Question

Discuss:

1. Expanded attention in the criminal justice curriculum.

2. Encouragement of grass-roots organizations (such as relating to the environment).

3. Fostering of "newsmaking criminology."

Answer 1

1.

Criminal Justice Curriculum

The Criminal Justice major provides the opportunity to systematically examine criminal justice systems and the administration of justice, analyzing the causes and patterns of crime and criminal behavior and the ways in which institutional responses address these social problems. The curriculum emphasizes social justice and the promotion of human rights throughout the globe. Criminal Justice courses highlight practical problem solving using research, theory, and analytic skills relevant to careers in criminal justice, legal studies, community and social service.

Core courses in the major are designed to expose students to the range and variation of crime and criminal behavior, the criminal justice systems and the administration of justice that attempt to control and mitigate social problems. Students will review: the major systems of social control, policies and practice; consider the social and personal consequences of crime and criminal behavior on victims; look at the issues of juvenile justice; corrections, including the history and practice of corrections and the range of institutions meant to treat offenders; understand the nature and causes of crime, crime typologies, offenders and victims; examine criminal law and procedure, understanding how the courts work and how legal decisions are made; examine the history, theory and practice of police organizations, including internal views that consider police subculture; issues of ethics in law enforcement and criminal justice; study deviance and social control; and be grounded in methods, both quantitative and qualitative, for conducting and analyzing criminal justice research and theory.

Elective courses in the major are designed to provide a detailed focus on some area of criminal justice and consider the broader theoretical issues of significant social problems, such as violence. Related requirements are courses found outside of the major in other liberal arts disciplines that have strong relevance for criminal justice.

Upon completion of this program, majors will have an understanding of the importance of an effective criminal justice system in a just society. Majors, and to a lesser extent minors, will be exposed to the primary components of criminal justice systems, both domestically in the Anglo-American legal tradition, and globally in other major legal traditions, with a focus on justice as a goal.

For the criminal justice course offerings, CJ 1000 provides a comprehensive descriptive overview at the introductory level, 2000- level courses provide an in-depth specialized study of a particular case, area, or social phenomenon and introduce theoretical perspectives, and 3000-level courses analyze case materials applying theory critically in specific cases and consider the consequences of various theories on social policy and strategies for social change.

CJ 1000 is required as a prerequisite for any 2000-level criminal justice course and any 2000-level criminal justice course is a prerequisite for any 3000-level criminal justice course. Any student who has grounds to request a waiver of this requirement may do so by contacting the criminal justice area coordinator for a decision. This request must be made prior to enrolling in the upper-level criminal justice course.

Grade Requirements for Criminal Justice Majors
Students who major in Criminal Justice must achieve a grade of C- or above in all core courses in the major. If a student receives a lower grade than a C-, that student will need to repeat the course.

2.

A grassroots organisation is a self-organised group of individuals pursuing common interests through a volunteer-based, non-profit organisation. Grassroots organizations usually have a low degree of formality but a broader purpose than issue-based self-help groups, community-based organisations or neighborhood-associations. Any group of activists generally focused on a limited number of issues of commoninterest. Grassroots communities are fluid groupings that provide voice, input and power of local communities in health andsocial care decisions, and may be found organised through local networks, organisations and community centres.

Everyone involved in politics is involved in setting up grassroots organizations, one way or another. Whether you are building a grassroots effort for your campaign for public office, running a political party organization, or involved in issue advocacy, you can and should be setting up effective grassroots organizations to advocate for your cause.

Very few grassroots organizations are “moderately successful.” In general, these groups, be they single-issue advocacy groups or arms of a campaign for public office, are either very successful or very unsuccessful. Successful grassroots organizations are easy to spot: they’ve got lots of members / volunteers, get on the news (a lot!), and you know them by their brand. How do these organizations become super-successful?

1. Plan for Success

Successful grassroots organizations have a well thought out, and well-written plan. Many people think groups like this simply sprout up organically, without much forethought, but nothing could be further from the truth. Most uber-groups started with a written plan.

2. Have a Hierarchy

Grassroots groups without a hierarchy usually devolve into anarchy. Again, this may seem counterintuitive for a grassroots organization, but the group will need a leadership structure with defined responsibilities if it is going to succeed at a very high level.

3. Build a Brand

The most successful grassroots organizations out there are recognizable by their brand (including their logo, their message, and their spokespeople). This is true for campaign-run grassroots operations as well (just think about the Obama campaign’s grassroots army in 2008 or the Bush/RNC 72-hour Election Day corps in 2004). Your group needs a consistent look and feel for its marketing materials, one or more well-versed press spokespeople, a logo, and a defined and consistent message (just like a standard political campaign).

4. Use Every Tool

Well-run grassroots organization use every tool at their disposal to get their message out: press releases, press conferences, a political website, volunteer activity, direct mail, door to door, rallies, etc. Write a plan that uses lots of different grassroots techniques to make your voice heard.

5. Ask for Members

One of the biggest reasons why small grassroots organizations stay that way is because they become insular “cliques,” where members are jealous of their role in the club and don’t really want outsiders coming in to ruin their good time. Your group will never get big enough to have clout using this mentality. One of the primary functions of your organization should be to grow… and that means going out and actually asking for new members… all the time, everywhere you go.

Grassroots organizations are a great tool in the arsenal of successful issue advocates, political campaigns, party organizations, and more… use these five secrets to help you build a strong and sustainable grassroots organization.

3.Although academicians in criminology and criminal justice have come to appreciate the importance of the media in constructing ideological images of crime and punishment, apparently they have not considered how to use mass communications for the purposes of informing, interpreting, and altering those images to reflect more realistically the social, political, and economic conditions of crime and social control. Beginning with an analysis of the relationships among the developing political economy of the mass media, intellectuals, and conceptions of crime and justice, this essay introduces a criminological practice that can take advantage of the available opportunities in the production of crime news. I call this practice “newsmaking criminology.” It refers to the conscious efforts of criminologists and others to participate in the presentation of “newsworthy” items about crime and justice.

Newsmaking criminology refers to the conscious efforts and activities of criminologists to interpret, influence or shape the representation of `newsworthy' items about crime and justice. In this reflexive and evaluative thought piece, I critically assess the value of this criminological intervention from the vantage point of the person who coined the term and first introduced it some 20 years ago. I conclude that newsmaking criminology as a perspective on the theory, practice and study of mass communications as well as on the representations of crime and justice, is still an invaluable approach for understanding as fundamental to the larger criminological enterprise in general and to administrative criminology in particular, the joint roles that each plays as part of neoliberal-bourgeois statecraft.Newsmaking criminology to "expose the underlying cultural and political-economic nature of the crime problem, and to draw the necessary connections between this nature and the way in which crime is defined as a particular type of individual pathology or social problem"