Recidivism in America

PLEASE, THE WORD “GANG” SHOULD NOT APPEAR IN THE PAPER. THANK YOU

I need 6 to 7 sources, NO WIKIPEDIA or ASK.COM or SIMILAR WEBSITES. if it is a website, need a good PDF document, like an FBI or Bureau of Justice Statistics.

here is one source:
Clear, T. R., Cole, G. F. & Reisig, M. D. (2011). American corrections. (10th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson Higher Learning.
(ISBN 13: 978-1-133-04973-9 or 10: 1-133-04973-7).

Writing criteria
Do’s
All research papers must follow this format, because a failure to do so will result in a five percent (5%) deduction per error:
1) Twelve (12) point Times New Roman font only;
2) One inch margins on all sides;
3) Double space the lines and fully justify both margins;
4) American Psychological Association (APA) format;
5) Microsoft Word documents only; do not use WordPad or WordPerfect;
6) Create a title page that includes your name, course title and section,
a title for your paper, the submission date, and the word count (see sample paper);
7) Save and upload your research paper under your Last name, First name
(i.e. Student, Ima) NOT STUDENT, IMA
8) Quotations should not exceed forty percent of the document’s content;
9) No more that 40% of the content can consist of quotes.
Other suggestions are as follows:
. *Utilize the spell check. Red and green lines appear for a reason. Therefore, please take heed.
. *Hyphenate words that are spelled correctly but appear to be misspelled. For example, postdisposition can easily be corrected by typing the word as post-disposition.
. Create an outline to organize your thoughts before typing your final draft.
. *Remember to place punctuation within quotation marks (.”).
. *Spell numbers less than 13. It is the standard when submitting documents in Texas courts.
. Change the typeset of the bibliography if it is created with the bibliography tool within the Microsoft document. Students often allow the computer to create their source page but the computer tends to generate this portion of the document in a different font. Simply highlight that portion of the document and change the font setting to address this issue.
. *Use consistent terms. If you begin using the term “offenders” to refer to all those who have committed a crime then changing the term to “defendants” leads the reader to believe you are only referring to those who have not completed the court process.
. *Use italics or bold for emphasis. Do not use quotation marks unless you include a source. Students sometimes use quotation marks, but that causes the faculty member to immediately look for a source annotation. Don’t leave yourself open for criticism!
Don’ts
. Do not use Wikipedia, Ask.com or similar websites for information. It is probably one of the least valid research engines. Remember, no website source can be used except if it reflects where a PDF document was obtained.
. *Any quote that is 40 words or more is considered to be a block (substantial) quote. Refer to your APA citation guide for instructions on how to annotate block quotes. It requires an additional indention on the left margin.
. *Generally, all first-person (I, me, my or even we) references should be withheld until the concluding paragraph. Nevertheless, it is unacceptable to use the words I, me, my, we, us. Utilize other words to convey personal ideas. For example, instead of starting a sentence with “I believe,” use “this researcher believes” or “one might believe.” It is the professional way to convey your opinion. It is important to learn to write in a manner that is expected in all criminal justice professional careers. Society, citizens, Americans, and similar words are preferred over the more personalized vernacular.
. *Avoid word choice errors. View this as an opportunity to expand your vocabulary (like = similar; nowadays = Today; after that = subsequently; good = beneficial; book for the course = textbook; get = obtain; got = obtained, secured; etc. = etcetera, great = phenomenal).
. *Avoid acronym errors. Do not assume that your reader knows the meaning of your acronym. For example, CERT is a commonly used acronym that can mean either a community emergency response team or a cell extraction response team. The acronym must be explained at first use; it can then appear unexplained throughout the remainder of the document unless you intend to convey a different meaning. For example, probation and parole agents refer to electronic monitoring in a manner that distinguishes the two areas of community supervisions. The acronym ELM is used in probation, whereas EM is used in parole. Simply, this means you must annotate the meaning of each acronym the first time it appears in your paper. Other commonly used abbreviations may still be considered an error, such as TV for television or 9/11 when a date should be written in its entirety such as September 11, 2001. Finally, compile your resources, draft your paper, and submit it early. Procrastination is never an advantageous approach.
Most common errors reiterated
The following is a list of common errors that are generally made when writing papers. The acronyms in this section may appear when reviewing the comments when your papers are graded. Spelling (sp) is important and, again, avoided by using the spelling and grammar tool on your computer. Word choice (wc) is an unnecessary error that is not expected. Students must use a college level vocabulary. Run-on sentences (ros) occur when you are unclear about how to convey the information. Remember not to tire the reader. Proper punctuation (pp) is as important as the content of the document itself. Lowercase (lc – or uc for uppercase) will appear when words are improperly capitalized. More importantly, many sentences suffer poor sentence structure (SS). A relatively easy exercise would be to simply read the sentence aloud; and know that a sentence structure error exists if it requires taking a breath in the process. Use commas, semi-colons or simply create two or more sentences to complete the thought. Plagiarism (PGR) means it was not an original thought or idea. Remember to give credit where credit is due by providing the source.
Research papers
Students generally have lingering questions when reading chapters in the textbook. This
dilemma provides an excellent opportunity to explore your interest and answer some of those questions. Problems generally arise when trying to refine the question(s) but it is important to be as definitive as possible. For example, the topic of prison gangs is quite common. Yet, one must discern exactly what it is they want to know. Is it the influence of a particular gang, such as the Mexican Mafia, in Texas prisons? Explore the “who, what, why, when and where” questions when determining the specificity of the premise for your research. All papers must have a focus on corrections, be at least 850-1,500 words, have a minimum of five (5) resources (scholarly and professional journals and books only), and follow the writing criteria outlined in this syllabus.
Remember: Papers will not receive a score, and will receive a zero score if they:
1) lack in-text APA citations; 2) are emailed; 3) are not Microsoft documents or; 4) are locked.