In light of our readings and class discussion about communication within the criminal justice system, this assignment focuses on the language of police and suspects.
The goal of the assignment is to explore a specific instance of police-suspect interaction that you can analyze with secondary sources and discourse analysis (newspaper or journal articles, site observation, recorded video or audio, documentary, etc.) to clearly identify and describe how communication and criminal justice have overlapped and/or impacted that particular police-suspect interaction.
Part I
1. Summarize the issue/case.
2. Identify the multiple perspectives of the individuals/groups involved in the issue/case. (What is their position/argument and how does it differ from the other perspective(s)?)
3. If there is controversy (as there almost always is!) surrounding the issue/case, you should include it too.
Note: You will receive feedback for Part I but not a grade, so just think of it as preparation for thinking through Part II of the assignment. You can also change your mind and pick a new topic.
Part II: Assignment Format
Written response in the form of an essay w/ or w/out /visuals. You can provide screen shots to illustrate or compliment the essay response.
Structure of your written response:
Key Points:
Summary of the case (Part I) must be followed by analysis and in-text citations to support it
Remember your textbook is one of your best resources as are the other articles I have given to the class!
As per the rubric, I will lower the grade if you do not cite your sources in the project as well as a Works Cited/References page
Introduce your topic. If you completed Part I, you can use it as the introduction to Part II.
Explore the issue/case. What is the communication concern? The communication issue often relates to a threat to or a violation of Constitutional rights guaranteed by the 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments. That is, in a warrantless search and seizure, was there voluntary consent or in an arrest of a suspect, was the suspect informed of his/her right to counsel and did the suspect actually invoke that Right to Counsel or waive it? Was the suspect informed of his/her right to counsel and 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination or was there a violation by police officers who continued to question, refused a request for a lawyer, or used coercion to question? How does communication that is between law enforcement and suspect/defendant play out or overlap within the parameters set by the law? How do you know that communication played the role that it did according to forensic linguistic expert analysis? Is there any connection you can make to a subsystem of language in analyzing the communication concern?
Recommendations for linguistic/discourse analysis
Here are some of the areas that I strongly suggest you address in your project:
Identify the participants ,describe the details of the case, the relevant law, the courts decision and the rationale for that decision.
Identify relevant pragmatic information, e.g., speech acts like polite requests and commands and their roles in the communication or questioning techniques in interrogations. Or what aspects of the Cooperative Principle are present (or not present)?
Identify other subsystems of language besides pragmatics that may play a role in the analysis of the language in the communication and discuss.
Provide a conclusion. What was the resolution? What do the expert(s) think is the current status of the particular issue/case? Do they recommend any other communicative approach within the criminal justice context going forward?
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