Category: Criminal justice

You should write a flowing prose paper (NOT 1, 2, 3 etc..). Your paper should have headings (Using APA 7th edition format style) that reflect each of the sections below (i.e. Introduction, opening statements, Establishing/Challenging a Prima Facie Case for Murder, evidence, closing arguments, outside factors, concluding thoughts). Under each heading you will address each of the questions asked in flowing prose (NOT 1, 2, 3, etc..).
Aaron Hernandez was a professional athlete, having played for the New England Patriots. In 2013, he was accused of murdering a mutual friend, Odin Lloyd. In 2015, he was convicted of the Lloyd murder.
You may conduct your own research in answering the questions below, but also consider the following two links for support:
Aaron Hernandez 

Aaron Hernandez Part 2

After reviewing the information provided, submit a paper using the format below and answering the following questions supported by specific authority from the links provided. 
A. Introduction
Give a brief overview of the facts of the case, including an explanation of the specific statute(s) under which the defendant was charged and/or convicted and the ultimate outcome of the case
Give a brief explanation of the burden of proof, which is proof beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal prosecution.
Give a brief explanation of why the Hernandez trial was so important to the prosecution of crimes in the United States.
B. Opening Statements
Which attorney was most persuasive and why?
Which attorney gave the jury more significant facts to consider and what were those facts?
C. Establishing/Challenging a Prima Facie Case for Murder
Name one key witness who helped establish a prima facie case of homicide for the prosecution or challenged a prima facie case for the defense, and explain why he or she helped or hurt the prosecution of the case.
D. Evidence
What other evidence (other than testimony) was significant in establishing or challenging a prima facie case of murder? Why was this significant?
E. Closing Arguments
Describe why one argument was more persuasive than the other.
Discuss what in particular may have persuaded the jury one way or the other based on the closing argument.
F. Outside Factors
What, if any, outside factors (media, public opinion, etc.) affected the trial and/or the outcome of the case and how did they do so? (What book?)
G. Concluding thoughts
Discuss why this case is important to the study of criminal justice and criminal prosecution, and how reading primary documentation about it has changed your own perspective on the case.
Format Requirements
Paper must be double spaced, 11 or 12 pt font and 1” margins all around.
All APA 7th edition format requirements must be followed (cover page, in text citations, reference page). 
You must have resources to support your thoughts/opinions/information. These must be cited both in text as well as at the end of the document. Your paper should not contain direct quotes, sourced material must be paraphrased.

CJA 470
In 6-8 pages, APA format, you will write a three-chapter paper. 
Ch. 1 being the Introduction to the topic
Ch. 2 being your Literature Review
Ch. 3 being the Summary, Conclusions, Recommendations, 
and then a references page. 
Chapter One of your Capstone project is the most significant piece of your three-chapter research effort. 
Do not assume your reader knows too much about your topic. Your goal is to educate them as to what they will be found. Write in the 3rd person, not the 1st. No, I or we. 
Minimum of at least 4 Scholarly/Peer Reviewed Journals.
Attached are all guidelines for each of the 3 parts of this essay. 
TOPIC: Body-worn cameras are being touted as the answer to reducing the deadly use of force by police and making police officers accountable for their actions. 
Literature Review Research Questions for Ch. 2
a.      Are body-worm cameras the answer? Should they be mandated?
b.             What are the privacy issues with cameras? What are the pitfalls and promises?
c.     Can evidence of a police officer’s actions be used to charge a police officer with a departmental general order violation or a crime?
d.     Identify the pros and cons of BWC’s.

