To complete the assignment for this week, respond to the following prompts. All responses should be single-spaced and in 12-point font. Be thorough in your answer. Put your response into your own words, and provide citations for any sources that are used.
If you are unsure how to provide credit to another author for their work, please see the Purdue Owl Website for ASA style citations (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/583/02/).
Final note: Do NOT use Wikipedia to support your answers. Only use academic or reputable sources.
1. In the text this week, you read information on a specialty courts. This includes courts focused on drug treatment, DUI offenders, offenders with co-occurring mental health concerns, and others. It is your job this week to find an operating specialty court, and identify how it is different from traditional court (you may not use the Veteran’s Court presented in the content this week). How does this court specifically serve the population of interest? What are the potential or expected benefits? Is there any evidence of program success? Based on the information that you have gathered, do you find treatment courts to be a good alternative to traditional court processing? Initial posts should be between 200- 300 words. Any statements of fact must be supported by a citation.
2. This assignment encourages you to think about your stance on capital punishment by considering data and theory. Though I realize that morality (based on religious affiliation or otherwise) often has a great deal to do with perspectives on this topic, think about how/if your beliefs can be supported by data. Provide a non-emotional argument in support of, or in opposition to, the use of the death penalty as punishment. This is not about how you feel regarding the death penalty. Rather, it is an exercise requiring you to use criminological theory and objective information that supports or opposes the death penalty. Incorporate a discussion on the purpose of punishment to support your argument. Use your text, the articles from this week, and AT LEAST two other reputable sources. These sources could be news articles, text books, or journal articles. Though news articles are subjectively reputable, if they reference research or statistics to support your analysis, you are welcome to use them. It is your responsibility to analyze the quality of your resources. This assignment should be no longer than one page of single-spaced writing. Approach this as a formally structured essay, with a thesis statement, a body, and a short conclusion to your paper.
