POLICING AND CIVIL SOCIETY

TERM PROJECT GUIDELINES

General objectives:

The term project is designed to enable each student to pursue a specific issue related to “policing and civil society” that is of special personal and/or professional interest. It also provides an opportunity to exercise research and analytical skills

Project topic:

Each student will select a subtopic of any of the “study week” themes to explore in depth specifically in respect to police-citizen interactions or relationships. For instance, one might choose victim services, civilian review boards, myths about policing, racial profiling—or a more specialized topic, like relationships with ethnic minorities in general or The Young Lords or Black Panthers as responses to repressive experience in particular, or the partnership approach in general or “gang resistance” programs in particular. Students will be asked to identify the focus topic they have decided on and a general strategy for approaching it by midterm.

Methodology:

• At least four primary sources of information are required for each paper, and should be a mix of print and internet media. Wikipedia should NOT be one of them!

• Start with information in the text, Course Documents, and External Links related to your topic. Pay attention through the semester to collect any references that come up in the class about your topic.

• Field research is also encouraged where possible—that is, interviewing people you know or can get in touch with who work in the area of your topic or have otherwise experienced it first-hand, or visiting sites involved in your topic, like a police station, courtroom, or jail.

• Make sure that viewpoints presented and discussed are balanced and thorough.

Presentation of findings:

Students will present their research results in a 3-5pp (single-spaced) paper including:

• Introduction: Focus topic, why it was of special interest, what you expected to find.

• Method: How you gathered the information you needed to address your topic, how you evaluated your sources.

• Findings: Narrative report of results, inserting charts/tables where relevant (these do not count towards page length).

• Discussion: Cautions, peculiarities, surprises, extent to which reflected or challenged material covered in class, extent to which met or didn’t meet expectations. This is also where critical analysis of sources and/or conflicting viewpoints belongs, if pertinent.

• Conclusions regarding topic.

• Assessment of project experience: Did you learn anything about yourself? Was there value beyond the information obtained? Did any of your attitudes or beliefs change?

Please note:

• There is no required style for citations (like APA, MLA or Chicago) as long as they are complete and in a consistent form.

• BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT QUOTES AND CITES!!! If you use exact words that are not your own, you MUST put quotation marks around them and cite the source. If you “paraphrase” or use the general information from a reference, you MUST cite where it came from. Otherwise it is PLAGIARISM and will receive an automatic F/P for the paper, no matter how much “honest” work you put into it! If you are in any doubt as to how to do this, or how to treat a particular passage in your paper, anyone at the library or Writing Center will be glad to help you!