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University Degree: Criminology

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  1. Forensic Science. The first role of the ballistic expert is to ensure that the weapons are safe to handle, this would involve the removal of any magazines, rounds in the chamber, or the breach and on automatic weapons, change the fire selector to single r

    The striations are created by the rifling of the weapons barrel. Rifling is built into the barrels of firearms to impart a spin onto the bullets that pass through it. This is because bullets are oblong objects; and therefore they must spin in their flight, like a thrown rugby ball, to be accurate. Looking down the barrel of a firearm, rifling might be seen similar to that depicted on the left. This image shows a pattern of rifling containing six grooves with a right twist.

    • Word count: 1456

  2. The consumption and control of legal and illegal opiates has clear global dimensions. Discuss.

    This trade continued until the Chinese finally convinced the British to end the India-China opium trade in 1910, after the first International Opium Commission had met in Shanghai, convened by the United States and attended by 13 world Powers. By this time the medical uses of opiates were well known, and the misuse of morphine and heroin was on the rise both in the Far East, Europe and the USA. As a direct consequence of the Shanghai Conference, the Hague Opium Convention was signed in 1912.

    • Word count: 1261

  3. Is the US Policy of the War on Drugs Effective?

    Illegal drugs are a $60-billion-per-year industry patronized by at least 16 million Americans, 7 percent of the U.S. population over the age of 12. The level of usage has clearly worried the rest of the population from 1985 until 2001. So when americans were asked what they thought was the most important problem facing the nation. So is the war on drugs effective. B. Policy Analysis The Controlled Substances Act known as Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 passed by President Nixon. The term War on Drugs was first formally used by former president Richard Nixon in 1971 to describe a new plan to enforce drug prohibition.

    • Word count: 1601

  4. Can terrorism ever be stopped? The existence of terrorism is a threat to civilization but there are ways to discourage terrorism and limit or minimize the destructive consequences of terrorism.In its entirety, though I would tend to say that its h

    The existence of terrorism is a threat to civilization but there are ways to discourage terrorism and limit or minimize the destructive consequences of terrorism.In its entirety, though I would tend to say that it's hard to stop all the terrorism. Here comes the question,why the terrorism appears?Terror must be accepted as the unavoidable result of the legacy of colonialism that the First world has left on the Third, which was much aggravate by Cold War.Since the last century most areas of African, Arab, and Asian have suffered a great damage in economic and debilitated for a long time.As the

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  5. What the relationship between drugs and crime?

    profit of illicit drug product and most likely do no use the product they deal in, concerning the personal harms that it can cause.Their offending is seen by the government as serious criminal behaviour and they are currently dealt with in the criminal courts. For the reason of high profit,many poor people begin to join this area and the increasing number of poppy are planted.Then apear countries such as Columbia whose main economic support is drug business. According to the statistics,the drug does not cause much crime as alcohol,approximately 5% crime related to drugs,but why drug is defined as a

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  6. Organisational structure of a Police Force.

    As police chief it is vital to stay well connected with the community, subordinates, municipal leaders, and significant others. Acting as a police executive is a networking job. Below police executive come middle managers, which are the captains and lieutenants. Middle managers are responsible for inspecting assigned operations, reviewing reports, helping develop plans and schedules, overseeing record and equipment, managing confiscated property, and enforcing all laws and orders. They are also in charge of sergeants and all other officers. Below the middle managers are the first-line supervisors or sergeants.

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  7. Is the development of an international norm of humanitarian intervention sufficient in preventing genocide and mass killings?

    Preserving the life of the state is seen as the only important moral duty for the state leaders (Tim Dunne, 2008). On the hand we have the liberalists who view the world from an idealist lens and base everything on the powers of democracy. As Immanuel Kant (1724) a liberalist thinker states that those states with a democratic government are less likely to go to war with their democratic neighbours and respect the rights of their own citizens. Liberalists such as John Stuart Mills (1973)

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  8. Gangs. Is the trigger for gang membership blamed strictly on the lack of family interaction or the feeling of superiority among teens?

    In school, teens can feel the lack of safety and the negative vibe from teachers. Peer factors associates with delinquent or aggressive peers. Poverty and drugs in the community can persuade them to join for safety (Delinquency). Childhood risk factors included early violence, acting out, and affiliation with antisocial peers. Having more than one of the risk factors has a higher chance of joining a gang. Teens of different race and gender join gangs all over the world. The ages of teens in gangs vary from place to place. The beginning of adolescence is when someone would join a gang because it is a time when young teens are developing their identities.

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  9. Self Defence Law and Conflict Resolution

    But if a defendant uses excessive force this shows that he acted unreasonably. Therefore, there will be no valid defence, and the defendant will be liable. 1. REASONABLE FORCE The normal guidelines are that the law allows only reasonable force to be used in the circumstances and, what equates to reasonable is to be judged depending on the circumstances and what the accused believed them to be (whether reasonably or not). In deciding whether the defendant had used only reasonable force, in Palmer v R [1971] AC 814, lord Morris made the following points: * A person who is being attacked should not be expected to "weigh to a nicety the exact measure of his necessary defensive action".

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  10. Criminal and Forensic Psychology

    Furthermore, Strain Theory associated with Merton (1968), similarly explained offending behaviour as being a consequence of social strain, learned behaviour and limited opportunities, thus indicating that offending behaviour is the result of social pathology which in turn leads the individual to develop innovative ways of achieving 'culturally defined goals'2 (White and Haines, 2004). Central therefore to social theory and specifically to that of Differential Association, is the hypothesis that offending behaviour is a consequence of learning from the social environment and not of physiological origin.

    • Word count: 1661

  11. How significant a threat is terrorism today? Terrorists are inspired by many different motives. Terrorist can be classified into three categories, these are rational, psychological, and cultural.

    If the attack goes wrong or fails to produce the intended results, the terrorists can deny responsibility. The terrorist bombings of the New York World Trade Center and the Oklahoma City Federal Building prove how easy it is for terrorists to operate in a free and democratic society. It has always been seen that terrorist attacks are meant to have less people dead and more people watching, this was to make a point and for changes to be made. However, more modern terrorist attacks seem to have the opposite way of thinking with mass amount of casualties. Terrorists are inspired by many different motives. Terrorist can be classified into three categories, these are rational, psychological, and cultural.

    • Word count: 1451

  12. Corrections in the 21st Century - 3 Strikes, Boot Camps and Female Prison Officers in the US Correctional System.

    Another flaw with the three-strikes-law is it takes away the power from judges. Judges have the power to sentence convicted criminals, but the three strikes law takes away that power by forcing judges to mandatory sentences. 2. Do boot camps have a future in United States corrections? Boot camp programs have the potential to reduce institutional crowding and costs, provided they are large enough. This assumes they target offenders who would otherwise have served a longer sentence in another institution, and keep enough participants from returning to correctional facilities. Some boot camps offer rehabilitative programs such as drug and alcohol treatment, life skills training, vocational education, therapy, and general education classes.

    • Word count: 1027

  13. Ethics and Police Corruption

    But what is police corruption? In order to understand this concept, it is important that we know its meaning. Police corruption is defined as the " abuse of police authority for personal or organizational gain by a police officer acting officially" (Dempsey and Forst, 2010, 230). Indeed, police corruption is a major social problem all over the world. Police officers often lack integrity and professionalism. In effect, such corrupt activities pose significant obstacles to improve police public association and relations. Acts of police corruption may include corruption of authority, accepting gratuities, perjuries, kickbacks, opportunistic theft, shakedown, protection of illegal activities, direct criminal activities, payoffs, and flaking.

    • Word count: 1917

  14. Comparative report. Topic suicide

    They both are discussing topic of suicide. I will summarize both articles and then I will compare and evaluate both of them and draw a conclusion. Firstly I will present newspaper article 'Suicides on the rail network rose last year, say Samaritans' (A. Hill, 08.09.2010). Newspaper article provides information on current events and issues on suicide topic, giving comprehensive detailed news report about the increasing number of deaths and attempted deaths on the railways. The main aims of the article are to state the facts that among all suicides even three-quarters are men and to inform a reader about most recurrent causes of men suicide.

    • Word count: 1770

  15. Crash from a Psychological Perspective

    Unfortunately in this film, it does the complete opposite and shows our "stereotyping by appearance" attitude. Crash was made to intentionally show biased prejudices against minorities. Latinos are shown to be gang bangers; for example the depiction of Daniel the locksmith (Michael Pena); the wife of the D.A Jean Cabot (Sandra Bullock) insists on having the locks changed when Daniel leaves as she believes he is a (gang banger, with prison tattoos). Blacks either become gun-toting criminals as Anthony (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges) and his side- kick Peter Waters (Larenz Tate) are depicted as or are righteous upper class characters such as Cameron (Terrance Howard.)

