Essay Instructions: *THIS IS MY FINAL PAPER AND SHOULD BE WRITTEN IN ESSAY FORMAT WITH AN APA STYLE REFERENCE PAGE AT THE END*
*BELOW IS A COPY OF THE INSTRUCTION SHEET MY PROFESSOR PROVIDED ON WHAT THE PAPER IS ON AND HOW IT SHOULD BE WRITTEN*
++BELOW IS A COPY OF THE INSTRUCTION SHEET PROVIDED BY THE PROFESSOR, MY INSTRUCTIONS SHOULD BE USED TO CLEAR UP ANYTHING THAT MAY NOT HAVE BEEN THOROUGHLY EXPLAINED IN THE PROFESSORS INSTRUCTION SHEET++
[PROFESSOR INSTRUCTIONS BEGIN] Writing Assignment?Criminology
Important information to consider before and while writing your paper.
1. Based on your knowledge of the theories and our discussions in class, you are to choose two theoretical categories from the two lists that I have provided (one category from List A, and one category from List B), and give an in-depth detailed story about an individual (see example below), highlighting the major assumptions of each theory in each category that you choose. Note that there is more than one theory that falls under each category. Be sure to select one category from column A and one category from column B. Make sure your facts are specific enough and relate to each theory?s assumptions. The story should resemble a person?s biography. Following the biography you are to answer the following questions:
a. How do the theories you have chosen explain the main character?s behavior (e.g. how can each be applied to explain the behavior)? Different theories may be applied using the same biographical events, however not all biographical events may be applicable to the same theory.
b. Explain what [policy] changes need to be made to make sure that persons like the main character in your story do not engage in crime.
2. You are to use size 12 point font, Times New Roman, and double spacing.
3. This assignment is divided into four parts: storyline, theoretical discussion, application/analysis and policy implications of each of the two theoretical categories. Please organize your paper in the same manner.
4. Do not waste space repeating facts or information that is irrelevant to the theories you will be applying to explain the main character?s behavior. The character?s behavior should be clearly discussed and the theories you choose must be used to explain the behavior. I am interested in what theoretical assumptions are referenced in your stories, how the theories you have chosen explain the behavior of the main character, and your discussion on what changes need to be made to lower the chances of someone else, who has similar experiences to your character, engaging in the same behavior.
I am being graded on primarily five factors:
1. Ability to provide specific detailed information on the character reflecting the theory?s assumptions (exemplifying the theory).
2. Ability to correctly apply theory to the individual?s biography.
3. Ability to provide a logical foundation for your position.
4. Ability to identify a policy recommendation that is consistent with the theory that you believe best explains the person?s behavior.
5. Writing?make sure to proof read your papers. Do not give away easy points on your paper because of a failure to correct mistakes in spelling, grammar, phrasing, etc.
Breakdown Your Score Overall Comments
Storyline
10%
Theoretical category 1 (List A)
15 % theory discussion, 15% analysis Theory discussion =
Analysis =
Theoretical category 2 (List B)
20% theory discussion, 20% analysis Theory discussion =
Analysis =
Policy Implications
10%
APA/Grammar/Cover Page/Reference Page
10%
Total 100%
Instructions: Use all the theories in both list A and B
*** LIST A***.
1. Social Disorganization (Burgess & Park, Shaw & McKay), Differential Association (Sutherland), and Differential Reinforcement (Akers)
***LIST B***
1. Traditional Strain Theory, General Strain Theory, Institutional Anomie, and Subcultural Theories (Merton, Agnew, Cohen, Cloward & Ohlin)
***Although you may stress that one particular theory works best you must discuss the other theories in the categories you chose. You must justify your reasoning for why one theory works better than another, if you want to go that route.*** [PROFESSOR INSTRUCTIONS END]
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***Example of Fictional Story our professor wrote***
Jack D. Ripper was born in Walworth County Wisconsin, the seventh of eight children of Brits Ripper and Margaret Whitechapel. One of Ripper?s sisters was a physician?s assistant and one of his brothers was a plumber. It was rumored that Speck was an XYY male, but that was disproven.
Ripper?s father worked as a carpenter in Delavan and had previously worked as a dairy farmer. Ripper was very close to his father who died from lung cancer at the age of 53, when Ripper was 6 years old. A couple of years later, Ripper?s religious, teetotaling mother met and fell in love with a leather manufacturer from Texas, Edward Gein. The hard-working, Gein had a 25 year criminal record that included forgery and several arrests for drunk driving. Ripper?s mother married Gein on May 10, 1950 in Texas, where Ripper attended the 3rd grade.
