AFR227 Community-Based Approaches to Justice

AFR227 Community-Based Approaches to Justice

Model Community Justice Plan Assignment Descriiption
for group brochure or creative project and reference list)
Purpose: To address one or two problems in a neighborhood that contribute to violence and crime or community instability; and to design community-level solution(s) or intervention(s) based on community justice principles and practices to increase
community well-being.
Overview: Students will design a community justice plan to address
a community development or public safety issue. The group project will need 10 sources
(7 from academic/peer reviewed sources), along with a creative project and oral
presentation (separate 5 points for oral presentation toward your oral grade). Teams
will hand in and present their final plans using a power point or tool kit, brochure or skit
scriipt plus the reference list during the final examination session at the end of the
semester. Everyone must participate in the presentations and attend the entire session.
Read to the end for guidelines for the oral group presentation.
Reference List: At least 10 entries in the reference list. Use academic articles and
scholarly policy analyses (at least 7 of the 10), no more than 1/3 of your references from
websites (webpage information rather than research studies – electronic files of
academic papers and articles are OK). No Wikipedia. Cite them properly using full
citations in APA format.
Details: When students present their research project at the end of April students who
address similar issues or similar strategies/solutions or who want to be a team will form
teams and start to meet together to put together a proposal for a community justice
plan. One asynchronous class period will be set aside for students to meet together.
Teams of 2-3 students will design a model community justice plan. Students are required
to complete a joint power point/brochure/skit scriipt, reference list, and oral presentation.
The team project is supposed to be a creative way to discuss a community-based solution
to a community development or public safety issue. Be able to briefly explain the problem.
Then describe or design a community-based approach to justice and/or community or
restorative/transformative justice (including economic and health justice, etc.)
strategy(ies) appropriate to the problem, and that reflect research you have done and
theories and practices we have studied. Find ways to not just communicate and illustrate
your plan of action but also to justify why this alternative strategy is needed and would
work (or at least is important to try). Use evidence-based research and what you have
learned about community organizing to recommend a suggested solution(s). Make sure
to use 10 references as your evidence and support.
Create a brochure, tool kit, or role play scenario to explain how you would encourage a
community to implement this solution. Provide a power point or brochure to be shared
with the class in addition to the reference list and the oral presentation. If you do a role
play or skit, provide the scriipt to the professor.
Elements to consider as you design your intervention:
– What would a community plan look like to make this happen (to implement the
strategy(ies))? What strategies and activities, organizations and policies are needed?
What strategy/ies could be used to get the right policies in place?
– What is the combination of programs, community organizations, social networks,
public and private agencies and activities that should work together and can be brought
together to implement your recommendations in a neighborhood? What kind of
timeline (how long would it take)?
– What resources are needed to implement the strategies your team proposes?
– A model includes all the players, individuals and institutions (stakeholders), as well as
resources and policies that need to be involved or engaged; the roles they play and how
they interact. You could include an actual diagram or map or graphic to illustrate the
relationships. Provide a detailed descriiption of the players, their organizations and how
they work together.
– What Institutions, practices, policies are needed to put into place a model that would
implement your solutions? Do you need a plan for educating people about it? Do you
need municipal funding or grants and how would you get that? Do you need laws
changed and/or new municipal policies. If you have an actual example of an existing
plan you can refer to it but do not rely only on that. On the other hand, if you have no
actual example, that is OK – dream up a model and think about what it would take to
implement it.
– How should/will all the institutions and practices interact in a community, what
structures and elements will pull these pieces together into a model strategy? How
would you put these in place? Why will it be successful?
Final Product: Create a joint brochure or tool kit, or scriipt for a role play or tv game
show format, that describes the problem, the proposed solution and outlines a plan for
how to implement the solution. This could be a fictitious proposal to the City Council or
a private funder to try to get funding for their proposal – teams can even role play a
presentation to city council or a funder as their oral presentation and hand out the
brochure or tool kit to the class that they would create for the city council or funder.
They would hand in a scriipt instead of a brochure to the professor along with the
reference list.

Last Completed Projects