Step 1. Select a current events case, in the last ten years, to analyze in the American criminal justice system. The case must be one where a life sentence or death sentence was the outcome.

Step 2. Describe the details of the case, including the nature of the offense, background of the offender, and an analysis of each component in the criminal justice system: advantages/disadvantages of police procedures, details and/or issues with court proceedings, and whether the correctional sentence was appropriate based on the nature of the offense and background of the offender. 

Step 3. Conclude your paper by thoroughly analyzing the impact this case has had or will have on future criminal justice outcomes. Careful critical thinking is required here. Invest considerable effort in thinking about what you have learned over the course of the term in addressing this final aspect of the mission.

The sources you are to use to obtain information for your descriptions of the criminal justice process include the following: your text book for this course reading material, information gathered from your Experimental Project, court cases and news articles.

You can access a database on criminal justices case law, journals and articles using the HCC library resource page provided here: http://search.proquest.com/criminaljusticeperiodicals/advanced?accountid=35779 (Links to an external site.)

As an academic paper, it must contain APA formatted citations throughout the paper whenever information is being presented from a source. You can find examples of citations and references through the following link:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/APA-MLA-Chicago-Automatically-format-bibliographies-733ef2c2-fb65-4641-b3e6-91b9cc92085f?CorrelationId=c93b1c67-e897-4b92-b269-e73922504292&ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US&ocmsassetID=HA102813283 (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)

Even though you may have personal experience in the field (e.g. police officer) or use knowledge obtained in previous courses, information used in this paper must be supported through the use of citations which meet the criteria for sources indicated above.  For a database on scholarly articles, case law, and related material visit HCC Library.  You can also access the information through the following link:

http://search.proquest.com/criminaljusticeperiodicals/advanced?accountid=35779 (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)

Here are the sections that should appear in your paper, each of which should be subtitled:

Introduction
Description of the case (including the nature of the offense and the background of the offender)
Police procedures
Court proceedings
Correctional sentence
Analysis of the impact this case has had/will have on the American criminal justice system process
Conclusion
Form and Format Requirements:

Paper should be a between 4-5 pages in length. Double space
12 pt. font
1 margins
Use APA citations for all sources: