generally been used? What is their background and why have they been popular?
2. Have these camps generally been effective in reducing youth offending? What criteria have been used to determine effectiveness?
3. It is possible to ascertain whether or not these camps are cost-effective in reducing offending?
4. Following your findings, what criminological theory/ies best explain why this type of youth intervention either is, or is not, effective in reducing youth offending?
5. What is their likely outcome/success in Queensland, based on your findings?

 

QUESTION 2:

In the past two decades, crime in Australia has dropped significantly. Virtually all types of property crimes and most types of violent crime have followed this trend. The major exception to this has been assault, which has not dropped but rather risen almost 25% since 1996 (see chart below). Write an essay addressing the following questions:

1. Explain the basic patterns in criminal offending for the last twenty-five or so years in Australia. What are the reasons normally provided for the decrease in crime generally?
2. Why do rates of assault not follow the general trend in crime? Make sure to provide accurate crime data for offenses. Also, make sure to identify what, in your estimation, are the primary factors for the increase in assaults since the middle of the 1990s.
3. Explain your findings with reference to one or more of the criminological theories we look at this semester.

 

Source: AIC, Australian Crime Fact & Figures, 2011

 

QUESTION 3:

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, “The number of female prisoners in Australia is growing at a faster rate than males . . . The number of women behind bars has increased 8.4 per cent over the last 12 months and 48 per cent since 2002. This compares to the number of male prisoners which increased 0.4 per cent over the last 12 months and 29 per cent since 2002.”

 

Write an essay that addresses the following questions:

1. Why have women been incarcerated at a rate faster than men during the same period? What factors explain this difference?
2. Is this is a new phenomenon?
3. What theory/ies best explains this disparity, and why?
4. What is the significance of the growing number of women in prison, from the point of view of the theory you use to explain this trend (and your own point of view)?

 

Format and Guidelines:

Please refer to the APA Publication Manual, 6^th edition, for style and referencing guidelines. There is an online tutorial here (http://www.apastyle.org/learn/tutorials/basics-tutorial.aspx). Griffith also has an online referencing tool here (https://app.secure.griffith.edu.au/reference_tool/index-core.php)

 

 

Assessment Criteria: You will be assessed on four criteria for the essay. These are:

1. Structure and Argument
2. Content
3. Referencing
4. Presentation

 

Please look at the attached marking sheet to familiarize yourself with how you will be assessed, and what we will be looking for in your essays. Please note in particular that there is an expected minimum of eight scholarly works that should be used in your essay. This means that you are expected to conduct outside research, i.e. scholarly works outside of the materials presented in the class. Also, “scholarly works” mean peer-review journal articles, academic books, and governmental publications. If you are unsure, ask your lecturer or tutor.

 

 

 

 

Suggestions for Writing the Essay

1. Develop your ESSAY PLAN – Take notes from your resources, make your own interpretations, jot down references (i.e. the author, date, publication title, publication place, publisher and page numbers).
2. Draft AN OUTLINE of the essay, with topic sentences for each paragraph.
3. Write a SUMMARY STATEMENT (introduction) at the beginning of your essay which presents your thesis statement, as well as an overview of the essay itself.
   • Also, think of your first paragraph as especially important in gaining the interest of your reader. Like a song, if the first 20 seconds are bad, the listener is likely to turn the song off – and the same goes for writing as well.
4. Write the body of the essay, using the outline as a guide
5. Write your CONCLUDING STATEMENT (conclusion) that brings together all the main points you have made and makes clear to the reader what your argument is.
6. REVISE the essay – You may need to do this several times, so make sure you leave enough time (especially if you want a tutor to have another quick look at it). Look at the MARKING GUIDE and see if you have covered all the things we will be looking for in your essay!
7. Write a FINAL DRAFT of the essay. Make sure that it is checked for correct spelling, grammar, punctuation and that the reference list uses a consistent and recognized citation format.

 

CCJ27 Sociology of Crime– Essay Criteria Sheet

Student Name:

CRITERIA: SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT UNDERLINED	EXCELLENT	VERY GOOD	GOOD	POOR	UNSATISFACTORY
Structure & Argument                                                                         /15 Introduction synthesises relevant literature, summarises the problem and the argument Essay directly addresses the question Breaks question into parts and responds to each Follows a set plan Mounts a coherent and logical argument Does not just rely on description Integrates information from various sources Supports argument with refs/evidence Conclusion summarises issues & argument	Meets all criteria to a consistently high standard. Strong argument & structure. Excellent use of sources. Focuses precisely on the question asked and deals with all aspects of t.	Meets most criteria well. Good argument & use of sources, but may need stronger links and integration between sections.	Good effort on most criteria. Good attempt at argument, but may lack cohesion. May be too much reliance on quotations, rather than conveying points in the student’s own words. May omit/ not deal well with part of question. May be generalisations.	Makes attempt, but likely to be confusing, contain repetitions, lack an obvious plan, have strings of quotes not properly integrated into the argument. Likely to omit parts of the question. May have some irrelevant material/ generalisations.	Fails to mount any reasonable argument. Lacking in structure and cohesion. No reference to sources, or unintegrated references. Contains much irrelevant material, relies heavily on generalisations.
Content                                                                                                   /15 Explains/defines all relevant key terms, theory and concepts Provides concise overview of the topic Refers to sufficient range of key references and sources (at least 8 journal articles or academic book chapters or books) to show understanding of topic Draws explicit links with key literature Uses relevant examples	Meets all criteria to a consistently high standard. Shows excellent understanding of all aspects of the topic, key concepts and theory.	Meets most criteria well. Canvasses main points and demonstrates good understanding of key concepts and theory.	Good effort on most criteria. May omit or not demonstrate knowledge of some relevant issues or theory. Content may not be balanced.	Makes attempt, but may be omissions or errors. Definitions may be confused. Lack of reference to relevant theory. May be insufficient use of key sources.	Fails to demonstrate familiarity with topic, theory and key concepts. No understanding shown of background info or key sources. No or inadequate research shown.
Referencing                                                                                           /5 Provides in-text referencing for all arguments, assertions & evidence Appropriately paraphrases source material Provides a complete list of references Uses correct APA/AGLC style as appropriate	Meets all criteria well. Consistent in-text referencing. Good paraphrasing. Complete, properly set out list of refs. Uses APA style.	Meets most criteria well. Generally good referencing & good list of refs. May be some minor errors. Uses APA style.	Good effort, but refs need to appear appropriately in text (not tacked on to end of paras). May be some unsupported assertions.	Referencing needs work. Too many unsupported assertions. Inconsistent in-text referencing. Errors in list of refs.	No or inadequate in- text referencing. Poor list of refs. Relies on unsupported assertions. Borderline plagiarism.
Presentation                                                                                           /5 Clear and readable in formatting and presentation Clear and readable in terms of written expression, including adequate spelling, grammar, proper use of sentences and paragraphs, and academic style Conforms with word length requirements	Meets all criteria. Excellent standard of expression and presentation. Engaging and interesting writing.	Meets most criteria well. May be some areas where writing is awkward or contains minor errors.	Good effort but writing may need improvement eg. paras & sentence construction & grammar. May need more formal, neutral style.	Writing in general need of improvement – makes reading essay quite difficult. Errors in construction, grammar, spelling, style.	Writing very hard to follow. Many errors in construction, grammar, spelling, word choice, style.