Pros and cons of arming probation officers

Exam 2 Essay Component

Answer 4 out of the 8 following questions in their entirety. Although quality is more important than quantity, your total response for all questions should not be less than 3 1/2 pages. Double space and 12 point font. I highly suggest either visiting the writing center or have someone who you consider to be an exceptional writer revise your paper and then make corrections before submitting. You paper will be graded on content as well as overall quality of writing.

1. How might you explain the fact that the female prison population is increasing at a faster rate than that for men?

2. Identify some of the pros and cons of arming probation officers. If you were a probation officer, would you want to be required to carry a firearm? What factors did you consider?

3. Make the case for whether mandatory minimum sentences, the war on drugs, and sexual predators, are examples of policy grounded in empirical, ethical, or ideological grounds. Why did you decide the way you did?

4. Given the huge negative outcome of prisoner disenfranchisement, what are some reasons to stay the course? Why are some reasons to eliminate it? If correctional supervision is “enough” punishment, why do we continue to punish after release from supervision?

5. What are the advantages and disadvantages to considering the moral legitimacy of torture under a time bomb scenario? Would you be supportive of such an approach? Why or why not?

6. Do you think the US has a better chance at “winning” the war on terror from a consequentialist or nonconsequentialist perspective? Or, would you suggest some other ethical system as a framework?

7. Discuss local examples using Rome’s process model (p. 248) of how media imagery creates and blends with stereotypes to perpetuate the image of the criminal black male. What would be a more accurate way for the media to report the examples you are considering?

8. Consider Surette’s “law of opposites”. While he uses crime as an example, can you think of any other topics that also fit the characteristics of his law? For example, are there other media stories that are, for example. a prominent feature of all media, overwhelmingly about the seriousness of that topic, have characters that are generally different than those really involved in that topic, etc. See page 249 for additional characteristics.