Write a research paper, based on an argument that you develop within the area of Psychology and the Law.

Write a research paper, based on an argument that you develop within the area of Psychology and the Law. You will develop an original argument and support your argument with scholarly research. Your topic will address some area of psychology and the law and will extend beyond the material presented in the textbook and other assigned materials. You will use a minimum of 5 scholarly journal articles from the fields of: psychology, criminal justice, law, criminology, and/or sociology (5 of these should be the ones you used in your annotated bibliography). You will not simply pull statistics or quotes from these articles but will discuss theories, describe research, describe court cases, discuss case studies, etc. You will understand the articles and write what you have understood in your own words. You will NOT use extensive block quotes from your articles. The research is the central part of the paper. You must develop at least two perspectives on your argument. This does not necessarily mean for and against something, but can take different perspectives (the law vs. psychology, for example), use different types of evidence (cognitive vs. developmental, for example), different approaches (theoretical vs. applied), changes in perspectives over time (historical perspective vs. contemporary perspective), or discuss disagreements about the usefulness of a particular theory (for example, broken windows policing), etc. Note that two perspectives is a minimum. You may find that you can discuss five different perspectives on your topic–or more! That is fine! If you have trouble reaching the page limit, it is because you have not gone deep enough into your topic. This is meant to be a deep dive, not a cursory overview.

The paper will be 8-10 pages (excluding title page and references), APA style (Times New Roman 12 point font, double-spaced, 1-inch margins, title page, reference page, correct use of in-text citations). You will develop an argument, incorporating the sources used in your annotated bibliography (and possibly others), providing examples, explaining experiments, discussing theories, etc.

My argument will be predicated on prison reform. Prisons in America are not attaining ideal results for prisoners and society at large. Therefore, efforts must be remade to reform the system to generate the results we desire.

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