    • Word count: 1327

  16. Why is it that Sexual Offending against Children is so Powerful in our Perceptions of what Dangerousness is?

    Many members of society believe that those unknown to them are those that are most likely to be a danger towards them, when in fact it will most likely be someone within the same household as them or someone that is very close to them. This distortion has come from highly publicised news stories in the past such as the murder of eight year old Sarah Payne by paedophile Roy Whiting in 2000, who took Sarah while she was playing with her brothers and sister near her grandparents house.

    • Word count: 1047

  17. MAPPA Risk Assessment

    Victim Issues Mark's last victim was a 17 year old girl. They are known to each, he has previously committed another offence against her, they were in a relationship with each other and at time of sentencing she was in the early stages of pregnancy with their child. Due to the repeated offences made against this young women, Mark has been assessed at a high risk of reoffending against her, especially as now there is the added stress of a young child being present when these two will be together. A victim liaison officer will provide support to the victim upon Marks release and inform her of the restrictions placed upon him.

    • Word count: 1003

  18. Death Penalty

    The death penalty is expensive. The costs involved in a trial are exorbitant. The time consuming, which is 25 years in California, together with the staff required in a single death penalty case is estimated to be $500,000 more expensive than a non-death penalty sentence. Every American state which adopts the death penalty has an annual estimated cost of $10 million, money that could be invested in social projects and therefore reduce the crime index, which would save much more lives than taking one. As reinforced by Police Chief James Abbott of West Orange, New Jersey in the website Death Penalty Focus: "The death penalty is a colossal waste of money that would be better spent putting more cops on the street.

    • Word count: 1771

  19. Southern California Crime Prevention Plans

    Some methods which the Superior Court found useful were: Longer incarceration terms, city boundary limitations, and attempting to break gangs. This study argues that the best technique to deal with this crisis is to set city boundaries between persons affiliated with gangs. By way of organization, Section 1 compares the two best manners in which to deal with the matter of crime prevention. The city boundary limitation plan is much better than the incarceration plan overall for many reasons. Section 2 is the Case Study and Section 3 is the Summary.

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  20. Organized Crime and Differential Association

    the aim of committing more serious crimes or offenses in accordance with this Convention in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit." (Clark pg99) Organized crime in this respect is performed by members of a group. This is not to be confused with crime that is committed within an organized market. Individuals who commit crime within an organized market, such as the drug trade, for their own sake, are not a part of an organized crime group.

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  21. Article Review

    The authors have a lot of experience in the criminological research field, and all have an impressive collection of articles, books and awards. Rosenfield is currently the professor and chairman in the department of Criminology at the University of Missouri, St Louis. He has done numerous amounts of research in different areas of the social sciences. Jacobs also has an experienced, professional background in the social sciences and particularly criminology, and is a representative of the faculty council at the University of Missouri, St Louis.

    • Word count: 1013

  22. The Use of Prison is Essential if We are to Reduce Offending

    Those above 10 are dealt with according to the crime they have committed whether they are charged with shop-lifting which is often punished with a caution or a crime as serious as murder are held and sentenced under section 90/91 (Davies et al, 2003). At the start of the 20th century the equivalent of a current day youth prison in the form of Borstal, which were first set up at Borstal Prison in Kent, United Kingdom, in October 1902 (BBC, 2002).

    • Word count: 1844

  23. Counseling Students Placed At-Risk

    Teens are involved in risk-taking that is not always harmful. Frequently, risk-taking in teens is a normal, healthy, developmental behavior for adolescents. All schools and communities have students who could potentially drop out of school or engage in self-destructive behaviors that interfere with academic success. Behaviors including absenteeism, performing below academic potential or participating in activities that may be harmful to oneself and/or others such as substance abuse, bullying and threats, and physical violence are some behaviors that place students at risk. These behaviors can have devastating lifelong effects and often stem from personal and social concerns including low self-esteem, family and relationship problems, unresolved grief, trauma, involvement with drugs or alcohol, neglect or abuse.

    • Word count: 1003

  24. Marxist approach to criminology

    and Ian Tayol to mention a few. The definition of crime is controversial as the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour depends on the situation hence this means that crime is dependent on the point of view of the definer(Stuart:2006,Hagan:1985),that means it would have a different meaning to societies,hence it is cultural.To throw more light on this,there is an uncertainty why certain forms of behaviour are criminalised while others are trivialised .According to Emile Durkheim(1984) any act that goes against the state is believed to be criminal and punishable by law, hence without the law there is no crime.

