PREVENTION PAPER
A carefully sourced, well written research paper is required. The topic of interest you select must be within the scope of the
subject matter of this course — prevention of crime and delinquency. This paper shall demonstrate scholarship, use of knowledge
acquired in this and other relevant courses, and reflect the student’s insights and original thinking.
The paper will require substantial effort on your part and much of your semester must be devoted to research on your chosen
topic, gathering data and information, conducting a formal review of the current, relevant, empirical evaluation research literature
on your selected topic and documenting evaluation research findings and conclusions obtained from your review. You will be
expected to formulate conclusions based on your review of the empirical evaluation research evidence. You will be expected to
offer recommendations based on the evaluation research evidence. Recommendations should take the form of a proposal or
proposals you would offer to address omissions and correct errors or oversights identified from your review. Proposals for
adopting a crime and delinquency prevention strategy should link proposed goals and objectives to specific program activities
you prescribe and the steps you would take or require be carried out to achieve them. Your proposal should also identify how you
would measure outcomes and impact to determine whether your proposal(s), could make a difference if they were to be
implemented.
Use of evaluation research findings from prior studies is essential and required. You will need to go beyond the evaluative
results provided in your textbooks. You will be most productive if you are able to locate and review articles which provide a
summary of the evaluative research literature on effectiveness and impact of one or more prevention programs. Also, your efforts
will be more efficient in use of your time if your research annotations include evaluation research studies (5 or more) that are
most directly related to your chosen paper topic. Much will depend on your review of evaluation research studies published in
independent, professional, refereed journals in the behavioral sciences, book chapters, formal published governmental
studies (NIJ, NSF, NIMH, BJS, etc.) and other reputable scientific sources. As you consider various sources, you should keep
in mind that you can and should seek to apply the most recent (2007 through 2019) empirical, evaluative, research evidence
drawn from these and other sources to determine the effectiveness of different crime and/or delinquency prevention strategies and
programs.
Organization of Paper
Each paper must be organized in sections with major side captions identifying each of the following elements:
● Introduction and Statement of the Problem: Clear and concise statement of a specific crime and delinquency problem;
including its scope, nature, seriousness, and type of offenders and victims impacted by the problem.
● Results in Brief: Summarize principal evaluation research findings drawn from your review of prior empirical research.
This is where you present your key findings, organized in relation to each major research question or issue.
● Conclusions and Recommendations: State conclusions that may be reached based on logical interpretation of these
evaluation research findings and what these conclusions suggest in the form of recommendations for action.
● Action Strategy: Conceptual framework identifying and articulating a specific strategy or strategies that are based on
valid interpretation of evaluation research findings that lead to conclusions on what works or has promise/potential for
successfully addressing the problem.
● Program Design: Identifies all of the components of an action program, drawing upon/giving appropriate consideration
to and treatment of, theory, research, and public policy alternatives that are applicable to the problem.
● Program Plan: The plan provides detailed “blueprints” for implementing the crime and delinquency program selected.
● Evaluation Component With Design: Provide for monitoring program implementation and for a formal evaluation of
the program including the evaluation design, methodology and data that will be needed to assess outcomes, and
outcome measures to be used in determining the effectiveness and impact of the crime and delinquency prevention
program.
Due Dates
See syllabus
Preparation and Format
Prevention paper topic proposals, paper topic outlines and drafts and final versions of your paper must be typed, with your name,
course name and number, instructor’s name and title and the date of submission. All papers must be written and follow APA
format. All submissions must be in hard-copy, printed form AND in digital, electronic form (MS WORD 2007/2013.) Final
prevention papers must be at least 25 pages but probably should not exceed 35 pages in length, not counting the title cover page,
abstract, table of contents and research bibliography. Research papers must be double-spaced, with footnotes placed at the bottom
of each page in citing sources, such as when making direct quotations from an empirical source. All papers must have a title
cover page, research abstract on a separate page, table of contents with page number references on a separate page, at least 25
pages representing the body of the paper and an extensive research bibliography on a separate page or pages included at the end
of the paper. The prescribed format for your paper follows.
PREVENTION PAPER FORMAT
Your paper must address one or more aspects of crime and delinquency prevention as stated in your syllabus. Papers must
include the following eleven components.
1. TITLE PAGE must include title of paper, name of course and course number, name of professor, date of submission,
name of student author.
1. ABSTRACT provides a concise statement (up to 120 words) that identifies the topic, key word concepts expressed as
questions or issues addressed, the central (or most important/significant) research findings, overall conclusion and key
recommendation For this paper you would include a few words about your action strategy, program design and plan
and provisions for evaluating program outcomes. The abstract is usually the last thing that you write.
1. TABLE OF CONTENTS provides page references for each section of the paper making it easier for the reader to find
or refer to specific sections. It also helps you stay in conformity with the paper format and keeping track of your cited
sources.
