Crim 1100 Assignment Option One

Assignment Option 1:

In this assignment option you must assess whether or not the information on the three offences below is consistent with the Classical School of Criminology. You must demonstrate your knowledge of the School and explain your reasoning. The information on the offences is taken from the Criminal Code of Canada (http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/FullText.html), the information on clearance rates is taken directly from Statistics Canada (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2012001/article/11647-eng.pdf) and the information on case lengths is taken directly from Statistics Canada (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002- x/2015001/article/14226-eng.pdf).

Manslaughter

234 Culpable homicide that is not murder or infanticide is manslaughter.

236 Every person who commits manslaughter is guilty of an indictable offence and liable

(b) to imprisonment for life.

Robbery

Every one commits robbery who:

• steals, and for the purpose of extorting whatever is stolen or to prevent or overcome resistance to the stealing, uses violence or threats of violence to a person or property;
• steals from any person and, at the time he steals or immediately before or immediately thereafter, wounds, beats, strikes or uses any personal violence to that person;
• assaults any person with intent to steal from him; or
• steals from any person while armed with an offensive weapon or imitation
• (1) Every person who commits robbery is guilty of an indictable offence and liable

(b) to imprisonment for life.

Breaking and entering with intent, committing offence or breaking out

348 (1) Every one who

• breaks and enters a place with intent to commit an indictable offence therein,
• breaks and enters a place and commits an indictable offence therein, or
• breaks out of a place after
• committing an indictable offence therein, or
• entering the place with intent to commit an indictable offence therein, is guilty

• if the offence is committed in relation to a dwelling-house, of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life.

 

*** Please note that imprisonment “for life” is a maximum (not a minimum) sentence. As we discussed in class there is no minimum sentence.

Clearance rates (Cleared by Charge in 2010):

• Homicide (includes manslaughter) = 69/100
• Robbery = 4/100
• Break and Enter =5/100

Average (Median) Length of Cases in Days (2014)

• Homicide (includes manslaughter) = 451
• Robbery = 223
• Break and Enter = 176

Summary of Issues with the Crim 1100 Term Papers

Referencing:

1. Including sources that are not appropriate. I provided students with two sources that students were required to use and they decided to use other source materials (i.e., text-book, my lectures or other sources).
   1. It appears that some portion of students used an online aide, such as This seems to be the case because of the source materials used (i.e., not the ones I assigned) and a high-level analysis of the offences, instead of an analysis of the specific information I provided on the Assignment Handout. This is not appropriate and is considered a serious violation of academic integrity.
   2. It was quite obvious that some students were using my lecture materials directly in their papers, instead of finding this information in the source material (even though they included a citation to the source material).

2. Many of the papers do not include proper in-text citations or a proper references page. This is a serious violation of academic integrity (i.e., plagiarism). I am not so concerned with the particular style (I advocate APA), as long as there is:
   1. A complete references
   2. The following format for in-text citations:
      1. General reference (author last name, year)
      2. Paraphrase (author last name, year, page #)

• Direct quote (author last name, year, page #)

3. Only using in-text citations when using direct
   1. Many papers were a collection of direct quotes and block

4. Significant issues with patch-writing when they should be
   1. Many students put a general reference at the end (or in the middle) of a paragraph hoping this would cover them from plagiarism (it doesn’t).

5. It seems that some of you worked with others a little too much in generating the The same mistakes, the same quotes/assertions and exactly the same errors were present. This is not exactly plagiarism, but it is definitely academic dishonesty.
   1. Do not do this in your re-submissions or your grade will actually decrease. From this point on, you must work on your resubmission individually.

Introduction:

1. Many students did not provide a formal Instead, they starting summarizing the principles of the specific school (this belongs in your summary section).
2. If they attempted to provide a thesis, it was not stated “I will determine if…”
3. As a result, students did not:
   1. Provide a couple of contextual For example, The Classical School revolutionized the criminal justice system…

1. State a specific position or thesis. The information on the Dangerous Offender designation is consistent with the Positive School… The information on manslaughter, robbery and break and enter is not consistent with the Classical School because…
2. Outline the structure of their paper to support their

Summary Section:

1. Many students did this, but often they spent too much space to summarizing the articles and included information that was not related to the assignment.
2. Some students appear to have used generative
   1. Same basic bullets as
3. Instead you were supposed to use the 2 sources to reference and explain only the relevant principles that you are applying/demonstrating in the Application Section. Also, referencing was a major issue in this section.
   1. There are two major groups of principles:
      1. Those relating to human
      2. Those relating to the CJS, specially a discussion of concepts relating to deterrence (i.e., the goal of a CS CJS).

Application Section:

1. Many of the students did not apply the concepts from either the Positive School or the Classical School to the assignment handout information at all (not even sure it was downloaded – the assignment handouts are found in the links above the 2 sources, depending on which topic was chosen). This is the primary purpose of the paper. This handout was supposed to be used to demonstrate your thesis by applying concepts to specific parts/information in the handout. Instead:
   1. This section was completely missing, or
   2. Students tried to apply the concepts to the 2 articles, which was repetitive and
   3. Students found their own materials to which to apply the concepts (again, not appropriate).
   4. Students did not apply the principles to specific information on these offences (that I provided), but instead applied concepts at a very superficial levels to other aspects of the 3 offences (i.e., it is important to have severe sentences for all 3 offences). Again, this appears to have some relationship to my suspicion that an online aide was used to write the paper.
      1. ChatGPT does not give you the correct answer to the question, “Is manslaughter consistent with the Classical School?”
   5. The application was

1. Focused on an application of only one
2. Neglected to include most of the information in the assignment
3. Made claims relating to consistency, but did not demonstrate “How” these assertions are supported with direct evidence from the Assignment Handout (i.e., where do you see evidence of specific principles?).

General Comments:

1. Many students did not structure their ideas into proper thematic This resulted in a significant amount of repetition and disorganization.
   1. A lot of information is listed, but there is little to no connection between
2. The formal writing mechanics were often not at a university Some students:
   1. Provided outlines within their
   2. Wrote their papers in a conversational
   3. Many of the assertions were disorganized and
   4. They asked the reader questions to make
3. The sentence structure and grammar were
   1. Lots of run-on
   2. Few useful conjunctions or
   3. Lots of sentence fragments and incomplete
4. Inconsistent capitalization, punctuation and word
   1. Some students appear to be translating the text into English and using the synonym function in MS Word.
   2. Lots of missing
   3. Font and spacing
   4. It appeared in some cases that very little time was spent editing the term

 

Word Count: 1300-1400

No. of Pages: 7