1. Go to What
Every American Should Know About Criminal Justice. In a short paper,
describe what you thought were the most important points and why. Use the
'Questions to Ask Someone Who Wants Your Vote' as the basis for a letter
to an elected official.
2. Summarize the concerns
about imprisonment expressed by the American Society of
Criminology's National Policy Committee
3. Go to the following two sites
related to drug policy. Spend an equal amount of time at both and write a
short paper discussing the best point you think is made in each one. White
House Office for National Drug Control Strategy and National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Repeat this
exercise focusing specifically on marijuana.
4. Go to the Sourcebook
of Criminal Justice Statistics and navigate into the section that has
statistics on incarceration. Find the chart on the number of state and
federal prisoners per 100,000 population. (You may need to install Adobe
Acrobat to read the .pdf chart.) What year did prison populations start to
grow substantially? Put a mark on the chart about when crime rates –
especially violent crime rates – started to fall. (You can get this
information from earlier sections of the Sourcebook or many criminal
justice textbooks.) In a short paper, discuss how this information does or
does not support the idea that increasing the prison population reduces
crime.
5. Go to CEO
Paywatch and click on ‘CEO database’. Use the database to find
out how much the executives of tobacco companies make. How many years
would you have to work at your current salary to make what they do in one
year. Will you make that much in your lifetime?
6. Thomas,
named after founding father Thomas Jefferson, is the access point for a
variety of information about our federal government. Navigate your way to
the last full session of Congress, and chose the option to review major
legislation. How can you find out about legislation related to crime
control and crime prevention? Review the list of
proposed legislation and write a short paper that briefly summarizes the idea
of the proposed legislation, including what assumptions about the causes
of crime seem to be implicit in it. Give your opinion about how relevant
these bills are to the country’s ongoing high levels of crime.
7. From Thomas,
navigate your way to the last full session of Congress. Search the
Congressional Record, which is a copy of all the speeches given in
Congress and the remarks that members of Congress thought important enough
to submit into the record. Search for terms like: crime, crime control,
crime prevention, public safety, etc. Write a short paper that describes
the search terms you used and reviews what you found. Do the results
inspire confidence that federal elected officials understand the problem
of crime and what can be done to stop it?
Alternatively, find out how to
limit the search to a senator or representative from your state. Find
your Representatives and Senators, then see what they have said about crime and criminal
justice.
8. Find the home page for your
state legislature, using the search box on the right if necessary. Repeat the exercises above to see what is being done on
the state level. Is the legislation is more relevant than what is at the
federal level? Do the state legislators seem to have a better grasp of the
problem?
9. Write a paper on one
of the issues at SocialJustice.org
