Selecting an inspiring topic for your criminal justice research paper is probably one of the hardest decisions you’ve had to make in a while. According to statistics, you are only second to a law student in terms of having challenging assignments. Like nursing and healthcare, your law assignments require writing with definite accuracy and appropriate sources to support your arguments and ideas.
To get started, you must first find some criminological or criminal justice research topics that are reliable and have a suitable scope. This is challenging in itself because most such topics either have a very broad or very narrow scope.
What is a criminal justice research paper?
As implied by the name, a criminal justice research paper analyzes crime and justice. Criminal justice is a science that explores how to study, analyze and prevent the occurrence of criminal activity. While you may have certain limitations regarding your area of study, your choice of research topic, and academic barriers, you can still consider ethical or social aspects that are relevant to your criminal justice.
The objective of criminal justice is to maintain the peaceful existence of the citizens within a society. While reviewing criminal law topics, it is important to remember that legislation varies from one state to the next, and from one country to another. If you select an international case study, it is important to back up the conflicts with dependable sources.
What do college criminal justice assignments require?
Most college assignments that are assigned to law students require them to write article reviews or analyze case studies in which they review an existing challenge and propose the best and most effective problem solution.
Whether you are writing your criminal justice research paper, your thesis statement, or a case study review, your college professors expect a 50/50 proportion of your personal contribution and scientific information that exists already.
Due to this reason, every argumentative paragraph has to be supported with a suitable amount of references or citations so that you can avoid plagiarism. Even if you choose to carry out personal research or investigation, your analysis must be supported by published academic articles from academic journals that discuss a similar topic, analysis, or finding.
How to choose a good research topic?
Whether your assignment is writing a literature review or giving critique on a law officer’s action, always focus on the concrete concern. If your ideas are random or your logic weak, your thesis statement will not have clarity.
Criminology topics can be both limited or flexible, because they are expected to present hypotheses based on well-known legislative case studies or acts. As the author, you must appear confident. That is why it is important that you choose a topic or subject that you are confident about so that you can defend your subject with a strong presentation project or verbal arguments. If your content sounds credible, your audience will surely continue reading.
How to identify good ideas for your thesis?
While reflecting on your criminal justice thesis ideas, ask these questions:
- Is this criminal justice research topic relevant?
- Is this topic important for me personally?
- Does this research topic have global significance?
- Can I turn this assignment into a speech?
- Is the right approach for the topic a review, comparison essay, argumentative writing, or an analysis?
- What popular alternate opinions are there?
- Has this topic been researched previously?
- Will this research topic fulfil the criteria of the grading rubric?
- What additional information do I need?
When you have identified a few relevant and interesting criminal investigation research paper topics, you can narrow them down and choose your final topic. The next step is to be absolutely sure that you follow the required formatting rules. Some of them require additional information such as notes and appendix additions for law memo reviews and court case studies.
If your university requires you to use the Chicago format style of referencing, you have to include complete information. It is essential that you find out if this information is available and if you can access it.
Disciplines of Criminology
There is a diverse range of disciplines of criminology, including illegal acts such as kidnapping, Scientific plagiarism, Internet fraud, and many more. Each of these disciplines can lead you to further hot topics in criminal justice that can be of interest to you.
Once you have selected your final discipline and topic, the next step is to choose the right format for your legal essay. For example, if you choose healthcare, it is advisable that you discuss ethical issues. Similarly, with cyberstalking, you should choose a comparison analysis and compare classic stalking practices.
Another important factor you must understand is the difference between criminal research and theoretical studies. Theoretical assignments may incorporate legislation but should not include historical references or practical cases. Whereas, criminal research is based on court hearings or case studies and has to focus on specific events.
Criminal justice research proposal ideas
Criminal justice is a continually evolving area with several very interesting topics to explore. You can explore a criminal justice research proposal example to find out if your research can make an impact on changes in the legal system or advise decision makers.
Here are fifteen interesting criminal justice research proposal ideas that may inspire you:
- The impact of capital punishment
- The police and its relationship with people of color
- Effectiveness of drug trafficking prevention strategies
- Ethics of criminal justice
- Strategies for crime prevention
- Gender issues in criminal justice
- The ethical aspects of international interventions
- Impact of mandatory sentencing
- The lives of children with incarcerated parents
- Jury selection criteria
- The reliability of witness testimonies
- Crimes conducted during emergencies
- Implications of solitary confinement
- Drug courts and their impact
- Workplace harassment
The world needs experts in criminal justice who are highly knowledgeable and trained professionals with a passion to make this world a better place. While writing a criminal justice research paper is a challenging task, it is important that you choose your research topic and get started. With your dedicated efforts, you will soon have a well-researched, structured assignment.