Instructions

Multiculturalism and diversity are at the heart of the American experience and reflect the demographics of our country. Our celebration of many different ethnic and racial groups, however, has been a subject of controversy and growth for many years when dealing with crime and punishment. For your Final Project, you are asked to locate a case, newsworthy event or topic that has impacted the development of our country’s laws relating to diversity/multiculturalism and crime and punishment. For example, you could discuss how states have developed juvenile diversion programs to help at risk Black and Hispanic youth stay out of jail and how these programs benefit society. Another example relates to challenges for law enforcement in enforcing criminal laws in multicultural communities and whether the methods used there are working. In preparing your paper, you should conduct an investigation online and collect valid evidence from a variety of sources to develop a valid explanation from the data you found in support of your event, topic or case, and communicate and defend those conclusions in your paper.

Source: Juvenile Diversion Programs (2016). Crime solutions.gov. National Institute of Justice. Retrieved from https://www.crimesolutions.gov/PracticeDetails.asp…

Source: Mayer, M. & Erickson, S. (2011) Changing today’s law enforcement culture to face 21st Century Threats. The Heritage Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.heritage.org/homeland-security/report/c…

Your analysis should include the following:

• Brief summary of the facts of the event, topic or case
• Explanation of the legal issues relevant to criminal law, diversity and multiculturalism
• Analysis of the state or court’s position and reasoning
• Analysis of how states leveraged multiculturalism and diversity for the benefit of the community
• Evaluation of the impact of this event on the development of society and criminal law