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Criminal Law
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Criminal law is a foundational area of legal study concerned with defining offenses, establishing standards of culpability, and determining appropriate punishment for those who commit crimes against individuals or society. It appears across undergraduate and graduate curricula in law, criminal justice, and political science programs, often as a required course. The field is academically significant because it sits at the intersection of ethics, government authority, and individual rights, demanding that students analyze how societies decide which acts constitute crimes and how defendants are treated within formal legal systems. Texts such as Herring's Criminal Law: Text and Cases are among the assigned sources students engage with when building this analytical foundation.

Student papers on this topic approach the subject from several distinct angles. Some examine procedural dimensions, tracing how a case moves through the criminal justice process from arrest to sentencing. Others focus on substantive doctrine, analyzing concepts like the reasonable person standard or the principles underlying criminal liability. Applied angles are also common, with papers exploring how criminal law intersects with business activity, property offenses, and specific criminal statutes. Evidence problems and the role of police subculture within the broader criminal justice system represent additional threads that students pursue, often through case-study or policy-analysis frameworks.

A strong essay on criminal law requires a clearly bounded thesis — focusing on a specific offense category, legal standard, or procedural question rather than attempting to survey the entire field. Legal cases, statutory text, and scholarly commentary carry the most analytical weight as evidence. The most common pitfall is treating criminal law as purely descriptive; examiners expect students to evaluate why particular rules exist, how they function in practice, and whether they achieve just outcomes for defendants and society alike.

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Research Paper Undergraduate
Introduction to law enforcement
¶ … President's Crime Commission made the universal recommendation that every officer hold at least a baccalaureate degree, the amount of valuable research on policing has increased exponentially.
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Paper Undergraduate
Offender Tracking Systems Have Been
¶ … offender tracking systems have been used for the past 60 years or so, including physical visitations by law enforcement authorities to offenders' residences to verify their presence as well as telephonic and…
~1 min read
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Paper High School
Corrections Alternatives to Incarceration Using
Using alternatives to incarceration for offenders who commit minor crimes has a great benefit to both the offender and then community. These types of programs are used to reducing overcrowding in the jails and to better…
~1 min read
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The argument against the death penalty comes not from the morality of the reprehensible act of killing a human being, but from other elements directly associated with the death penalty.
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Paper Undergraduate
Polygamy: legal, social, and cultural perspectives
Polygamy is the practice of maintaining family systems involving more marital partners than two. It was commonly practiced in ancient times and is referenced throughout the Old and New Testaments.
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The issue of drug abuse has plagued this country for a while. Some drugs, while not as harmful as others are still considered illegal. In Chapter 5 of the book The Quest for Drug Control, Politics and Federal Policy…
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Paper Undergraduate
Preventing Crime: What Works, What
¶ … Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn't, What's Promising" by Lawrence W. Sherman, Denise C. Gottfredson, Doris L. MacKenzie, John Eck, Peter Reuter, and Shawn D. Bushway
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Paper High School
Conformity: Steroids in Baseball Steroids
Steroids have been used in baseball for decades, and little has been done to control them. Many players use steroids because of peer pressure and the pressure to perform. Steroids affect performance, but they can have…
~1 min read
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Paper Undergraduate
Evolution of Commercial Law From
This essay examines the evolution of commercial law from the eighteenth century to the current international e-commerce era, with an eye towards specific crises and responses that led to formation of the current system of general commercial law. These crises include the conflict between national law and the law merchant during the eighteenth century, the emergence of negotiable instruments in the early nineteenth century, the importance of new forms of insurance during the middle of the nineteenth century, the consolidation and monopolization of the Industrial Revolution, and the global effects of the internet on commerce and copyright. Tracing these crises and the legal system's response allows one to better understand how the evolution of commercial law is constituted by a mixture of disruptive change and long-standing legacies, as each new generation contributes to the whole of the law while continuing to deal with the long-standing effects of centuries-old rulings.
~1 min read
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Paper Undergraduate
Deterrent Effect, if One Exists,
¶ … deterrent effect, if one exists, of the death penalty on violent criminal acts in states with capital punishment laws compared to those that do not. Authoritative legal resources will be used to develop appropriate…
~1 min read
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