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Explain how discretion is utilized in decision making within criminal justice professions.
What step do you take next? How do you address the situation?
Possible next steps:
Arrest the male driver for reckless driving, fleeing, and eluding, which means he will miss the birth of his child.
Issue a warning to the male driver and get medical personnel to address the female passenger.
Issue traffic citations to the male driver and get medical personnel to address the female passenger.
Escort the couple into the hospital and do nothing regarding traffic violations/pursuit.
Directions
Internal Justification Statement
You will be creating a written internal justification statement to submit to the chief of your department. You are a new patrol officer and are asked to provide information on how discretion could be used for this situation and other situations. Using the scenario, create a written statement (with all sections identified) that addresses all of the required elements:
Explain what it means to exercise discretion and the role it plays in the criminal justice field.
Describe the roles integrity, authority, discretionary power, and morality play in discretionary decision making. Answer the following questions in your description:
What is the relationship between integrity, authority, and discretionary power?
What is the difference between ethics and morals, and how does each affect discretionary decision making?
Summarize the actions taken in response to the provided discretionary dilemma. Answer the following questions in your summary:
What discretionary decision did you make for the provided scenario?
Why did you make the decision?
Explain how integrity, authority, discretionary power, and morality affected the decision you made. Answer the following questions in your explanation:
What role did integrity, authority, and discretionary power play in the decision you made?
How did ethics and morals influence your decision in this scenario?
Explain how decisions in law enforcement affect discretionary decisions made in courts and corrections. Answer the following questions in your explanation:
If you choose to summons or arrest the male driver, how might the court react once the circumstances are known?
What discretionary decisions may be made in court?
How could the decisions made in court potentially affect corrections?
What to Submit
To complete this project, you must submit the following:
Internal Justification Statement
Create a written statement justifying the discretionary decisions made in the scenario. This statement will be for internal use only and will be kept on file within your department. The statement should address the rubric criteria listed above: exercising discretion; integrity, authority, discretionary power, and morality in discretionary decision making; summary of actions; integrity, authority, discretionary power, and morality in the provided scenario; and decisions affecting other branches.
Submit your statement as a 2- to 4-page Word document with 12-point Times New Roman font, double spacing, and one-inch margins. Cite sources according to APA style.

The Annotated Bibliography & Outline for the Informal Report consists of (1) a one-paragraph description of the content of your report and (2) paragraph-length descriptions of the usefulness to your report of your five sources, descriptions in which you show the reasons that each source is relevant to your report. After each paragraph summarizing your sources’ usefulness to your memo, also include its publishing information in APA form.

Paragraph #1: the report’s proposed content is described clearly in sentences free of grammar errors in a standard-sized paragraph (5-8 sentences). Composing more than eight sentences is allowable, but less than five sentences will lower the score. /4 pts
Paragraphs #2-#6: The usefulness of each secondary source is conveyed clearly in sound sentences in standard-sized paragraphs (5-8 sentences). Composing more than eight sentences is allowable, but less than five sentences will lower the score. /4 pts
Sources: At least five sources are documented in proper APA style. /2 pts

Annotated bibliography (including five sources)

Here are some of the questions I’ve received via email this week:
1. What should the annotated bibliography look like?
2. What are secondary sources? And what does “peer reviewed” mean?
3. How much quoting / paraphrasing should I include in my report?
4. Can I use “I” in my report? Can I refer to my personal experience and include my personal opinions in my report?
5. What kind of formatting do you want the outline & annotated bibliography to be in?
6. Can my visual/graphic in my report come from one of my five sources?
7. Is it okay for me to include in my report the same paragraphs that I’ve written for my outline & annotated bibliography?
8. What should I put on my report’s title page?

Answers:
1. The annotated bibliography consists of a one-paragraph “outline” or summary or description of the main points you’ll make in your report based on the topic of your choice from the list of topics. You must choose a topic from the list posted on Blackboard. You are welcome to modify the topic, but please let me know if you do so. For example, one student wants to modify the topic of you the dealing with substance abuse, replacing “substance” with “gaming,” as Fortnite, World of Warcraft, and so on are major causes of addiction these days. However, you must write an original report for this class and not submit work you’ve done or are doing for another course as doing so would be a violation of the academic integrity policy. So, again, if you wish to modify one of the topics, then please let me know as the modification must be approved.

