Week 3

INTRO TO CRIMINOLOGY I

This week we looked at where criminology theories come from. We looked at theory building and the role of research and development. It's very detailed studies, so I'm not even going to attempt to write it all out in detail. For the assignment we chose three criminology and sociology based journals from the EBSCO host and described them in an essay. In the discussion we talked about how we would build a research theory into the neighborhood watch program to convince the mayor of a fictional town whether or not he should start the program in his town.

INTRO TO CORRECTIONS I

This week we reviewed the sentencing and correctional process. We start out by reviewing the pretrial process including arrest, prosecutors who can offer plea bargains and finally the courts if the case does go to trial. We then learn about pretrial diversion programs which can be used to offer and offender a chance to enter into treatment programs, and if completed successfully they may have the charges dropped.

We reviewed other programs such as the bail system which can allow some offenders to be free while awaiting court.We then looked at the pretrial investigation into the offenders background, and the sentencing guidelines that judges have at their discretion for sentencing an offender.

In the discussion we talked about the use of plea bargains and also for the assignment we wrote an essay on plea bargains. This is a very important part of the process since 90% of all cases never have to go to trial, without plea bargains the system would literally collapse under the workload of trying every case before a jury, it's just not possible.