SOC 324 Crime and Violence Issue Worksheet

1. Choose a topic. What is your chosen crime or violence issue? Choose from the following list and provide a brief preliminary overview. Your overview will simply be 1–2 sentences describing why this issue is important to you and to society in general.  

• Decriminalization of responsible drug use

• Intervention on the issue of campus rape

• Prisons as mental health institutions

• Militarization of police 

• Institutionalized racism in a chosen area of the criminal justice system

• Other issue (if approved by instructor)

2. Introduce your social advocacy group. This is an advocacy group of your own creation. In other words, if you were to establish an advocacy group dedicated to the work of your issue, what does that advocacy group look like and what are its ultimate goals (e.g., public awareness, political action, social action, changing laws)?

• Explain the work the group does related to the topic area.

• Explain how the social issue aligns with the group’s ultimate goals.

3. Begin research: Provide summaries and citations of some of the sources you are finding related to this topic area. Include two or more sources here.

4. Preliminary position statement: Explain your position on the social issue as a research assistant for your social advocacy group. Try to refine your position into a clear and succinct position statement that your advocacy group might use on its website or in its materials. This statement is preliminary at this point, and may evolve as you continue your research.

5. Stereotypes: As you work through the research, you will begin to uncover stereotypes related to your issue. What have you discovered thus far?

6. Further exploration: What have you come across that you want to find out more about? This section is for notes to yourself about additional research you plan to pursue.

7. Questions: Any questions for the instructor about the project or the topic area. (This area is optional.)

Note: In many cases, you will write more than the size of the text box provided above, which is fine—use as much space as you need. If you have to go on to additional pages, the boxes will expand automatically as you write more.