Race and Sentencing
Assignment #4-1 Race and Sentencing / U.S. Incarceration Data
Review again the data charts and graphs on textbook pages 257 through 261. (This is an exercise about comparing data on this topic and making observations and conclusions. Make sure you are clear and specific about what data points you are analyzing, comparing or contrasting in each example and then what observation you are making.)
In a 1 to 2 page well-written essay, make three observations about the data and in the charts and graphs; about what your learned or concluded from analyzing this data. Do so by linking, comparing or contrasting data from these tables and graphs against one another. You can compare data within a chart or compare data from one chart against another. Think about your observations and analysis in terms of the rationales for incarceration from the unit introduction in the textbook and the textbook author’s other statements in the chapter readings. Do not summarize the textbook author’s observations, instead make your own and contribute your own analysis to those of the author and others.
Remember, while you may have some strong personal opinions about the topic(s), what does the data tell you ? Then, conclude by making informed observations about how are we doing in ensuring that we have a criminal justice system that, as our textbook author describes in the book’s introduction, “is aimed at stopping injustice and protecting order against those who threaten it”?
This assignment is worth 50 points and is due by end of day (11:59 pm) October 24th.
