Research Assignment

Order Description

The assignment requires independent thinking, evaluation and analysis. Merely repeating and paraphrasing sources will result in poor marks. To achieve good marks, students will need to show evidence of their analysis and evaluation of the problem.

You must not simply provide long repetitions of judgements, facts or sections. These do not show
evidence of your own independent thinking at a post graduate level.

Economics 385

The Economics of Crime and Punishment

Research Assignment

Due Date: First week of March

Length: 8 to 10 pages of text, including relevant charts, tables, diagrams

Plagiarism is as usual a no no. There are links on the moodle site to advice on what constitutes plagiarism and how to avoid it. And remember, if you can find something on the net to copy, I can find it even easier.

Topics: For this assignment I’d like you to focus on numerical data. Topic areas can include any of the topics covered in the course outline, but I’d like a paper emphasizing the numerical side of the issue. Trends in various kinds of crime rates would be an obvious example, as would estimates of the cost of crime or the cost of enforcement and punishment. In addition to statistics I would expect explanations of trends, justifications for cost estimates and so on.

You are free to use any jurisdiction you like.

Sources: Aside from the readings on the outline there are a few obvious places to look. For Canadian statistical information and some commentary there is the Juristat site at Statistics Canada. There are a couple of economics journals largely dedicated to legal issues, though not exclusively crime, so be selective – the Journal of Law and Economics and the Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, and a bit more interdisciplinary, the Journal of Legal Studies. Or check out Stephen Levitt’s Wikipedia site and pick one of his articles as a starter.
If you’re googling topics, you might want to stick a word like economic or economics in your search. There is a difference between the approaches of the economics literature and the more mainstream criminology literature. Google scholar will deliver more credible academic sources. Also try the Econlit search through the UPEI library site.