(see attached Criminal Justice Formal Written Paper Grading Criteria below)
Each student is required to complete the term project, which is a 15-20 page (not counting the cover, abstract and reference page) research paper in proper APA format. Once you have submitted this assignment it is automatically run through a plagiarism checker program.
This is your FIRST DRAFT of your research paper for review.  You should not submit what you believe is your final paper.  This draft submission provides you with guidance, suggestions, and feedback that will enable you to continue further development to submit the best final paper possible. 
Submit your First Draft by no later than Sunday of week 5. 
Late submissions of this assignment will not be accepted.
COPYRIGHT 2023 APUS, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Broken Window policing believes that disorder and crime are sufficiently linked to require a law and order approach to minor crimes in order to decrease the likelihood of more serious crimes. Many have criticized this form of policing is having a disproportionate impact on racial and ethnic minorities and the homeless. Using the examples from the readings – the transit police, no right to rest for the homeless, and powder v. crack cocaine – describe the results on this form of policing and the better approaches recommended by the authors in each instance.  
Write a Summary   
Font: 12pt times new roman  
Format: MLA or APA format  
Minimum: 300 words  
Maximum: 400 words  
Sources: Utilize 2 sources with proper citations

Discussion 2 – Disaster Center Analysis
Part 1 – Your Initial Post (at least 200 words)
Go to the Disaster Center website: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/. Review the crime rate nationally and, by picking out links to state reports, compare the recent crime rates in two states. Report on the prevalence of the crimes you have examined, posting your report on this Discussion board. Propose an explanation for variation in crime between states, over time, or both. What research design would you propose to test this explanation? Explain.

Final Paper: Choose an organized crime (themed, plot or significant sub plot) movie, series, documentary, news feature, etc. and watch it with a keen eye towards organized crime aspects which you are now well versed on. Submit a minimum 4 page paper, max double-spaced, analyzing the movie/show/feature and cite aspects which are consistent on factual organized crime history / information and trends and which are more sensationalized for profit, marketability, etc. – 20 points / Due midnight, Thursday, June 27th or anytime earlier. 
Caution :  Remember to cite your sources and include a bibliography page! As the final assignment deals with sources that are from for profit organizations and from the private sector (i.e. Hollywood movies, YouTube, Streaming Services, etc.) the urgency to cite where they come from is critical to the integrity of the paper and to protect yourself!  

This assignment is from a Quantitative Methods class, Masters level.
The Assignment 7 document has 3 questions that need answered.  Question # 8 & 9 on 
the top portion.  These questions refer to the Assighment 7 paper to read.  The answers 
come from there.
Additionally, question #2 at the bottom needs answered.  It is a question about 
effect size.  There are a few things that need answered at the end of that paragraph.
I have attached the questions (Assignment 7), the paper needed to answer # 8 & 9 
(Assignment 7 paper to read), and the Rubric for the overall assignment (Assignment 
7 Rubric).  

