Teaching Criminal Justice

Provided on this page are suggestions for:

• Web-based Classroom Activities especially relevant to criminal justice and criminology
• Videos on various aspects of criminal justice for use in the classroom or as outside assignments.
• Information on Using the Internet to supplement class instruction.
• A section with links to General Education sites for instructional ideas.
• A section with information and links on Ethical topics like plagiarism, and ways to identify purchased papers.

Anatomy of a Murder: A Trip Through Our Nation's Legal Justice System Follow the story of a defendant as he faces one of the most serious charges the legal system can levy.

Argument in an Athenian Jail: Socrates and the Law Students will read and analyze Socrates' Crito in which he argues against the idea that he should escape the penalty of death imposed on him by Athens, laying the groundwork for future debates over the rights of the individual and the rule of law. The lesson concludes by having students consider whether this Socratic argument still holds true today, finding examples in contemporary American society to demonstrate their point of view

Crime and Punishment: Case Negotiation in the Criminal Justice System Professor Valerie Hans at the University of Delaware created this activity to acquaint students with the way in which the outcome of a case is negotiated within the criminal justice system, and the factors that affect the resolution of a criminal case.

European Geography Test European Geography Test is a collection of challenging Web-based geography exams that survey students' knowledge of European topography, European urban geography, and general map skills. Tests are divided into three different learning levels, and the focus and objectives for each test are clearly stated. The tests employ interactive maps, photographic images, pull-down menus, radio buttons, and fill-in forms to ask students a series of multiple choice, true or false, and matching questions. Requires registration.

Famous Trial Homepage A great site from law professor Doug Linder. Not only information about famous trials but also some great learning games (scroll down to the "There's More" section) for student assignments.

Famous Trials in American History: Cases that Shaped and Shocked the Nation The ABA Museum of Law presents a sneak peak at its upcoming exhibit

Frontline: The Execution Excellent suggestions for reviewing capital punishment from an academic perspective

HyperHistory Online An interactive world history chart

Psychology Experiments Online An interesting interactive site that provides students with an opportunities to participate in psychology experiments. Could be a good classroom activity. In January 2001 and new "become a juror" experiment looked intriguing for criminal justice courses.

The Turing Game A very interesting site that challenges notions of a raceless, classless, genderless Internet. Have your students participate in one of the games and report in class on their experience.

Who Killed William Robinson? Race, Justice, and Settling the Land: A Historical Whodunit This innovative Website takes a historical event -- a murder case on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, in 1868 -- and uses it as a means to examine the cultural and social history of nineteenth-century colonialism. The site is structured as a historical "whodunit." Users are challenged to form learned conclusions based on the evidence surrounding the murder of William Robinson, a black settler who was allegedly killed by an Aboriginal man, Tshuanahusset, who was ultimately tried and convicted by an all-white jury. As users investigate the complex case, by way of hundreds of primary and secondary documents and nearly a hundred images, they are confronted with manifold issues such as immigration, racism, religious tolerance, gender equality, judicial inequity, and economic change. Although creators Ruth Sandwell and John Lutz of the University of Victoria developed the site for students in grades eight through twelve, users of all ages will benefit from this rich exploration of historical understanding. >From the Scout Report for Social Sciences, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1999.

Law Enforcement & Investigation

• Profiles of Evil: Inside the Criminal Mind In the past 20 years, a remarkable new crime-fighting technique has been perfected. It is called profiling, and it allows investigators to piece together a portrait of the suspect they are hunting for from the slightest clues. (50 min)
• Behind the Blue Wall: Police Brutality Go inside the NYPD, recently rocked by a series of high-profile cases of police brutality. (50 min.)
• Falsely Accused  Shows how eyewitness testimony, which is given so much weight by juries, often leads to tragic mistakes. (50 min.)

The Courtroom

• It is one of the most crucial, yet often least reliable, elements of any trial. Use Eyewitness to explore cases which raise grave questions about eyewitness testimony.
• In It's Not My Fault: Strange Defenses  famed attorney Alan Dershowitz examines three cases that illustrate the bizarre extremes and potential traps of unconventional legal strategies.

Corrections .

• Keepers: A Job Behind Bars Go on the beat with prison guards for an intimate look at the toughest job in law enforcement.
• Use Women in Prison to provide students with a view of how the American penal system fails when it comes to female prisoners, most of whom are trapped in a lifelong cycle of pain and failure. (50 min.)
• Solitary Confinement provides the first-ever comprehensive investigation of what life is like for the 10% of inmates who serve their sentences in isolation.

• Bill Taylor, a librarian at Georgetown Law Library, provides information on designing a web-based tutorial. Read his article Designing a Successful Web-Based Tutorial.
• The Open Knowledge Initiative, with MIT and Stanford as partners, is an easy-to-use, web-based environment for assembling, delivering and accessing educational resources and activities. Make periodic visits to see how it's progressing.
• The World Lecture Hall was one of the first, and remains one of the best, resources for educators interested in making greater use of the Internet for classroom instruction.
• Catalyst  Catalyst is an "integrated collection of resources, training, tools, templates, and support" to assist instructors who are implementing new educational technologies into their teaching. Catalyst is comprised of four publicly available modules. Method Guides is a section that suggests numerous ways that technology can support teaching. Quick Guides is a "how to" series of short reference guides that explain the ways that educational technology can be used in commonly performed tasks. Profiles highlights examples from six educators who have used technology effectively. Information is a section devoted to miscellanea, such as a glossary of unfamiliar terms and a collection of intellectual property links, among other items. An orderly design, useful pull-down menus, and a detailed site index aid navigation, enabling educators using Catalyst to be efficient agents of change.
• Chronicle of Higher Education - Teaching page
• Course Resources on the Web - The Social Psychology section of CROW has interesting and useful information at its "Courtroom" page.
• Intellectual Property, Copyright and Distance Learning The purpose of this project is to link to Web-based articles that review the literature in this area or that pose substantive arguments as to the current state of affairs and where we may be going on this issue
• PsyberSite A gateway to tutorials on topics in the field of psychology

Online choices for checking suspected plagiarism:

• TurnItIn.com is the premier site for determining if a term paper was copied from the Internet or another class. Encourage your college or university to join.
• Essay Verification Engine EVE is a powerful tool designed to combat the growing problem of internet plagiarism. EVE accepts essays in plain text format and returns links to web pages from which a student may have plagiarized. EVE has been developed to be powerful enough to find plagiarized material while not overwhelming the professor with false links. Cost is about $20
• The Center for Academic Integrity
• Code of Academic Integrity at Cornell University