Syllabus

CCJ5285    Survey of Criminal Justice Studies    Fall  2006
Last updated Wednesday, October 18, 2006 01:37 PM
FSU School of Criminology and Criminal Justice

Objectives:

Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:

Required Texts:

Suggested Text:

Locke, L. (et al). 2000. Proposals That Work: A Guide for Planning Dissertations and Grant Proposals. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
(This book can greatly assist in learning how to write academic papers. I require it for students once they reach the final Capstone course sequence. I very strongly recommend buying this book and using is as your guide for all academic writing.)

You can order all of these books from the FSU Bookstore and they will be shipped as one order. Order on-line through efollett at http://shop.efollett.com/htmlroot/storehome/floridastateuniversity208.html

Course Overview:

As with all social institutions, one of the best ways to approach an understanding of how we got to our current situation is through historical review of past practices, leading up to the present. Students of the American criminal justice system, which was not recognized as a system until the mid-20th Century, can benefit from an enriched understanding of the history of crime control, the law and court system and correctional practices. In particular, how these practices have differently impacted the lives of those with less power to determine both law and its implementation (e.g., minorities, ethnic groups, women and juveniles) plays a very important part of this story.

Thus, the first part of the course will focus on the historical constellation of factors that led to the adoption and eventual acceptance of our current system components of law enforcement, courts and corrections. Of course, none of these institutions are unique to the United States, but America was one of the first to attempt to institute these social control mechanisms within the framework of a constitutional democracy guided by the principle of "rule of law." Also, once established, these institutions changed over time, responding to a number of factors relating to modernization, bureaucratization, etc.,  as legal authority simultaneously was expanded and democratized to include protection of the less powerful from government power.  Nevertheless, we still live in a society in which to a significant extent "the rich get rich, and the poor get prison;" examples such as Martha Stewart and the Enron executives not withstanding. 

Although any attempt to put historical events into discernable eras is somewhat arbitrary, in this course American criminal justice history will be divided into five eras: (1) Colonial America and its Antecedents, (2) the 19th Century, (3) the Progressive Era to mid-20th Century, (4) the 1960s and Liberal Criminal Justice Reforms and (5) the Conservative Pendulum Swing from the 1980s to Present. This division was chosen as major changes occurred during the beginning of each of these eras (e.g., the Progressive era, the 1960s and the 1980s); and then to decades of working out these new policies. The 1980s has brought "get tough;" wars on crime, drugs and terrorism; "3 strikes" and "old enough to do the crime, old enough to do time" policies and practices.  Yet, at the same time, community and problem solving policing has flourished, alongside innovative community correctional programs and specialized solutions targeted at the problems that bring youth and women into contact with the criminal justice system. Countertrends and tendencies can be uncovered for any of the eras under discussion in this course. Some wish to label the current era as "postmodern," but these identified contradictory trends may be just the playing out of conservative and liberal struggles over how to define criminal justice policy.

On the academic level, competing efforts to categorize criminal justice system practices and policies have led to the development of criminal justice theories. These differ from criminological theories whose focus is on crime, criminal behavior and its underlying root causes. The second half of the course will focus on criminal justice theories and what these have to contribute to our understanding of the everyday workings of the police, courts, corrections and juvenile justice.

While most criminal justice students are already familiar with the crime control versus due process dichotomy developed by Herbert Packer, there are a number of other theoretical approaches which have been developed to provide perspective on the inner workings of criminal justice. These include criminal justice as a form of ration/legalism, as politics, as a growth complex, as a form of oppression or as a socially constructed reality. These models will be discussed, along with others, and, in particular, when they are more usefully applied to specific system components or processes. Law enforcement, law and courts, corrections and juvenile justice will be covered separately during the course's second half.

The course will conclude with a discussion of where we go from here. Will the future bring greater or lesser use of incarceration? Will police make greater use of partnership arrangements with community organizations to solve social problems or return to their historical patrol functions. Will the courts allow greater individual consideration in processing criminal cases, or move even more towards assembly line justice? Will juveniles be treated more like adults? What are the future technologies that will be employed in 21^st Century social control?

Honor Code:  Students are expected to uphold the Academic Honor Code published in The Florida State University Bulletin and the Student Handbook.

The Academic Honor System of The Florida State University is based on the premise that each student has the responsibility (1) to uphold the highest standards of academic integrity in the student’s own work, (2) to refuse to tolerate violations of academic integrity in the university community, and (3) to foster a high sense of integrity and social responsibility on the part of the university community. The complete code is available at: http://dof.fsu.edu/honorpolicy.htm

Students with disabilities:  Students with disabilities needing academic accommodation should: (1) be registered with the Student Disability Resource Center on his or her own campus; (2) bring/send a letter to the instructor indicating the need for accommodation and what type.  This should be done during the first week of class.  This syllabus may be made available in an alternate format upon request. For full information, contact the FSU Student Disabilities Resource Center at: http://www.disabilitycenter.fsu.edu/index.html

Mandatory First Day Attendance Policy:

All students are required to attend the first day of class or they are dropped from FSU courses. As this class does not meet in person, the method of taking attendance on the first day will be conducted via email. Students are required to send an email to the instructor on Monday August 28 by 11:59 PM or they will be dropped from the course. Send the email to cgreek@mailer.fsu.edu.