Purpose
In the last couple of decades and currently, we have been experiencing a paradigm shift from using our subjective experience to using objective data to inform justice decision-making. Learning descriptive statistics is “fun,” but the ultimate purpose of conducting descriptive research and conducting descriptive analyses is to use the result to inform justice decision-making.
In this assignment, you will be provided with a 2018 FBI UCR dataset, an output with all the descriptive statistics as well as the visualization of the measurements of crimes that happened on university campuses in the state of California. Then, you will use these materials to write a short report to the attorney general of California, discussing how to allocate resources to deal with these crime problems. Please pay attention to the following instructions. 
Values: 
This assignment will help you to become familiar with the following values in this discipline:
The data and empirical evidence are usually utilized to inform criminal justice and public health practices to enhance public safety.
Decision-making is a process in which researchers contribute to public discord by producing reliable and accurate results.
The final subjective decisions to inform practice may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but the scientific facts remain objective.  
Knowledge: 
This assignment will also help you to become familiar with the following important content knowledge in this discipline:
Descriptive analyses statistics
Mean, Median, S.D., S.E. Minimum, Maximum, Confidence Interval, Skewness, Kurtosis, Range and Variance.
Skills:
The skills students will learn are how to use SPSS statistical software
to manage data and variables
to perform the approximate descriptive analyses based on the level of measurement of the variables
to create a visualization of the results
to present the results to a state official or the public
Method: 
This assignment will help you to practice the following problem-solving method(s) that are important in the criminal justice discipline:
Identify the “problem” or focus that your discipline is concerned with.
In criminal justice practice, reducing crimes demands criminal justice professionals identify where most of the crimes happen in a given period of time.
How does this problem relate to your discipline’s values?
The problem we are dealing with speaks directly regarding how to use empirical evidence to identify the “hot spots” of crimes and allocate limited resources to the hot spots to maximize the utility or efficacy of criminal justice practices. 
Why does your discipline use these particular methods as the means to solve these problems?
The field of criminal justice uses the following tasks or methods because it relies on empirical and scientific evidence to inform practices, which is a superior method to using ideology politics, which did not in the reduction of crimes. On the contrary, the non-scientific methods have created many more unintended consequences and social harms, such as mass incarceration. 
Tasks:
1. Download the FBI UCR Data (Assignment 1 – California Universities) Download Download the FBI UCR Data (Assignment 1 – California Universities). You find the following variables in the dataset, but we will not use all of them for conducting analyses.
The “University” variable indicates the name of the college.
Note: This is a sample (N=50) of all the colleges in California. The 50 colleges are randomly selected into this data. 
The “Student_Enrollment” variable describes the number of students enrolled in each college in 2018. 
The “Burglary” variable is the raw total number of burglaries on university campuses. 
The “Burglary_Per_Capita” variable is a rate variable that indicates the number of burglaries per 100,000 people.
In other words, it is a standardized measure of the burglary rate. 
We create this variable because campuses with more students will naturally have more crimes.
Therefore, we will create a rate variable to eliminate the influence of the number of students enrolled. 
This is how the variable is created: (Burglary/Student_Enrollment)*100,000
This rate variable is a better estimation of the seriousness of the crime problems on campus because it is a standardized measure. 
The “ZBurglary_Per_Capita” variable represents the z-score for the “Burglary_Per_Capita” variable.
2. Perform all the types of descriptive analyses and create a histogram with a curve on the variable “Burglary_Per_Capita.” 
I know some of you might not be able to do so right now because we do not have university resource access. If you can perform them on your PC, please practice performing all the necessary analyses on the variable “Burglary_Per_Capita.” If not, you can download this PDF document
Actions
(Ignore the information in the Notes Box in the PDF), which contains all the same results and visualizations. 
3. Report and interpret the results for the following descriptive statistics.
Evaluate the variability of the data by examining Minimum, Maximum, Range, and S.D. 
Examine the normality of the data by using skewness statistics and histograms.
Report and interpret the Median and Mean, then choose either one to represent the data.
Note: The data is not normally distributed; however, we will complete the rest of the tasks by assuming the normality of the sample,
Use the Mean to represent your sample, and then evaluate the representativeness of the sample by using S.E. of the Mean.
Identify the outliers using the z-score.
Estimate the true mean of the university population by using the Confidence Interval.
4. Make a decision based on the stats used, reports created, and interpretations made above. 
You are proposing to allocate 100,000 dollars to address the burglary problem on campuses. 
You are required to write a short memorandum to the California State general attorney by using the report with the interpretations of the descriptive stats you just completed above.
Note: Be sure to include your estimation of the true population mean by using your 95% C.I. statistic. 
In the memorandum, you should also discuss the reasons regarding how to allocate 100,000 dollars to which campuses.
You can give 100,000 dollars to one college, or you can divide the budget and give the money to multiple colleges.
In your decision, you might want to consider identifying the “outliers” that have serious burglary problems.
Note: This is a good place to use z-scores to identify extreme cases/colleges that have more than the usual number of burglaries.
You should not discuss what you will do with the money. Instead, this assignment only concerns which college or colleges should receive the money and how much.
This is an open-ended question. However, your decision has to be made based on an empirical understanding of the burglary problem on California college campuses.
Final Note: Because we use the variable “Burglary_Per_Capita” for our analyses, you are advised to use the appropriate language. For instance, every time you discuss the crime problem, you should clearly use the phrase “number of burglaries per capita” instead of “number of burglaries” because we conducted the analyses with the variable “Burglary_Per_Capita.”
Submission Format
Please submit your assignment by uploading a Microsoft Word Document. 
Rubric
Some Rubric (2)
Some Rubric (2)
Criteria Ratings Pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeReporting the descriptive analyses
3 pts
Reported all descriptive stats correctly
2 pts
Reported most of the descriptive stats and most are reported correctly
1 pts
Reported only a few of the descriptive stats and some are reported incorrectly
0 pts
No descriptive analyses results reported
3 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcomez-scores and hot spots
3 pts
Identified all the universities with the right threshold z-scores when identifying outliers
2 pts
Identified most the universities with the right threshold z-scores when identifying outliers
1 pts
Did identified some universities with the incorrect z-score to identify outliers
0 pts
Did not use z-scores to identify outliers (hot spots)
3 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeUsing scientific evidence to inform practices
3 pts
Decision was made based on the descriptive stats (i.e., z-scores) and the hot spots (outliers) identified
2 pts
Decision was made based on all relevant descriptive stats except for the z-scores and the hot spots (outliers) identified
1 pts
Decision was made based some of the relevant descriptive stats except for the z-scores and the hot spots (outliers) identified
0 pts
Decision made without considering evidence
3 pts
Total Points: 9

