Criminal Justice Policy Brief Assignment Instructions
Overview
The purpose of this assignment is to apply the May, Can, Should model through analysis of a specific criminal justice policy. An effective tool for finding this legislation is through www.govtrack.us and the cost of the legislation through the Congressional Budget Office at www.cbo.gov.
Instructions
For the analysis paper, this is best done in the following manner:
May
Application of the Biblical principles – when discussing the topic of the week, make sure to apply the Biblical principles discussed in question 1 of the Synthesis paper to the specific policy that you’re discussing. How does it meet natural law, inalienable rights, federalism, etc.?
Constitutional authority – what is the Constitutional authority for the federal government to get involved? Avoid the use of the General Welfare clause as it becomes a catch-all for anything that a politician wants to get passed.
Can
Political feasibility – what is the likelihood that the policy will become law? What is the political and social support for the policy?
Financial feasibility – what is the policy expected to do to the national debt or spending? For example, the new COVID stimulus just put us another $2 trillion in debt but was widely supported by both politicians and the public.
Practical feasibility – what are the logistical resources needed for implementation (buildings, personnel, new programs, etc.) and what are the steps for implementation (ex; the Affordable Care Act needed functional websites in order to be implemented, the lack of these created severe problems with implementation).
Should
Relate this back to specific Biblical and Constitutional authorities and discuss whether or not the policy should be supported based on this and the feasibility of implementation.
The goal of this is to critically analyze a criminal justice policy to objectively determine if the federal government should be legitimately involved in the policy being discussed and if the policy is right for the country.
You are expected to submit a 1 1/2–2-page paper (not including the title page, abstract, and reference page) in current APA format in which the May-Can-Should model is applied in the context of the policy focus. Be certain to emphasize a focused analysis of a particular federal policy (either already implemented or proposed) chosen from the policy concentration area for the assigned module. You must include citations from:
all of the required reading and presentations from the assigned module/week
all relevant sources from Module 1: Week 1 and Module 2: Week 2 (you MUST use the “Biblical Principles of Government” article), and
3–5 outside sources. NOTE: These sources should be focused on the problem and the piece of legislation, and you may find that you need more than just 3-5 sources to adequately research and discuss these items.
Please feel free to use the link provided in the assignment resources for the purposes of additional research.
Please ensure that you review and follow the provided Policy Brief Template in the assignment resources.
Note: Your assignment will be checked for originality via the Turnitin plagiarism tool.
