“Program effects on criminal justice and legal system utilization and costs”

Technical aspects:

This writing assignment must be typed. It should be between 2-3 double-spaced

pages and absolutely no longer than 4 pages. Rather than concentrate on the

length of the paper, aim to answer each question in a thorough and complete

manner. Your writing must be clear, free of grammatical errors, and misspellings.

Points will be taken off for poor writing.

Requirements:

Carefully read the article entitled: “Seattle’s law enforcement assisted diversion

(LEAD): Program effects on criminal justice and legal system utilization and

costs” and its appendix. This article and the appendix are posted on Canvas under the heading “Critical Thinking Writing Assignment 2.”

Write a summary of this article. In your summary address each of the following

issues:

1) Which of the four types of research is this study?

2) What are the research questions posed in this research? (The research

question may be implied and never explicitly stated.)

3) What kind of sampling strategy was used to select research participants?

Is this sampling strategy a probability or non-probability sampling method?

4) What unit of analysis is used in this study?

5) What type of research design was used in this study? Does this research

design include a comparison/control group? If so, how well matched is the

comparison group to the treatment group?

6) Which threats to internal validity apply to this study?

7) What did the research find?

8) Can the researchers be confident that the relationship(s) between the

primary independent(s) and dependent variables are causal? Explain.

Do not simply write one sentence responses to the above questions. Your

summary of the article must be written into coherent paragraphs that flow

together in essay format. Remember that the quality of written expression is very

important to research, and how you say something as well as what you say is

important.