CJS 110 -- Introduction to
Criminal Justice, May Interim 2015
Welcome to the online
version of CJS 110 at Bradley University. This document contains the basic
information you need to get started on your course work.
Course Title: CJS 110 --
Introduction to Criminal Justice
Instructor: Craig Curtis
Instructor's Office Information: Bradley Hall, room 486
phone: 677-2492
e-mail: rcc@fsmail.bradley.edu
Required text: Larry J.
Siegel and John L. Worrall (9th ed. 2015) Essentials
of Criminal Justice. Wadsworth/Cengage Learning (ISBN: 9781285441528). The
e-book option is less than half the price.
Course Description
This is an introductory
course on the American criminal justice system. It is designed to give you a
basic understanding of how this country defines what behaviors are criminal and
how policies to address deviance are made and implemented. As such, it is a
survey course, meaning that we will cover a series of topics in a sequence
without too much coverage of any one topic in depth. This is also a course to
be delivered in a distance learning format. This will affect the course content
in a meaningful way. You will have to have some basic computer skills to
complete this course. For example, you will need to be able to access the World
Wide Web, send and receive e-mail, use a word processor, and use the Sakai
Course Management software.
The Assignments
You will have six types of assignments to complete this course: (1) reading the text; (2) completing the chapter quizzes; (3) completing the chapter assignments; (4) completing two section assignment essays; (5) writing your own blog, opinion piece, about a Supreme Court Case from a recent term of the United States Supreme Court; and, (6) participation in forum discussions. The assignments will comprise your grade as follows:
The grades will be
assigned according to the following scale:
|
A
90-100% |
D
60-69% |
|
B
80-89% |
F
below 60% |
|
C
70-79% |
|
To Get Started
The first thing for you to
do is to read the preface and first chapter of the book. It is my intention to
follow the order of the book, going from chapter 1 to chapter 14. When you have
read a chapter, then take the quiz and do the chapter assignment for that
chapter. You may participate in the forum discussions at any time, but must
make at least five contributions per week. A contribution is a single thought –
could be as short as a sentence and could be much longer. The two section assignment essays are designed
so that you make connections between the concepts in the chapters. You should complete
section assignment essay number 1 after you have finished chapter 7. The final section
assignment essay should be done after you have finished all of the chapter assignments.
To get to the actual assignments, click on Assignments at the left of your
screen. Please note that all assignments must be turned in by 5:00 pm on
Friday, June 5, 2015, although some assignments will be due earlier. Please
check the course outline below.
Guidelines for the chapter Assignments
For each chapter there is an associated chapter assignment
designed to reinforce a key lesson from that chapter. You must complete all 14
chapter assignments. You must make a good faith effort for all fourteen
assignments. Each assignment is such that it should be answerable in two
printed pages or less.
Sakai will only let you submit the assignments as attachments. We will be using turnitin which mandates that all assignments be submitted as a single computer file. Please submit word or rtf files.
I am not an English professor, but I will not accept shoddy work
that has numerous punctuation errors, misspelled words, and/or errors of usage.
I expect college level work and will mark down essays that have obvious errors
of punctuation, spelling, and/or usage. If there are citations, please use the APSA
style. I will accept any social science
citation format, but will not accept MLA format. There is a copy of an APSA style summary
under resources in Sakai.
You may rewrite the first chapter assignment after I have graded it
and provided you with feedback. I will provide you with quick feedback and give
you two days for a rewrite, if you so choose. I do this so that you can learn
what I expect. I will expect all subsequent essays to be carefully edited
and polished. They will be final when turned in.
You must have completed the first 3 of these assignments by 5 pm
on Friday, May 22. You must have completed the first 7 of these assignments by 5
pm on Friday, May 29. After those dates,
Guidelines for the Section
Assignments
There are two assignments that you must do at the end of
each section of the course. Each one is designed to require some thought, and
each one should be carefully crafted.
There are two essays, the first to be completed at the end of chapter 7, but no later than 5 pm on May 29, and the second to be completed at the end of the course.
Each essay should be about 600-1000 words -- that is about 3 to 5
printed pages. Once again, we will use turnitin which means that you should put
everything, references included, into a single computer file and submit that as
an attachment. Word files or rtf are
acceptable. You may use any conventional
style guide for citation of sources, except MLA. I prefer APSA, but will accept Chicago Style,
or APA as well. A copy of the APSA Style
summary is under resources in Sakai.
I am not an English professor, but I will not accept shoddy work
that has numerous punctuation errors, misspelled words, and/or errors of usage.
I expect college level work and will mark down essays that have obvious errors
of punctuation, spelling, and/or usage.
You may rewrite the first section assignment after I have graded
it and provided you with feedback. I will provide you with quick feedback and
give you two days for a rewrite, if you so choose. I do this so that you can
learn what I expect. I will expect the second section assignment to be
carefully edited and polished. It will be final when turned in. The
second essay must be turned in by 5:00 pm on June 5, 2015.