Course Readings by Week and Topic:

Please note: Robinson chapters are from first edition. Same chapters in 2nd edition are listed in parenthesis.

Class Discussions and Writing Assignments:

As this is a distance learning class, there are no class meetings. Instead of coming to class and participating in class discussions, these activities are held on-line. Thus, class attendance and discussion credit is earned by participating in the on-line discussion forums which are set up for each week of the class. If you do not participate in the forums for that week, it's similar to skipping class that week. Thus, it is essential that you check into the discussion forums on a regular basis, post your required discussion leader assignments on time, and reply to all fellow student posts when you are required to make comments.

YOU CAN NOT FALL BEHIND IN THIS COURSE AND THEN CATCH UP BY POSTING MULTIPLE WEEKS' WORTH OF WORK. If you have an obligation or issue that will delay your participation in the class more than a day after any deadline, the instructor needs to be told of this in advance. These courses only work if all students keep pace. These are not individualized learning courses.

Assignment One (Readings Discussions):
(First five weeks only)

Each student will be primary discussant on one of the readings’ chapters each week, while all students (within the same small group) will submit questions to the group discussant. Depending upon how many students are in the class and how many readings there are in any particular week, class will be divided into an appropriate number of small groups.

You can see which reading(s) you have been assigned once the course is underway at:

http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/ccj5285/discussion-leaders.htm

After each student's name is the group number, for example: Biletnikoff (1).

These discussions will take place inside the small group discussion boards on the Blackboard system, which will be set up by weeks with a separate discussion thread for each article/chapter. https://campus.fsu.edu/webapps/login

A. Discussion leader’s role: Your article/chapter summary should be approximately one to two pages long and include the following components:
1. An abstract of the major points of the article/chapter/section.

2. A one paragraph discussion of each of the points made in the abstract.

3. A discussion of the data sources used by the author (historical materials, surveys, interviews, theoretical treatises, etc.). You may need to go through the footnotes to uncover this.

4. A discussion of the author’s overall point of view (e.g., liberal, conservative? crime-control, civil libertarian?  biased, unbiased? etc.).

5. What’s missing from the author’s discussion? Is there another side to this issue the author seems to have ignored?

B. Student responders’ role:

The student responder role has two requirements.

First, compare the summary of material as posted by the small group student discussion leader to any other author's coverage of the same topic from the same week's readings.  Thus, Roth should be compared to Friedman or Shelden, etc. See the course readings commentaries for assistance in summary and comparison. (approximately 200 words)

Second, ask a question at the end of your post in response to your fellow classmate’s article/chapter review. Students will submit one question per chapter/reading summary within their small group. The question can be about any one of the 5 items (from the above list) in the article review. The question can ask for clarification, additional information, or offer an opinion different from the discussion leader’s on the article.

C. The discussion leader will respond to the student’s question or request for additional clarification. The responses should primarily be based upon the writings of the author you summarized. How would they answer the question. It's not enough to say: "They could not answer such a question or didn't cover the material." In such cases explain why you think they could not handle the question or what you think they might say.

Due dates for posts: The discussion leader will post their summaries by Sunday night at midnight each week. (Thus, week one discussion summaries are due by Sept. 3, week 2 by Sept. 10th) Students will have from Monday to Friday then to post their questions: first deadline is Sept 8th. The discussion leader will reply to student questions by Sunday night at midnight: first deadline is Sept. 10th. Anyone who falls more than a week behind will not be permitted to make up the assignment and lose the opportunity to earn credit for the assignment. The grades of other students in the class are dependent on your turning your work in on time. If you don't post your summary, they can't post their questions. If students don't post their questions, the discussion leader can't answer them. You must keep up or risk being dropped from this course. Not participating in the weekly discussions is equivalent to not attending class.

SAMPLE ASSIGNMENT ONE SUBMISSION

Assignment Two (Comparisons to Media Stereotypes Concerning the Criminal Justice System):
(Weeks 6 through 14 only)

This assignment will also be done in small groups.

In the second half of the course we will move from intensive discussion of the readings to an application of the readings. For most Americans their knowledge of the criminal justice system is based primarily on fictional (movies and TV shows like Oz or CSI) and journalistic accounts. One of the goals of the course will be to compare these popular culture images of the criminal justice system to the readings of this course.

Each week the student will be required to compare one popular culture account to one of the scholarly sources for that week. Thus, in week six and seven the student will compare a movie, TV show, chapter from a novel or newspaper story, TV documentary, etc. to one of the required reading articles on criminal justice theories. For week 8 and 9, law enforcement is the topic, so popular culture images of police will be used for comparison. And, so on through week 14.

Read the required readings first before searching for your media source to compare. As you read, ideas for the types of sources and stories to look for should become apparent. 

Sample Movies list plus IMDB Keyword Search

Sample Newspaper Articles Page

Media/news selections can be used only once. Each week you must submit a new media/news selection.