Ripper?s family lived at ten different addresses in poor neighborhoods over the next twelve years. Ripper hated his often drunken and frequently absent stepfather who psychologically abused him with degrading insults and threats. Ripper was a poor student who needed glasses for reading, but refused to wear them. He struggled in school and had to repeat the 8th grade. He failed every subject in the 9th grade and dropped out of school just after his 16th birthday. Ripper began drinking alcohol at age 12 and by age 15 was getting drunk every day. He was first arrested at the age of 13 for trespassing and destruction of property while attempting to ?cow tip?. This arrest was followed by dozens of other arrests for misdemeanors over the next eight years.
Ripper later worked as a butcher in Dallas for almost three years. In October 1961, Ripper met 15-year old Lee Wournos, who became pregnant by him after three weeks of dating him. Lee married Ripper and initially they moved in with Ripper?s mother, his sister and her sister?s husband. By this time, Ripper?s mother and stepfather had separated and his stepfather had moved to Chicago. When Ripper?s daughter, Missy, was born, his wife did not know where Ripper was?he was serving a 22-day jail sentence for disturbing the peace after a drunken melee.
A 21 year old Ripper was convicted of forgery and burglary and sentenced to three years in prison. He was paroled after serving 16 months. One week after his parole, Ripper, wielding a 17-inch carving knife, attacked a woman in the parking lot of her apartment building. Ripper, wearing a fake arm cast, had requested help to move a chair into his van. The woman fought back and closed the door on his hand, allowing her time to escape. Ripper?s van was spotted at a service station a mile away, where he was apprehended by the police. Ripper was convicted of aggravated assault, given a 16-month sentence to run concurrently with a parole violation sentence and returned to prison in Huntsville, but due to an error was released from prison just 6 months later on completion of his parole violation in 1965.
After his release from prison, Ripper worked for three months as a driver for a local meat company and had six accidents with his truck before he was fired for failing to show up for work. In December 1965, on the recommendation of his mother, Ripper who was by then separated from his wife, moved in with a 29-year old divorced woman, a former state roller derby champion who was a bartender at his favorite bar and needed someone to babysit her three children. In January 1966, Ripper stabbed a man in a knife fight at a bar, but a defense attorney hired by his mother was able to get the charge reduced to disturbing the peace. Ripper was fined $10 and jailed for three days when he failed to pay the fine.
In March 1966, Ripper burglarized a convenience store, stole 80 cartons of cigarettes, sold the cigarettes out of the trunk of his car in the convenient store?s parking lot and then abandoned his car. The police traced the car to Ripper and issued a warrant for his arrest for burglary on March 8. The arrest?his 40th in Dallas?would mean a prison term, so his sister drove him to the Dallas bus depot where he caught a bus to Milwaukee.
Ripper stayed with one of his sisters and her family in Milwaukee for a few days, and then returned to his boyhood town where he stayed with some old family friends. Ripper?s brother found a job for him sawing wood for a carpenter. After hearing that his ex-wife remarried within a week of being granted a divorce, he spent most of his time drinking and engaging in brawls. It was suggested that he burglarized a house, threatened the 65 year old woman with a knife, tied her up and raped her.
In July 1966, Ripper drove into a townhouse and systematically tortured, raped and murdered eight pre-med college students. Ripper stated that when he killed them he ?had no feelings,? but things had changed: ?I had no feelings at all that night. They said there was blood all over the place. I can?t remember. It felt like nothing?I?m sorry as hell for those girls, their families, and for me. If I had to do it over again, it would be a simple house burglary.?
During his last stint in prison, Ripper was described as a loner who kept a stamp collection, listened to music. The warden described him as ?a big nothing doing time.? Ripper was not a model prisoner; he was often caught with drugs or distilled moonshine. He was not afraid of being punished, explaining, ?How am I going to get in trouble? I?m here for 1,200 years!? He described himself as freakish and told an interviewer that one of his pleasures in prison was ?getting high.? After Ripper died, an autopsy of his brain showed abnormalities in the area which involves memory, and the area which deals with rage and other strong emotions.