The format of your annotated bibliography should resemble the sample annotated bibliographies include in last week’s instructor’s message. So long as you have your name and student number at the top of the page, followed by a paragraph describing your report’s contents (however tentative this outline may be), and then followed by five paragraphs summarizing the usefulness of each source to your report while also showing the publishing information of each source, then you need not worry about formatting. Number the paragraphs if you wish or put them into paragraph-order just as you would a report or essay—formatting of the outline isn’t a major concern for me as the evaluator. Seeing that you’ve done some planning for the report, have gathered at least five sources, can show their usefulness to your report, and are able to produce the publishing information in APA –these constitute the grading criteria for the outline and annotated bibliography.

Here is a clear-cut breakdown of the outline and annotated bibliography:

Paragraph #1 consists of a description of what you’ll be writing about in your report. This description will of course be tentative as the report has not yet been written.

Paragraphs #2-#6: briefly describe the usefulness to your report of five different secondary sources. See the examples provided in last week’s message.

In paragraphs #2-#6 of your Outline and Annotated Bibliography, after each paragraph (or above each—it’s your choice) put the name of the authors and sources in APA format. Week Nine’s message has examples of what this looks like–here are some more:

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/common_writing_assignments/annotated_bibliographies/annotated_bibliography_samples.html

2. “Secondary sources” refers to information you cite (quote or paraphrase) in your report. These sources could consist of statistical information, facts, data, interviews, academic research, opinions shared in a video or documentary—a long list here of possible secondary sources. Ensure that, whatever source you cite, that you use proper APA format both for the in-paragraph quoting / paraphrasing, and for your references. See the web links in Week Ten’s Instructor’s Message for information about APA documentation style—the web sites demonstrate how to quote and paraphrase, properly indicating your sources, and how to include those sources in your References list at the end of the report. Again, the annotated bibliography should include five of them. If you cite more than five in your report, that’s totally fine, but your annotated bibliography needs five of them.

“Peer-reviewed” sources consist of academic information appearing in books and journals that have been evaluated by professionals in the related fields ahead of publication. In other words, a consensus has been formed on the authority and integrity of the sources before being made public—this “peer review” process of evaluation makes such sources reliable. Citing peer-reviewed sources of information in your report adds authority and integrity to your own writing—in other words, it increases your ethos as writers and, in turn, likely boosts your report’s score. Not all of your sources need to be “peer reviewed,” but you strengthen the case your making in your report by citing at least some peer-reviewed secondary sources.

3. How much quoting / paraphrasing you should include in your report is a question difficult to answer uniformly. Ensure that your report primarily consists of your own writing, supported by quotations and paraphrases, but, as I mentioned in previous weeks, ensure that it is not flooded with others’ ideas, not your own. It is, after all, your report. For example, let’s say you’re writing about the best approaches to dealing with a problem. Your first few paragraphs might consist entirely of your own writing describing the problem in your community or in your personal observations and experience. After you’ve outlined the problem, then you might devote a few paragraphs in which quotations and paraphrases play a prominent part as you establish various proposed solutions to the problem, after which, you, in your own words, describe what you take to be the best solution. Secondary sources are called secondary because they’re ultimately not as important as your own primary ideas. Ensure that you always use quotation marks around words not your own and that you include your sources for paraphrases no less than you would for quotations—still, in paraphrases, the ideas you’re paraphrasing come from someone else or from an organization or institution, and the latter must be acknowledged in your writing.

4. Use “I” in your report as much as you wish. Refer to your personal experience if it’s relevant for you to do so, and of course include your personal ideas and opinions since your report should primarily consist of them.

