For your Term Paper, you are to pick two specific theories and use these theories to explain a real-world criminal event or activity.
You are to find some criminal event from an online search and you must provide your professor with the website and specific address for the online article that discusses this event or activity. The website for your chosen event or activity must be submitted to the instructor by the beginning of week four so that it can be verified by the professor by the close of that week. This event can be discussed in any online news or academic source (for example, an online news story, discussion in an online professional journal, an academic journal that is online, and so forth). This must be an actual crime that occurred, not a broad discussion of a category of crime.
Upon selecting your topic event or activity, you will then choose two specific theories (for example, Social Learning Theory by Ronald Akers) to explain three specific issues.
The issues to be explained by the theories are as follows:
- Why the specific criminal event or activity that you chose occurred,
- How each theory can be used to predict and prevent the likelihood of a similar crime occurring in the future, both nationally and globally, and
- Suggestions that each theory would probably give on how to process this offender (or group of offenders) through the criminal justice system (i.e., death penalty, life sentence, community supervision, treatment orientation or punitive orientation, and so on).
Your Term Paper should have a Cover Page and an Abstract at the beginning, and a References Page at the end. You should have at least 20 references beyond the course text. The Cover Page, Abstract, and Reference Page should all be in APA format. In addition, all internal citation of outside sources plus the listing of all references should also adhere to APA format. All text pages should be double-spaced and in 12 point font.
Further, your Term Paper should consist of an Introduction, a Main Body, and a Conclusion. The Introduction Section should be 3–5 pages. The Main Body should consist of four specific sections. The first section should be entitled “Criminal Event,” which will explain the details of the specific criminal event. The second section, "Etiology," will explain the two theories chosen to explain the criminal behavior, including the history and current state of each theory. The third section should be entitled "Prediction and Prevention," which will apply the two theories to the criminal event, demonstrating how each theory explains that crime. Lastly, the fourth section should be entitled "Recommended Criminal Justice Responses," which discusses the policies, programs, and laws created to address this type of criminality in the United States. Each of these sections should be from 3–5 pages in length. This should then be followed by the Conclusion section of roughly 2–3 pages that clearly refines the connection between your chosen theories and your chosen criminal event or criminal activity.
Your Term Paper should be anywhere from 14–23 pages in length (plus a Title Page, an Abstract Page, and a Reference Page). Page length is not the basis of a favorable grade, though if submissions are less than the minimum, the instructor may penalize your paper at his or her discretion.