One of the goals of this course is to help you develop a specific type of professional writing: translating academic studies of criminal justice policies for a non-academic audience.

You are expected to write a policy memo summarizing the journal article.

The audience for this policy memo is a senior local government official, who has executive authority to direct a law enforcement agency that is relevant to the subject at hand (e.g. police chief, sheriff, senior judge, director of parole and probation services). The executive is familiar with institutional details, but has a legal or practitioner background.

WEEK 3 TOPIC

Is the Criminal Justice System Fair?

REQUIREMENTS

The policy memo must be 3 pages long, double space 12 point times new roman font, with 1 inch margins. Memos should contain the following information:

What is the “big” problem this paper addresses?
What specific question does this paper seek to answer?
What data do the authors use? What do they do with the data?
What do the authors find?
How do the findings change our understanding
of the “big” problem?
GRADING