5. Again, the formatting of the outline & annotated bibliography is not important. You can put the publishing information at the top or bottom of the paragraphs in which you describe the usefulness of your five sources to your report. Begin with the outline-paragraph in which you describe, however tentatively, the contents of your report, after which include five paragraphs, each showing the reasons you chose this or that secondary source. As far as grading criteria are concerned, I’ll be checking to see if (1) you’ve outlined your report’s main ideas, (2) have shown the usefulness of each of your five sources to your report, and (3) provided the citation information for your sources in proper APA format (author, title, publishing date, etc.).

6. Yes, you can take a visual/graphic from one of your five sources. When you include a visual/graphic, be sure to include a line that explains the content of the visual/graphic either below or above it: “Figure 1. This chart highlights the current trend among ….”—a basic sentence that allows the reader to see at a glance what the visual/graphic is about. You might also wish to refer to the visual/graphic in your paragraphs: “(see Figure 1) when referencing its content.

7. Yes, it’s okay to use the same paragraphs in your report that you’ve composed for the outline & annotated bibliography. For this reason, when I evaluate your outline & annotated bibliography, I will not be editing your writing in track changes as I’ve done in your other assignments.

8. As it is a semiformal report and not a formal one, please note that at the start of your report, all you need to include is a title and your name and student number. Please do not include a subject line (though some of the examples of semiformal reports in this chapter are in memo format). APA formatting requirements apply only to in-text citation (your quotations and paraphrases in your paragraphs) and to the References list at the end, which should be in alphabetical order.

As you continue to compose your report, I recommend you consult the checklist appearing just before the Writing Improvement Exercises in the chapter’s last few pages. The questions that the checklist poses might be useful to you, questions about your purpose (is it clear to the reader?), about direct/indirect strategies (if you anticipate objections to your proposed ideas by hypothetical readers, then arrange your ideas in an indirect manner, with the proposed idea—for example, the best solution to the problem your report is exploring—coming last after presenting other viable ideas). Other questions compel you to think about your arrangement of ideas, your tone and style which, as this type of report demands, should be semiformal which, again, means it’s acceptable to use “I” and to share your personal opinions throughout it.
Here is a good website that offers advice on proofreading your writing as you move from rough-draft to final-draft stage: https://www.inklyo.com/ultimate-proofreading-checklist/
And here is an interesting piece on the common phenomenon called “typo blindness,” which besets all writers—missing tiny errors, misspellings, and the like. To overcome typo blindness, I recommend that you print drafts of your report using different font sizes and even columns—doing so can help your minds detect changes that need to be made, changes that are not always visible on the computer screen. When editing our writing, at times we’re focused on large, macro concerns with ideas and paragraphs, the linear flow of ideas, and so on—at such times, missing small errors in our writing at the sentence level occurs easily. So, printing your work, checking it periodically, and reading it out loud and having others read it back to us can reveal what changes we wish to make in the final draft.
Typo Blindness: https://www.wired.com/2014/08/wuwt-typos/

1. Here are four sample annotated bibliographies for your review—they can serve as models for the sorts of paragraphs you’re in the process of composing for your annotated bibliography.. See previous weeks’ instructors’ messages for further detailed information: your first paragraph will present a tentative summary of your report’s contents, followed by five paragraphs in which you show the usefulness of each of your sources to your report.

Sample #1:
Child Poverty in Canada

Battle, K. (2007). Child poverty: The evolution and impact of child benefits. In Covell, K., & Howe, R. B. (Eds), A question of commitment: Children’s rights in Canada (pp. 21-44). Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

Ken Battle draws on his research as a policy analyst, and a close study of some government documents, to explain child benefits in Canada. He outlines some fundamental assumptions supporting the belief that all society members should contribute to the upbringing of children. His comparison of Canadian child poverty rates to those in other countries provides a useful wake-up to anyone assuming Canadian society is doing a good job of protecting children from want. He pays particular attention to the National Child Benefit (NCB), arguing that it did not deserve the criticism it received from politicians and journalists. He outlines the NCB’s development, costs, and benefits, including its dollar contribution to a typical recipient’s income. He laments that the Conservative government scaled back the program in favour of the Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB), and clearly explains why it is inferior. However, Battle relies too heavily on his own work; he is the sole or primary author of almost half the sources in his bibliography. He could make this work stronger by drawing from the perspectives of others’ analyses. However, Battle does offer a valuable source for this essay, because the chapter provides a concise overview of government-funded assistance currently available to parents. This offers context for analyzing the scope and financial reality of child poverty in Canada.