1. INTRODUCTION AND STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM informs the reader with the subject and scope by
providing clear and concise statement of the problem with specific questions and issues you will be addressing in
the body of your paper. Tell the reader what specific questions your paper is trying to answer. Tell the reader what
specific issues your paper hopes to cover. Tell the reader what issues you will focus most of your attention upon and
what important issues your paper will exclude and why? In this section you should include descriptive data and
information that describes and defines the nature, scope and extent of the problem or issue your topic addresses. It also
is the place where you introduce and summarize theories and principal assumptions you drew upon in your efforts to
answer these questions and explain the issues you considered
1. RESULTS IN BRIEF provides a formal presentation of the principal findings drawn from your review of prior
empirical research. This is where you present your key findings, organized in relation to each major question or issue
basing your arguments on logical interpretation of these research findings. (not your personal opinion!) Put another
way, for each major question and issue, present a summary of the empirical evidence drawn from past research
followed by your analysis and interpretation of the relevance and significance of the empirical research evidence for
each specific question or issue involved. If there are questions or issues that you believe were not satisfactorily
addressed by the empirical research literature you may identify specific researchable questions that you believe warrant
further study concerning this topic.
1. CONCLUSION(S) AND RECOMMENDATION(S) that can be made based upon the empirical evidence and your
analysis. Recommendations offered, should include concrete actions intended to affect the prevention or control of
crime or juvenile delinquency. Be sure to refer to the support, cited earlier in your paper, which motivates your
arguments. If warranted include any recommendations you have regarding future research on this topic. The
recommendations from your review become the basis for your the next section of your paper — the Program Design
1. ACTION STRATEGY – Conceptual framework identifying and articulating a specific strategy or strategies that are
based on valid interpretation of research findings that lead to conclusions on what works or has promise/ potential for
successfully addressing the problem.
1. PROGRAM DESIGN – In this section you draw on the results of your review and lay out a design for a prevention
program, identifying the key elements (i.e., goals and objectives, inputs, processes, outputs, outcomes and intended
impacts) that you would recommend be undertaken and explain why. This will require you to think about crime or
delinquency problem(s) your recommended prevention program strategy is trying to address and solve. To do so you
will need to give appropriate consideration and treatment to theory, research, and public policy opportunities and
constraints that are relevant to your program strategy.
1. PROGRAM PLAN – In this section of your paper you will identify the steps that will need to be completed in linking
together the elements of your program design to successfully implement the crime or delinquency program strategy
you are recommending. This will require you to think about what specific tasks and activities will need to be carried
out in order to make your program design a practical reality. One way to look at this is to think of the program design
as setting the basic requirements and the program plan as a set blueprints that you will follow to construct the program
according to design specifications using the elements as your basic building blocks.
1. EVALUATION COMPONENT WITH DESIGN – In this section of your paper you will provide for monitoring
program implementation and for a formal evaluation of the program including an outline of the evaluation research
design, methodology, measures and data needed to assess outcomes and outcome measures to be used in order for you
to be able to determine the effectiveness and impact of your recommended program strategy on the crime or
delinquency problem(s) your strategy is intended to address. One way to approach this is to consider how you will
measure each of the objectives in the program design and how you would determine whether your prevention program
strategy could make a difference in the problem (e.g., compare crime or delinquency rates before and after, or to some
other setting, etc.) .
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND/OR REFERENCES – The paper will require reviewing current relevant empirical research
literature and directly citing at least five (5) separate, independent, professional, refereed journal articles, book
chapters, formal studies and other reputable sources from which empirical research findings were drawn in addressing
and organizing your presentation. Empirical research studies, data and information may be retrieved from reputable
web sources but must be fully and accurately sourced. Newspaper articles, Wikipedia and similar sources are NOT
acceptable as one of the five (5) required cited sources. You will need to go to and use the library. So, go early and
often!
Do’s and Don’ts
Papers must be prepared using APA format. They must be typed, doublespaced, using running headers and footers so that the
title of the paper and a page number appears on each page. References and cited works should be identified in the form of
footnotes. Although no upper limit is set on the number of pages the paper should contain, a good ruleofthumb would be to
keep it to between 25 to 35 pages in length (not counting the title page, abstract, table of contents and bibliography.)
In organizing the body of your paper, use major side captions and sub-captions to break up the sections or elements in the
body of your paper. For example, DO use the following major captions in the body of your paper.
● INTRODUCTION AND STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
● RESULTS IN BRIEF
● CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
● ACTION STRATEGY
● PROGRAM DESIGN
● PROGRAM PLAN
● EVALUATION COMPONENT WITH DESIGN
DO use sub-captions within each of these sections to organize and distinguish material that applies to different questions or
issues under a major caption. Use of sub-captions also helps prevent run-on sentences and overly long paragraphs that might
otherwise cause your reader to get lost or overwhelmed by detail. DO use tables, graphs, charts, illustrations, diagrams,
photographs and other visual references that directly help in communicating your information. DO NOT use these as “filler”
as “boilerplate” material to stretch the page length of your paper. DO use spell check and review grammar, sentence
construction, and check for proper punctuation! It would be a smart idea to have a classmate or trusted friend read your paper
or read it to you so that you may spot possible errors. If you intend to request help from the Reference Librarians and folks in
the Writing Center, be sure to begin the effort early in the semester and be considerate of the significant demands that are
being made on the time and good nature of those who are trying to help you.
DO NOT PROCRASTINATE! If you have not begun work on your paper by April 7 you are at serious risk of difficulty
completing your assignments.