{I WANT THE FICTIONAL CHARACTER IN MY STORY TO BE MALE, WHITE, RUSSIAN ETHNICITY, HIS NAME IS NIKITA VORONOV, BORN IN OMSK RUSSIA, IMMIGRATED TO BROOKLYN, NY IN 1987 WHEN HE WAS 10, FOUGHT A LOT AS A CHILD AND THROUGH OUT HIGHSCHOOL GREW UP POOR IN CONEY ISLAND IN BROOKLYN(BAD NEIGHBORHOOD), RAISED ONLY BY HIS MOTHER WITH NO OTHER FAMILY IN THE USA, WAS AT ONE POINT A DRUG ADDICT, WHICH LED TO HIS FIRST ARREST AT THE AGE OF 16, NO LONGER A DRUG ADDICT AFTER HIS FIRST JAIL BID AS A JUVENILE, RELEASED AFTER 4 MONTHS, FINISHES HIGHSCHOOL LATER BEGAN WORKING A NORMAL JOB, REALIZED THAT WASNT THE LIFE HE WANTED TO LIVE BECAUSE HE WANTED TO MAKE A LOT OF MONEY. BEGAN ACQUIRING MONEY THROUGH A SERIES OF VIOLENT CRIMES(NOT MURDER) AND WHITE COLLAR CRIMES. (MEDICAL FRAUD, INSURANCE SCHEMES, CREDIT CARD FRAUD, DRUG DEALING ETC). GAINED ENEMIES THROUGH HIS ACTIONS, AND HAS BEEN ARRESTED SEVERAL MORE TIMES AFTER 16 BEGINNING AT AGE 19. EVENTUALLY LEADING TO HIM GETTING SENTENCED TO 35 YEARS IN PRISON WHEN HE WAS 25.}
(THESE ARE JUST THE BASIC IDEAS I WANT FOR MY FICTIONAL STORY, FEEL FREE TO ADD TO THIS AND MAKE IT BETTER, BUT PLEASE DONT CHANGE IT, ALSO PLEASE MAKE IT DETAILED LIKE THE STORY MY PROFESSOR PROVIDED)
***Theoretical Application/Analysis/Policy Implications should follow the fictional story.***
***WRITE THE FICTIONAL STORY OF A CRIMINAL PERSONS LIFE FROM BIRTH TO DEATH, STORY MUST APPLY TO THE THEORIES THAT ARE MENTIONED IN LISTS A AND B AND THE SAME THEORIES MUST APPLY TO THE FICTIONAL STORY, DO NOT MENTION ANY OF THE THEORIES IN THE FICTIONAL STORY JUST MAKE SURE IT IS WRITTEN THAT IT CORRELATES WITH THE THEORIES***
***AFTER THE FICTIONAL STORY IS WRITTEN THEN YOU MUST BEGIN WRITING HOW THE THEORIES APPLY TO THE STORY AND THE CHARACTER IN THE STORY, WHILE DOING SO YOU MUST ALSO ANALYZE THE THEORIES AND ITS MAIN PREMISES***
(PLEASE DO NOT FORGET TO MENTION THE PERSON WHO FOUNDED EACH THEORY BEFORE DISCUSSING IT)
***PLEASE SELECT TWO THEORIES YOU BELIEVE BEST APPLYS TO THE FICTIONAL STORY AND WRITE POLICY IMPLICATIONS THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MET OR CHANGED IN ORDER FOR THE THE FICTIONAL CHARACTER NOT TO ENGAGE IN CRIME***
****REMEMBER****
- THE FICTIONAL STORY IS THE FIRST THREE PAGES OF THE ESSAY AND IS SEPARATE FROM THE REST OF THE PAPER
-THE REST IS THE THEORETICAL DISCUSSION, FOLLOWED BY HOW THE THEORIES I PROVIDED RELATE TO THE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS BEHAVIOR, FOLLOWED BY THE POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF TWO THEORIES AND WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE TO PREVENT THE CHARACTER FROM COMMITTING CRIME IN THE FIRST PLACE
(THE PAPER SHOULD BE ORGANIZED LIKE I JUST MENTIONED)
-PLEASE INCLUDE EDWARD SUTHERLANDS 9 PROPOSITIONS ABOUT DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION WHEN DISCUSSING IT.
++AGAIN PLEASE USE THE PROFESSORS INSTRUCTIONS AS THE PRIMARY GUIDE TO WRITING THE PAPER, MY INSTRUCTIONS ARE TO CLEAR SOME THINGS UP THAT I FEEL MAY NOT HAVE BEEN EXPLAINED THOROUGHLY BY THE PROFESSOR++
