Assignment 3: 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.