Throughout this course, you will be utilizing and applying tactics, strategies, concepts of project management, and strategic planning in conjunction with a research project. All criminal justice agencies experience programs, planning and research that deal with current or future issues. Most organizations ask their leaders to develop initiatives for the current and future timeframe, which will help the organization achieve its objectives and goals. In your final assignment, you will conduct a research and analysis project about an initiative you would implement based on a topic of your choice.

Your project will entail:

• Identifying a criminal justice/law enforcement initiative to be planned for this project
• Conducting the research, including gathering quantitative data from a suggested website, which you will evaluate, collate, analyze and synthesize.
• Outlining the process you will follow utilizing research, your education, and life experiences you have obtained up to this point, resulting in a plan of action to implement your project
• Determining an evaluation of the project based on your expectations and those of the stakeholders.

The final product will be a paper that is 10-15 double-spaced (no less, no more!), APA formatted pages, including an abstract page.

Yes, it is a big project, but you will build this project a little at a time throughout the 8 weeks we are together. The interim assignments will be the foundation for the successful completion, and submission. Adjustments may be necessary along the way depending upon the topic and expected outcome. You will likely have to rearrange and integrate your mini-assignments to create a cohesive final product. The requirements for your Criminal Justice Capstone are:

• Propose a non-experimental research topic rooted in a criminal justice/ law enforcement issue. (See the suggested topics provided below for inspiration)
  • Identify an agency or organization, where you would like to implement a criminal justice/law enforcement initiative with an organization in the private or public sector organization such as a police department, an educational/civic – police partnership, state or federal agency, etc. (it may also be a generic organization such as “a local police department”).
  • Provide a description of this organization (size, demographics, jurisdiction, purpose)
  • The need for this initiative.
  • Define the stakeholders of the initiative, including the target audience.
• Literature Review and Data Presentation
  • Identify the data you will need to collect.
  • Conduct and write a literature review highlighting the pertinent trends, thresholds (tolerances) and research appropriate for your initiative.
  • Collect data and provide a descriptive analysis of that data, which supports the need for the initiative.
• Summary of the meaning of your literature review and data analysis
• Plan for implementing your initiative
• Evaluation plan

Be sure to read the criteria, by which your Criminal Justice Capstone paper will be evaluated before you write the paper, and again after you write your paper.