In class, we talked about how the “US criminal justice system” is actually made up of many different systems spread across various geographies and levels of government. For this first class assignment, you’ll pick one place and learn a bit more about what incarceration and the legal system look like there. You will search out the answers to a series of questions about that place, hopefully learning more about it and how it compares to the US as a whole. You will write up these answers, as well as your reflections on what you’ve learned, in an informal paper of 3–5 pages in length.
This assignment is due during week 5.
Stylistic guidance:
The “paper” doesn’t need to be particularly well-structured: feel free to write it as a series of one-paragraph responses to the questions below, a little more like a worksheet than a standard paper. But it should be written in full sentences, not in bullet points, and it should be proofread. Also, please include references so that the instructor can tell where you got each piece of information. (The instructor is not worried about whether you use MLA or APA format or something else for references; just make sure they can look at the reference and understand where the information came from and how they could go look at it themself.) References can be included as footnotes or in a list at the end of each answer or of the full paper, but make sure that the instructor can tell which reference is the source of any given piece of information.
If you cannot find the answer to one of these questions after a half-hour of thorough searching, answer the question by explaining how you searched for the answer, and giving us any related information you found that comes close to the answer. It’s possible that there’s no data available to answer that question for your jurisdiction; part of the goal of this assignment is to have you learn about the limits of available data in this realm.
Here are the steps:
- Choose a town, city, or county in the US. This could be your hometown, or a place you visited once, or someplace you’re just curious about. The rest of the assignment will focus on this place.
- Now, do some internet sleuthing and try to answer the following questions about this place:
- What is the incarceration rate in this municipality, and how does it compare to the overall US rate? Is there any available information on incarceration rates by race?
- If someone were arrested in this municipality for driving while intoxicated (or whatever that charge is called in this place), where would they be held immediately after their arrest? If you were a friend or family member trying to bail them out, what would that process look like?
- If someone were facing a misdemeanor charge (say, shoplifting something worth $20), what court would handle their case? What if they were facing a felony charge (something like aggravated assault)?
- If someone were being detained pre-trial, or they were sentenced to jail time in their misdemeanor case, where would they be held? Is there any information available (either from local media investigations, or from government investigations) about the conditions in this facility? Can you find any information about the death rate among people held here?
- If someone were sentenced to prison time in a felony case, where might they be held? (For both this question and the previous one, there might be multiple places a person could end up. If that’s the case, tell us the agency that would hold the person in custody, and either tell us a little bit about the whole prison system or else just pick one prison to talk about.) Is there any information available (either from local media investigations, or from government investigations) about the conditions in this facility? Can you find any information about the death rate among people held here?
- Can you tell how much this jurisdiction spends on courts and incarceration in a year? How did you try to figure it out, and what did you find?
- Finally, take a few sentences—not more than half a page—to reflect on what you learned during this assignment. Some possible prompts (you don’t need to answer all of these): What surprised you the most? What question was most difficult to answer? What are you still confused about?
Student Example
“Chicago’s Incarceration and Legal Systems” (PDF)
Note: This example appears courtesy of an MIT student and is anonymous by request.
