SOC 324 Crime and Violence Issue Worksheet
● Choose a topic. What is your chosen crime or
violence issue? Choose from the following list and
provide a brief preliminary overview. Your
overview will simply be 1–2 sentences describing
why this issue is important to you and to society in
general.
● Decriminalization of responsible drug use
● Intervention on the issue of campus rape
● Prisons as mental health institutions
● Militarization of police
● Institutionalized racism in a chosen area of the
criminal justice system
● Other issue (if approved by instructor)
I've decided to write about how mental health
facilities in prisons are used. This icebreaker is
about the idea that prisons can help the economy
grow a lot. The dysfunctional behaviors of
prisoners who require clinical care while detained
but have extremely limited access to treatment
are described in an article titled "PRISON AND
THE MENTALLY ILL."
● Introduce your social advocacy group. This is an
advocacy group of your own creation. In other
words, if you were to establish an advocacy group
dedicated to the work of your issue, what does that
advocacy group look like and what are its ultimate
goals (e.g., public awareness, political action,
social action, changing laws)?
● Explain the work the group does related to the
topic area.
● Explain how the social issue aligns with the
group’s ultimate goals.
The social support that I make would
handle both public mindfulness as well
as zeroing in on evolving regulations. My
social advocacy group's objective would
be to provide mental health inmates with
protection; those who are diagnosed
mentally ill will be taken care of
separately from the other inmates that
are not diagnosed mentally ill. This
support group would stress the necessity
of incarcerating mentally ill individuals for
treatment. They need to be treated for
their mental illness, not just put in jail.
