Prison Evaluation, Essay Example

Identify the subject of your peer’s research paper. Explain why the subject is too broad, too narrow, or appropriate for the length of the paper

The subject of the paper is that the judicial system needs to change the way that prisoners are kept or incarcerated because it is causing prisons to be overcrowded and too costly on taxpayers.  The subject of the paper is perfect for this length of paper, but there are some arguments that are too briefly stated.  Perhaps by limiting the main arguments to only two concepts as opposed to three, it will allow the paper to effectively define and evaluate the proposed solutions toward the problem.

Find the thesis statement for the research paper. Write the sentence that you believe expresses the thesis statement

The purpose of this paper is to make people realize that the judicial system needs to invest in alternative methods for dealing with criminals other than imprisonment.

Identify passages or paragraphs that provide rational evidence or an emotional appeal that struck you as significant and effective

“It took too long for John Allen Muhammad to face the death penalty (“Execution date reopens wounds of D.C. snipers,” News, Nov. 10).How much money did it cost taxpayers to house and feed him? After he terrorized an entire region and killed 10 people, it was only right for him to be put to death. Sadly, the death penalty is needed to protect civilized people.

Identify passages or paragraphs of the paper that you found most interesting and effective.

Between 60,000 and 70,000 California parolees return to custody annually for violations.

The most common problem plaguing our criminal justice system is substance abuse, which affects more than 70% of our prison population. The law offers criminals’ treatment before a trial is ever needed, if they successfully complete the program, they may never incur a felony charge, keeping them from going deeper into the system and becoming lost. (Brown) This allows those who have been sentenced to prison for drug related crimes to join a program and get out of jail/prison quicker, or keep them out all together, and get them into a better lifestyle.

Find and list those paragraphs

• That need to be supported with more specific details.
• That contain any logical fallacies/faulty reasoning. Recommend strategies to improve the effectiveness of those paragraphs.

Alternative methods such as an electronic monitoring system could prove to be cheaper and more efficient for the law enforcement community. It allows law enforcement to use a GPS positioning system, allowing them to see the exact location of the criminal at all times. By switching to this method it would allow all criminals recent and prior to be monitored in a more efficient manor. This would allow better tracking of pedophiles, rapists, arsonists, thieves, and any other major criminal. It would also allow better tracking of those involved in gang crimes, thus leading to the tracking of the whole gang.

In most cases, people who willfully kill should lose their lives. Some killings are not just. Our judicial system needs to learn from an ancient verse: When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong (Ecclesiastes 8:11).” (Cornell)  – I am not sure if this entire paragraph that the quote was taken from is one big block quote, but the author’s logic here is skewed.  Where is the line drawn?  How can some killings be just while others are not?  The paper argues that death penalty should be used to eliminate the population congestion, but not all criminals are killers.  There are a lot of logical problems with this point.  Try including suggestions to evaluate when the death penalty should and should not be used.  Who does it apply to?

This would allow better tracking of pedophiles, rapists, arsonists, thieves, and any other major criminal. It would also allow better tracking of those involved in gang crimes, thus leading to the tracking of the whole gang.  –  This sections of the first main argumentative body paragraph suggests that a GPS monitoring technique would help keep track of offenders while keeping them out of the prison system.  The problem is that by tracking them, it does not mean that the person will not be involved in criminal activity or that the person would be ignorant enough to allow the police to track his or her gang.  Most criminals would likely stay away from their gangs while they were being tracked to protect their group.  Try thinking of alternative uses that GPS tracking may benefit the prison system.  Perhaps there are statistics to support using it or maybe you can explain what criminals would be allowed to be on this program as opposed to serving jail time.  I’m not sure that “pedophiles, rapists, arsonists, thieves, and any other major criminal” should be exempt from prison.

Identify places in the paper where the author fails to maintain an objective point of view. What steps would you recommend to the author to correct the problem

In this situation, I would simply copy and paste the entire section about the death penalty.  This entire section of the paper is very biased.  I would recommend that the author include the opposing viewpoints to the death penalty.  I know that the paper is not specifically about the death penalty, but the author is using this as a primary suggestion for eliminating much of the prison population.

Check the writer’s sources and documentation format for both in-text citations and the References page to ensure that they conform to APA requirements. Identify any errors that need to be corrected in the final draft.

… world. (Howarth, DATE)  – Add the year that the work was written to all APA citations in your paper as I showed here.  Also, the period for all of your in-text citations should come after the parenthesis, not before it.

Also, please check this paragraph:

“It took too long for John Allen Muhammad to face the death penalty (“Execution date reopens wounds of D.C. snipers,” News, Nov. 10).How much money did it cost taxpayers to house and feed him? After he terrorized an entire region and killed 10 people, it was only right for him to be put to death. Sadly, the death penalty is needed to protect civilized people. If Maj. Nidal Hasan is found guilty of killing 13 people, how long will we pay to house and feed him before he is put to death, if that ends up being his sentence? In most cases, people who willfully kill should lose their lives. Some killings are not just. Our judicial system needs to learn from an ancient verse: When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong (Ecclesiastes 8:11).” (Cornell)

It appears that this entire section may be one large block quote.  Check the APA citation rules for block quotes.  I don’t believe an entire paragraph is supposed to be taken from someone else’s work, and if a block quote is necessary it needs to be included with your own words first in the paragraph and then indented.  Also, remember that the period comes after the final parenthesis to end the sentence.

Identify any missing elements for the essay

The only main missing element is in the first main argumentative paragraph.  There is no statistical support or logical evidence to support using a GPS tracking system.  The in-text citations overall were very strong, except for the large block paragraph that should be revised.  Also, I would recommend that you revise the introduction.  Make the introduction one large paragraph that introduces the audience to the topic.  You might want to include a statistic here that points out how serious a problem the overcrowding in prisons has become or even the costs that it puts on local, state or federal governments.  Otherwise, all of these main elements were included throughout the essay.

Identify any unity or coherence issues that you find

Other than the logical issues I already mentioned, I am not able to find any unity or coherence issues throughout the paper.  Everything makes sense, but some of the suggestions are not always logical.

Identify any areas where more effective use of transitional words and phrases would improve the coherence of the essay. (See Successful College Writing, pp. 259-260.)

I think the transitional words are fantastic in this paper.  The paper does flow very smoothly after the introductory paragraphs.  The argumentative body paragraphs in the paper are organized logically and transition very well.

Additional Comments

Overall, I think the paper is very strong.  Try revising some of the logical errors and problems with your citation format and the paper will work very well.