Each submission should be approximately one and half pages in length. These will be submitted using the discussion forum for the appropriate week. You can submit a Word document or copy and paste proofread text into a discussion forum post.

Your discussion should include both comparisons and contrasts.

1. In what ways do the scholarly literature and media source agree?

2. In what ways do they differ?

3. What are the most glaring kinds of information missing from the media account? 

4. Which criminal justice theory offers the most insight on the media account? (You can refer to theories from previous weeks as well.)

Sample assignment 2  TV show comparison

Each student will also be required to write one response to each student’s post in your small group. This can not be an “I agree with everything you said” response. The student must discuss one other article/chapter from the week’s assigned scholarly readings, or other readings from week 6 on, not covered in the student's original post, and specifically cite that article/chapter.  It can be one of the articles you used in your own submission, if it is directly relevant. What insights does the article/chapter you have selected have for discussion of the topic? Please discuss more than one item from your source which is relevant to your commentary. Expected length for each response post is one paragraph  (100 to 150 words).

All students should will post their original summaries by Tuesday night at midnight each week.  Students will have from Wednesday to the next Sunday then to post their additional commentaries. (Being a day or so late is OK, but anyone who falls more than a week behind will not be permitted to make up the assignment and lose the opportunity to earn credit for the assignment.)

During the first half of the course you can be collecting the popular culture materials you wish to analyze. If you’re off to the video store to rent a movie, consider watching a criminal justice film.

There are a number of ways to collect news stories about criminal justice system components.

The organization of Criminal Justice Journalists sends a daily email of major criminal justice stories written by their members, and appearing in national newspapers. Criminal Justice Journalists (CJJ) provides a summary of the nation's top crime and justice news stories with Internet links, if any. If you are interested in receiving their news report, Crime & Justice News, please use their registration form. You can also go to their News Center site to search all archived CJN stories.

News bots can help you be selective by searching the websites of newspapers, magazines, and e-zines to find new articles that are of specific interest to you. You can request that all stories on the topic of the week be tracked by using keywords. Visit: http://www.botspot.com/BOTSPOT/Windows/Tracking_Bots/News_Bots/

Other suggestions for services that will send stories to you via email include the New York Times (use their news tracker service [$$] to create personal daily news clippings).

Google now has a news search feature as well. Google also supports rss feeds from news services.

In order to track current news stories one can build an online, updateable newspaper/magazine page or set up a news clipping service. Crayon assists you in building a customized newspaper choosing from the specific sections of thousands of online newspapers and other media sources. As these newspaper sections are updated daily, your personal Crayon newspaper continues to provide up to date news.

You may locate other ways to track such stories. Please share these with the class via email. If you locate other good news clipping services, please let the class know about them.

As an FSU student you can use the Lexis-Nexis news service, too. It's directly linked from the FSU Library databases page under L.

Assignment Three (Term Paper):

The term paper will be due during the final week of class on, Wed, December 6th by midnight. Late papers will receive a one half letter grade penalty for each day late. You may turn your paper in early.

The purpose of this assignment is to become more familiar with one of the issues raised about the American criminal justice system in this course. The paper can focus on any topic related to course discussion. The paper can be one of three types (1) historical (2) focused on a contemporary policy or practice that is debated or controversial or (3) directed toward a future policy that can be supported by research (where should be go from here?). While opinion and interpretations are permitted, this is primarily a research paper. Your primary source of materials must be recently published, scholarly academic articles and books. Avoid newspaper and news magazines for this assignment, except if it was such a story which first peaked your interest; then include it.

Synthesis level understanding of the themes discussed in this course is expected. On synthesis level knowledge, see Bloom's taxonomy. If your paper, for example, is on the history of policies used to handle female delinquency, then your discussion must demonstrate awareness of the major theoretical models used to explain these policies that are embedded within the course text reading. This is the only reason to refer to materials in the course reading list in your paper and list them on your paper's reference list. Your own unique research is to be based upon the other books and scholarly articles you collect to write the paper. The use of text readings do not count toward the 15 sources minimum needed.

Submit your topic for the paper by posting it to the discussion forum set up inside Campus course site by Oct. 5. Instructor will review and approve it. A “complete” bibliography is due by Nov. 3 ^{(submit via the drop box)}. A sample bibliography has been posted. You may also turn in an outline, abstract, sections of the paper, etc., if you wish for the instructor’s review, but this is not required.

Submitting Papers: Please name your papers using your last name as part of the file name. Thus, the paper submitted by Bob Jones would be named with the filename jones.doc. Please send papers to the instructor (in Word format or Word Perfect if at all possible; in not as RTF files) by using the Digital Drop Box feature within Blackboard.

Follow the steps below to access the Digital Drop Box.

Step 1                 Click the Student Tools Button.

Step 2                 Click Digital Drop Box in the Student Tools area.

Step 3                 Click Send File. Browse to the Location of the Document on your  Computer’s Hard Drive to Upload the Document. (Note: “Add File” Button only uploads the file to your personal drop box, not to the instructor)