Assignment 1: Risk Factors and Risk Assessment

The course textbook classifies risk factors into three categories: social, familial, and psychological.

Identify a risk factor from each category and cite evidence that will show correlations between the risk factors and behaviors. Offer your opinion on which risk factors you feel can be most readily remedied using prevention strategies. What strategies would you recommend?

Provide at least one current example of a prevention strategy designed to mitigate the effects of a risk factor.

Post your responses in a minimum of 400 words.

Assignment 2: Select a Specific Criminal Behavior

The goal of this course is to create a prevention plan for a specific criminal behavior. Throughout the course, you will complete interrelated assignments in each module that build toward the LASA assignment, a prevention plan.

The first step toward this end is to identify a specific criminal behavior for which you will develop a prevention program. The first chapter of the textbook describes a variety of criminal behavior problems, such as status crimes, juvenile offenders, and drug abuse.

Once you select the criminal behavior, you should do a preliminary literature search to ensure that you will have ready access to scholarly resources.

Create a 2- to 3-page paper describing your selected criminal behavior. You must consider the following when creating your paper:

• Describe the criminal behavior in detail, including any research you have found on the origins or development of this behavior (in approximately 1 page).
• Discuss the specific target area you want to address in the problem (in approximately 1 paragraph).
• Describe the specific group you want to focus on from among those affected by the criminal problem, i.e., juveniles, women, etc.
• Describe the possible prevention and intervention ideas (in approximately 1 page).
• Discuss research support for the effectiveness of your proposed prevention or intervention ideas (in approximately 2-3 paragraphs).

For example, suppose you pick juvenile sex offenders and want to develop a prevention program for adolescent sex offenders. Specifically, you want to target risk factors associated with that population.

Support your assumptions by citing reputable source material used for this assignment in APA format.

Assignment 3: Causes of Delinquent Behavior

Natalie was growing concerned about her daughter Brandi's school performance. Brandi's grades had dropped since the beginning of the school year, and she seemed reluctant to go to school. On some days, she complained of vague symptoms, such as a stomachache or a headache. On other days, she simply did not get out of bed. Natalie took her to the doctor, but there was no definitive diagnosis. She questioned Brandi about any problems at school, but Brandi was uncommonly quiet. Natalie then looked at Brandi's Facebook page and saw a series of comments from Brandi's friends about a school bully. When Natalie confronted Brandi, the child broke down crying and told the whole story. Another girl, who was two years ahead of her in school, was bullying her. She would tease Brandi in school and leave nasty messages on her Facebook page and had even threatened her on several occasions.

Natalie was furious and immediately arranged a meeting with the teacher and the school principal. The school officials attempted to address the problem by speaking to the girl and her parents. The parents placed their daughter in treatment; she was diagnosed with a behavior disorder and put on medication, which seemed to work. Both the girl's parents and the school officials explained to Natalie that the girl had an underlying medical condition that caused her to become angry and lack impulse control. The school officials were reluctant to suspend the girl because it was "not her fault" but rather a "biological factor" causing the behavior.

Natalie was still upset. She did not understand why her own daughter should suffer. She had a nagging suspicion that the bully's parents were using the biological cause as an excuse for their daughter's bad behavior.

Research the biological, learning, and sociological factors discussed in this module using your textbook, Argosy University online library resources, and the Internet.

On the basis of the scenario and drawing on your readings and research, respond to the following:

• What are some theories that would best explain the bully's behavior? Do you think it is mostly biological, or would you hypothesize that perhaps the bully has learned the behavior? Support your response using cited sources.
• According to your analysis, what are some interventions you would recommend that the school utilize in dealing with the bully?

Post your responses in a minimum of 400 words.

Assignment 4: Identifying and Gathering Relevant Data

Select at least ten scholarly articles from the Argosy University online library resources, Google Scholar, or other databases using key words related to the criminal behavior for which you want to develop a prevention plan.

You should select peer-reviewed journals from the Argosy University online library resources and full-text articles on Google Scholar.

Based on the articles, identify common denominator descriptions of those perpetrating the particular criminal behavior you are working with.

Next, locate the crime rate statistics in your community for the particular criminal behavior you have chosen using the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) Uniform Crime Reports (UCR).

Shreveport, La. For crime rate statistics

Create the list of selected scholarly articles, along with an outline of the common descriptors of those involved in the criminal behavior and a specific fact outline from the FBI report in a Microsoft Word document. All written assignments and responses should follow APA rules for attributing sources.

Assignment 5: Recidivism Rates for Sex Crimes

In a minimum of 500 words, post your responses to the following:

Analyze the recidivism rates for sex crimes and offer your opinion, supported by research, on the effectiveness of treatment. Be sure to include research from the following article from the Argosy University online library resources:

The lowest of the low? Addressing the disparity between community view, public policy, and treatment effectiveness for sex offenders

Research the local laws in your state or province regarding sex offenders. (Louisiana) Specifically, determine whether the offenders must register with the police, whether they have a retrievable photo on an electronic database on the Internet, and whether any restrictions have been placed on them regarding where they can live. In your view, what are the benefits versus the costs of the information you have collected? What changes would you like to bring to the laws to make them more effective?

Assignment 6: RA: Criminal Behavior in Your Community

In Modules 1 and 2, you selected a type of criminal behavior that is of particular interest to you. Use the FBI's UCR program to further investigate this behavior.

Using the information you have gathered in Modules 1 and 2, prepare a 4 page paper responding to the following using APA style:

1. Describe the typical perpetrator of this crime with regards to gender, race, age, and socioeconomic status. Compare and contrast the criminal and civil legal systems regarding penalties, burden of persuasion, and key players.

2. Using the information noted in step 1, explain the causes of this criminal behavior. Justify your answers by integrating at least one historical and two different contemporary psychological theories with your explanation.

3. Compare and contrast criminal and civil legal systems in general regarding penalties, burden of persuasion and key players.

Please include a minimum of five scholarly peer-reviewed resources in your research.