The Blogger Entries
Your task is to find one very recent United States Supreme
Court case, read the opinion(s), and write an editorial blog about the decision. Every court case is based on a story and the
ones that make it to the Supreme Court are usually very compelling stories.
The Oyez Project housed at ITT Chicago-Kent College of Law
makes it very easy to find and read Supreme Court Cases. Point your browser to http://www.oyez.org/to gain access to this free site.
I will post a list of cases, with associated hyperlinks, that would be
good subjects for your blogger entries under “resources.”
Anyone with computer access these days can be a
“blogger.” You will use the “Blogger”
function to post our entries for the rest of us to see. You need to do one blogger entry and make one
comment on each of your colleagues’ blogs to get full credit. I will not be evaluating the opinion
expressed, but will evaluate the quality of the writing. I will post an example blog entry about the
2009 Arizona v. Gant decision to
serve as a model for you.
A Word of Encouragement
This is supposed to be a rigorous course of study. Some of
the assignments will be difficult and you may need a bit of help to do them.
Contact me if you need help. My phone number and e-mail address are listed above. I plan to be in the office on Monday, Tuesday,
and Thursday mornings, starting at 8:00 and continuing until I have finished
all my grading for that day. Once you have completed this course, you will know
more about the criminal justice system than most Americans, and you will be
able to sort through the various claims that policy makers and politicians make
with a critical eye. You will also be ready for more advanced study in criminal
justice. Good luck!
ACJ 110 -- Introduction to Criminal
Justice
Course Outline
This course is designed to be delivered in a three week summer session. There are only 14 working days in the semester since Memorial Day (May 25) is a holiday. You will need to have self-discipline to keep up. Try to remember that, if this were a traditional class, you would be in class for almost 3 hours per day. Add the standard 2 hours of time outside of class for each hour in class, and you get over 8 hours per day.
It is simply not possible to do the entire course in a week or less. Try to keep to the following sequence for completion of the chapter assignments and section assignment essays. It is not fair to me, and not good for your learning experience, to wait until the very last minute and then turn in a flurry of assignments. On Friday of each week of the course, there are hard due dates for a certain proportion of the assignments. Failure to meet those Friday deadlines will make it impossible for you to pass the course.
You can participate in a forum discussion at any time you wish,
but the value of the discussion boards is in ongoing participation, not in
posting 5 messages on Friday. You must participate each week of the
course. I will monitor your progress and
notify you via e-mail if you get dangerously behind.
Day 1 - May 18: Familiarize yourself with the course and the
software, read the preface and chapter 1 of the text, and do the chapter quiz
and assignment for chapter 1.
Day 2 - May 19: Read chapters 2 and 3; complete the chapters 2 and
3 quizzes and assignments.
Day 3 - May 20: Read chapter 4; complete the chapter 4 quiz and assignment.
Participate in the forums.
Day 4 - May 21: Read chapter 5; complete the chapter 5 quiz and assignment.
Day 5 - May 22: Read chapter 6; complete the chapter 6 quiz and assignment. By 5 pm on this Friday, you must have
completed at least the first 3 chapter quizzes and assignments and must have
made at least five contributions to the forum discussions.
May 25 is Memorial Day and is a holiday
Day 6 - May 26: Read chapter 7; complete the chapter 7 quiz and assignment.
Draft the first section assignment essay.
Day 7 - May 27: Revise and turn in the first section assignment
essay. Read chapter 8; complete the chapter 8 quiz and assignment.
Day 8 - May 28: Read chapter 9; complete the chapter 9 quiz and assignment.
Pick your Supreme Court case and do the first blogger entry.
Day 9 - May 29: Revise the first section assignment essay (I will
provide feedback and an opportunity to improve the grade); read Chapter 10;
complete the chapter 10 quiz and assignment. Participate in the forum discussions. By 5
pm on this Friday, you must have completed the first seven chapter quizzes and assignments,
the first section assignment, and your blogger entry. You also have to participate in the forum
discussions during this week.
Day 10 – June 1: Read chapter 11; complete the chapter 11 quiz and
assignment.
Day 11 – June 2: Read chapter 12; complete the chapter 12 quiz and
assignment.
Day 12 – June 3: Read chapter 13; complete the chapter 13 quiz and
assignment. Participate in the forum discussions.
Day 13 – June 4: Read chapter 14; complete the chapter 14 quiz and
assignment; draft the second section assignment essay. Read the blogger entries and make one comment
for each. Make sure you have participated in the forum discussion for this
week.
Day 14 - June 5: Turn in the second section assignment essay and
all other outstanding assignments; revel in the completion of the course.
Please note that all assignments must be turned in by 5 pm on
Friday, June 5, 2015.