For this assignment students will write a paper on the topic of drug courts. The paper should consist of an introduction to the subject and a literature review or annotated bibliography in which students will review at least five academic journal articles. Students are free to use the library to find a minimum of five academic journal articles. However, the instructor has provided several appropriate articles to use for your paper in a fold on D2L. Research Paper Requirements Students should write an introduction that introduces the main topic of your paper, the history of your subject, as well as current trends. Student should attempt to find some good statistics on their topic and summarize these trends or statistic in this section. You can use websites as sources for this part of the paper, provided they are valid. Make sure you write in 3rd person (don’t use words like I, me, us, we, you, and etc). Student should fully summarize a minimum of five academic journal articles from academic from academic journals. Student are free to use the articles provide by the instructor on D2L. In this section students should summarize five academic studies related to their research topic. Students should use academic journal articles for their sources of information. The review of literature summarizes the findings of other investigators. Your literature review should be a complete background or description of the subject matter. It should also discuss the question: What has current research found about this subject? It should be a discussion of previous research relevant to the subject under investigation. In this paper you should tell the reader what is known regarding your subject and what still needs to be researched. You should describe relevant studies: who completed them and when, what approaches were used, and what was found. For this section you should read and summarize a minimum of five academic studies that were published in academic journal articles. Magazine articles from such publications as Time and Newsweek are not considered academic journal (peer reviewed) articles. Websites are also not considered academic journal articles. Academic Articles can be found by going to the library homepage, click on articles and databases, click on Academic Search Complete. Type in a search word and limit your results to full text and peer-reviewed articles. After you have read an article, rewrite the article in the form of a summary. The purpose of this section is to ensure that you have read the article and understand the article. Please see the section below on “Tips on how to summarize a journal article” and the example of a summary that I provided. Each article summary should be at least a page ½ to two pages long. Your total paper should be over 8 page long, double-spaced. Your paper should be written in APA style with citations and a reference page. It does not have to have an abstract. Tips on How to Summarize a Journal Article The first paragraph of the summary is often called “lead paragraph.” The lead paragraph summarizes the subject of the study and often includes who, what, where, and why. Come up with a good introduction of one or two sentences that will interest the reader and give them an idea of what the article will be about. The following paragraphs should explain the study and the findings of the study in more detail. You should write a good overview of the study, however, do not get bogged down in details. Try to keep your story interesting. The final paragraph of your summary will be a critique of the study. What where the weakness of the study? What didn’t we find out? What are your suggestions for future research? Here is an example of a summary of an academic journal article In the 2002 movie Minority Report, Tom Cruise starred as a cop who worked in a so-called “pre-crime division;” based in Washington, DC, in the year 2054. The primary goal of the pre-crime division is to arrests killers before they commit the crimes courtesy of some future viewing technology. Although the premise that one can predict criminality is science fiction, several researchers in Iceland believe that we may be able to predict future criminal behavior not based upon some remote viewing technology, but on their personalities. It is well known that the majority of offenders who are released from prison are later re-convicted of another crime. What is less understood is what type of persons will stay out of trouble after being released from prison and what type offenders will not. In 2004, Dr. Marius Peersen and several of his colleagues followed 461 inmates after their release from a prison in Iceland. Before being released from prison, the inmates were given several psychological surveys. After release from prison, inmate where followed for 5 years. Of the 461 prisoners, 222 (48%) of the offenders were re-convicted during the 5-year follow-up period, and 239 (52%) were not. Several differences were found between those who committed a crime after release (recidivists) and those who did not (desisters). Recidivists reported a more extensive criminal history than desisters, had begun offending at a younger age, and had been more often previously imprisoned. The recidivists also reported more frequent use of alcohol and drugs. One the most important risk factors for recidivism was anti-social personality disorder. Those who arrested after release from prison scored much higher on a questionnaire measuring anti-social personality disorder than those who did not. These were people who regularly lied and deceived people, who were self-centered, who sometimes profited at the expense of others, who often considered their needs more important than the needs of others, who considered themselves loners, who sometimes took actions without thinking about the consequences, and who often lost their temper. There were not many weaknesses with Peersen’s (2004) study. He and his colleagues used a large sample sized and followed the inmates (5 years) much longer than other studies had done in the past. One must remember, however, that several researchers believed that prison or being institutionalized causes anti-social personality disorder. The “look out for number one” attitude of the inmate subculture may actually cause inmates to become sociopaths during their stay in prison. For some it is the only way they can survive. Because the questionnaire in this present study was distributed while the inmates were in prison, it could be possible that many have anti-social attitudes while in prison, but may lose these characteristics after release into society. Future research should examine whether or not inmates develop anti-social personality disorder while in prison, or whether or not many have anti-social personality disorder before they enter the institution. Source: Peersen, M., Sigurdsson, F., Gudjonsson, G., & Gretarsson, S. (2004). “Predicting Re-Offending: A 5-Year Prospective Study of Icelandic Prison Inmates,” Psychology, Crime, & Law. Vol. 10(2), pp. 197-204.
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