    • Word count: 1685

  25. Breaking Social Norms

    The reactions from others help control the behavior of people in society. Sanctions, which are reward or punishment for following or deviating from custom behavior, are critical in keeping people operating on standard behavior. It could be as simple as an accepting smile or a shake of the head. This is a system of social control, which is the various means by which the members of a society encourage conformity to norms. As we learn the norms of our culture and society we also gain the capacity to evaluate our own behavior; such as by doing something wrong can lead to the feelings of either shame or guilt.

    • Word count: 1839
91 essays
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"

"I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another."

-Mahatma Gandhi

Social studies is all about humans, whether it's the structure of our society (sociology), our interactions with the environment (human and social geography), our struggle forpower (politics), our tendency to break laws (criminology), or our capacity to form a wealth of distinct cultures (anthropology). If this sounds terribly interestingto you, then perhaps you should consider studying one of the social studies subjects at university.

Students of these subjects should ready themselves for a significant amount of writing. If you'd like a little bit of help with this, Marked by Teachers is here for you. Read our student-submitted social studies essays to get inspired, and study the teacher annotations to gain insight into what earns top marks. Before long, you'll be writing papers that do full justice to your great ideas.

When students of these subjects leave university, they tend to apply their degrees directly in academia, consulting, and analysis, or transfer the skillsto other careers like planning ,HR,marketing and media.

"

Conclusion analysis

Good conclusions usually refer back to the question or title and address it directly - for example by using key words from the title.
How well do you think these conclusions address the title or question? Answering these questions should help you find out.

  1. Do they use key words from the title or question?
  2. Do they answer the question directly?
  3. Can you work out the question or title just by reading the conclusion?

  • In my essay I will attempt to describe Mills concept The Sociological Imagination and common-sense explanation and use the main ideas and differences between sociological imagination and common-sense to analyse the topic of racism in UK.

    "In conclusion I want to say that racism is alive because people do not use sociological imagination but find useful common-sense ideas: they do not think with own head just follow stereotypes. If people with racist ideas used sociological imagination and looked at asylum seekers and immigrants from the perspective of culture and loss they would understand what must it be like to leave your country, family, language, and culture for a community in which you are treated as less than human (J. Rothenberg, 10.05.2009). Moreover if a racist used sociological imagination and looked at human but not at his skin colour, ethnicity or race I think they would understand that our all blood is red, we all feel pain and we are all equal. As for the future looking at our failing economy, increased number of hate crimes I think that teaching the next generation how to practice the sociological imagination is more crucial now than ever."

  • What are the aims of the Youth Justice System in England and Wales. How did they come about and how effectively are they being met? Discuss

    "In conclusion, the radical overhaul of the YJS has led to a number of aims, all of which have to adhere to the principle aim of preventing offending. Overall, it appears these aims are effectively being met. YO are now more likely to receive an intervention when they first offend, and the time taken from arrest to sentence has dramatically reduced. In addition, prevention schemes appear effective and adequately funded, and many of the new alternatives to custodial sentences, most notably ISSP's, are making a positive impact. Most importantly, the YJB sets a clear national framework and Yots seem to successfully co-ordinate and deliver services to YO and the courts. Whilst more could be done to help reform the youth courts, the changes so far appear effective. In regards to custodial sentences, it appears that although DTO's can be effective, the programmes required to help YO are often not provided and the transition back into the community is not as good as it could be. Furthermore large numbers of YO are still being remanded into custody and the aim of increasing public awareness and confidence in the YJS is not being met. It also appears that the discrepancies regarding both gender and ethnicity need to be addressed by the YJS."

  • Examine the extent to which the media can be said to inform and misinform us about the nature and extent of crime.

    "To conclude, this essay showed how media inform and misinform people about the nature and extent of crimes and examined how newspapers represent domestic violence crimes. To resume, media do inform people about crimes, but because of need to earn money they use sensationalism and selective reporting which present a distorted and inaccurate view of crimes. Moreover evidence show that newspapers try to break the public silence around domestic violence cases but unfortunately they lack professionalism and broader understanding what is domestic violence. That's why many newspapers draw inaccurate, incomplete and potentially misleading picture of domestic violence fatalities."

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