This assignment will provide you with the opportunity to examine barriers of communication and how they impact
communication within your organization and the community.
You are the supervisor of your criminal justice agency. Your unit has been plagued with communication issues. Before
speaking with your employees, you decide to conduct research regarding the importance of communication and measures
to improve communication.
In this research, you will answer the following questions: 
1. What is the importance of communication within criminal justice organizations? 
2. What impact can barriers to communication have on organizations and the community? 
3. What measures can be implemented to improve communication within criminal justice organizations? 
Locate a minimum of one article in the online library to support the assertions within your response. Your response should
be at least two-three pages. Use APA Style to format your response, proofread your work, and then submit your
assignment in Blackboard.
Information about accessing the Blackboard Grading Rubric for this assignment is provided below.

Topic for Youth Treatment Program Review #1
The topic for this assignment is first time juvenile offenders. Below I explain how you will search for the program and provide an example of a what you should submit.
Instructions
Provide the name of a treatment program for first time juvenile offenders. Include a brief summary of the program, if researchers say it’s effective or not, and explain if you would provide funding to this program. 
Name of Program
Summary: Briefly describe the “treatment” the program provides.
Program Effectiveness: Briefly describe evidence of the effectiveness. To determine this, review the evidence of it’s effectiveness. You can read about that in the Evidence-Base (Studies Reviewed) section
Cost-effectiveness: Explain whether this a program you would fund and why.
*Bonus Points (not required): Correctly identifying the crime theory that guides the program and briefly explaining the theory will earn you an additional 5 points. 
How to find the a program in the database.
Go to Crime Solutions Program DatabaseLinks to an external site. 
Under By Topic select “Juvenile” 
Under By Target Population choose “First Time Offender”  
Here is a list that comes up when I do the searchLinks to an external site.
Click on the program Title to read about it.
Example of High Scoring Submission
*This program cannot be used for the assignment*
Name
Treatment Program: Police-Initiated Diversion for Youth to Prevent Future Delinquent Behavior
Summary
Police-initiated diversion programs help young people who have committed minor offenses avoid going to court and getting a criminal record. Instead of facing formal charges, these programs offer alternatives like warnings or counseling. The main goal is to keep these youths out of the criminal justice system and provide support to address their personal and social development needs, helping them stay out of trouble in the future.
Program Effectiveness
Research shows that police-initiated diversion programs help lower the chances of youth committing crimes again. Studies back up the effectiveness of these programs. By not labeling young people as criminals and reducing their contact with other offenders, these programs make it less likely that the youth will commit more crimes compared to those who go through the regular juvenile justice system.
Cost-Effectiveness
Funding police-initiated diversion programs is a smart idea. These programs help avoid the high costs of repeat offenses and jail time. They also ease the workload of the juvenile justice system by dealing with low-risk youth early, allowing more resources to be used for serious cases. Studies show that these programs are effective in reducing reoffending, making them a good investment.
*Bonus Points (not required)
Labeling theory says that if you call someone a “criminal” or “delinquent,” they might start to believe it and act that way. When society labels kids as troublemakers, they may think they have to live up to that label, leading to more bad behavior. This happens because they start to see themselves as “bad” and have fewer chances to do positive things in life.