CRJ 1010
Social Inquiry Paper
CRJ 1010 will let you fulfill the Social Inquiry Learning Outcomes for General Education. After successful completion of this requirement, students will be able to demonstrate their ability to:
- Learning Outcome 1 (LO1): describe the behaviors, practices, institutions, and/or systems that define a society or social group.
- Learning Outcome 2 (LO2): identify and define basic concepts in social analysis
- Learning Outcome 3 (LO3): analyze social institutions and social interactions.
In this assignment, you will address the Social Inquiry Learning Outcomes for this course. In other words, you will be asked to describe a practice that defines the police (LO1); identify and define basic concepts in social analysis (LO2); and analyze social interactions that occur as a result of this clash of values (LO3).
The topic of this paper will be the discussion of “wandering cops,” as it offers insight into how the police see themselves and how they are seen by various members of the general population. Using this topic will allow me to, as the document on Social Inquiry states, “help introduce students to the different perspectives, methodologies, and questions that shape the production of knowledge.”
The Assignment
Preparation
Read the following articles carefully:
- https://michiganadvance.com/2023/08/14/michigans-police-secrecy-raises-concerns-
about-wandering-cops/ - https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/MI-Dorothy-Moses-Schulz-
Wandering-Cops.pdf - https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2017/07/09/how-problem-cops-stay-
street/414813001/
After you have read the articles, be sure that you can offer explanations, in your own words, for these issues:
- Why police are having such a hard time hiring qualified officers
- How to define a “wandering cop” in your own words
- How such police officers continue to be hired by other departments
- The sorts of problems such police officers cause citizens, their departments, and the cities they work for
- At least two policies that will limit the problem of “wandering cops”
Writing
Write one full, substantive paragraph on each of the five subjects listed above, following the same order. Each paragraph should have a clear topic sentence and should include information from each article. Quotation should be avoided, and all your statements should be supported with information from sources and should be cited parenthetically.
You will likely find that the paragraphs you write here will be longer than you are used to writing, but that is all right. Get used to writing better-developed and supported paragraphs.
Keep in mind that (1) you must use information from ALL three of the articles in each of your paragraphs, and (2) this is NOT an opinion piece; your personal feelings about the topic—if you have any—do not belong in this paper.