Sample #2:
Anderson, C. A., Gentile, D. A., & Buckley, K. E. (2007). Violent video game effects on children and adolescents: Theory, research, and public policy. Oxford University Press.
As psychology faculty at Iowa State University, the authors focus their research on popular media (video games) and violence in children. This peer-reviewed book, while dated, provides the reader with a strong foundation for understanding the issues and policies surrounding violence in videogames and its impact on youth and adolescent populations. The book offers three studies that test violent behavior tied to video games in elementary, high school, and college students. The evidence from these studies shows that there is no significant link between video games and violent behavior.

Sample #3:
Decamp, W., & Ferguson, C. J. (2017). The impact of degree of exposure to violent video games, family background, and other factors on youth violence. Journal of Youth Adolescence, 46(2), 388-400. doi:10.1007/s10964-016-0561-8
The Journal of Youth and Adolescence is a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers psychology and criminology in youth and adolescent populations. The study, including survey data from fifth, eighth, and eleventh-grade students. The study found that when there is a diverse and large sample size, there is no significant correlation between video games and violence. Further, the article suggests that youth violence is instead associated with social and family factors.

Sample #4:
Perrin, A. (2018, September 17). 5 facts about Americans and video games. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/17/5-facts-about-americans-and-video-games/
Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact think tank that regularly conducts public opinion polling and research. While providing demographic information on video game playing in the United States, the article also shows that most adults (65 and older) believe that violent video games cause violence. Despite the existing scholarly research, there is a disconnect between public opinion and reality when it comes to video games causing violent behavior.

Note: Review both assignment descriptions on Blackboard (Annotated Bibliography and Report) —be sure to choose only one topic for both assignments.
Although the writing you do for the annotated bibliography can be used in your report—do not copy and paste paragraphs from the former directly in the latter, as a report isn’t the same sort of document as an annotated bibliography. You should, however, use the same research for both: for example, some of the paraphrasing / quoting you do in the bibliography can appear in your report. What sources should you choose?

Choosing / Using Your Sources: facts, statistics, narrative, supporting points / counterargument

Ethos—this is a Greek term for the communicator’s authority, trustworthiness, reliability, and honesty. We show our integrity as communicators by properly using our sources, gaining authority by citing other authorities. As you choose your five sources, look for the opinions of experts on your chosen topic. You can cite sources that provide facts or statistics or narrative details. You can choose to cite the opinions of experts that support your perspective in your report or that make an opposite case: feel free to set up points of counterargument to show what other perspectives on your subject might be—these could show up in your report as alternative solutions to the problem you explore in your report.
Logos: include ideas that will move your readers logically: facts, statistics, authoritative sources.
Pathos: include ideas that will move your readers emotionally: narrative, imagery, figurative language such as metaphor, simile, hyperbaton, among others (see https://literaryterms.net/). We will go over select terms together in class next week.

Annotated bibliography: tips
https://lynn-library.libguides.com/apa/bib

Write a research paper on whether television cameras are allowed during Supreme Court arguments or not .

What are some ethical and cultural concerns that need to be addressed with this population if studied?

Describe how this ideal contributes to harmony with heaven?

Write a research essay that compares Sara Teasdale’s poem “There Will Come Soft Rains” with Ray Bradbury’s short story “August 2022: There Will Come Soft Rains.”

Explain how discretion is utilized in decision making within criminal justice professions.

Explain the particular legal issue(s) in detail, including the relevant facts, the applicable law and the court’s application of the law to the facts.

Which theory do you believe is most effective to motivate staff?

Write a report analyzing home health staff (labor) shortages, higher labor cost, and compare the same with national (United States) compensation measures, and employment cost index (as indicated by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics).

Discuss Child Custody Issues for Families and Parents

What kind of formatting do you want the outline & annotated bibliography to be in?