MOTIVATION
My Personal Interest
There were a number of factors that drove me into choosing this particular topic and style. For me, I grew up with two different cultures that varied immensely, I often heard mixed perspectives and opinions on all sorts of subjects. However, crime in particular stood out to me as a concept that was often interpreted in a multitude of ways. Recent global events that perpetuated mass attention only further fueled my desire to cover this topic. Racial profiling and prejudice was also one of the main motivations behind my report, especially after the Black Lives Matter movement finally started gaining attention. I also wanted to look at how legal systems are slowly developing and changing within time by researching police officers. The research question I chose was: Why is Crime a Concept? Which at first glance may appear simple, but covering various areas in law such as the difference between criminal and civil law require in-depth research and analysis. Whilst I have little to no experience in law aside from being in MUN which discusses global issues. However, I have always been interested in law, and there’s a possibility that I might pursue a career in that field. This project was a way for me to “test the waters''.
PROCESS PLANNING
What were the initial stages?
The global context I chose was fairness and development because this report highlights the different types of crime and how sometimes charges are made based on bias or racial profiling. I also wanted to look at how the legal system is changing and evolving to match the ever growing technology, criminal activity and environment. My decision to interview police officers, professors and civilians in order to understand their input and perspective was made to further establish and enrich the answer to this question. Initially, I wanted to also interview prisoners in-person, however, this proved to be largely challenging and unlikely, especially during the pandemic. In order to be able to manage my time I created deadlines for myself, and I made sure to stick to the original plan that I created at the beginning of the process planning.
Researching sources was an incredibly time consuming job, and as my final product needed an array of factual information from both primary and secondary sources I created an additional schedule where I spent a varying number of time trying to contact people in order to conduct interviews. It was surprisingly difficult to receive responses by mail, as despite the number of emails I sent, I only received around 1-3 responses. Combating this particular issue was challenging due to the quarantine, however, thankfully I was able to contact police officers from two other countries (excluding the Netherlands) through reaching out to my family members and friends in order to set up an opportunity to talk to the professionals. This was not a part of my initial planning, as I originally intended to interview the police department from the Netherlands alone, but professors from France, U.S.A and India. I had to change a couple deadlines as well as the planned subtopics so that the report would continue to have a logical structure based on reliable information.
PROCESS TAKINGÂ ACTION
The Journey
In order to be able to create a research question that would be simple enough to answer but broad enough to delve in-depth, I spent a lot of time brainstorming different ideas. My first main question was: What is the Concept of Being a Criminal? Which I later scrapped after receiving a lot of feedback from supervisors, friends, and fellow classmates. What I envisioned my final question as was actually: What is the Concept of Crime? It was as late as when I was ¾ into my product when I realized the question could be rephrased into: Why is Crime a Concept?
After a series of personal experiences that largely related to my product, I had to remember to stay relevant to my final report. Trying to highlight the key message I wanted to spread whilst showing factual information was extremely difficult. Around September I desperately wanted to change my criteria so it could also accommodate the paintings and artworks I made during the process of creating my report, as they were largely influenced by the fact files and other representations of media I consumed. Although this is definitely something I will include in my report through the process journal entries, sticking to my original theme was important as the actual development of the report was extremely demanding, and I often found myself facing numerous areas I still needed to improve on. Adding another section to what could be an entirely different project would have been unwise, so I decided against submitting it.
The interviews I had conducted also had varying amounts of information, and I was able to interview more people in one country rather than the other. This was very frustrating, as it held back consistency and would definitely be an area I would consider improving for next time. Overall, the process in action was a journey that was built on the planning and the development stage but had its own ups and downs as well.
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CRITERIA
The Recipe For Success
This section reviews a condensed version of the criteria in order to summarize the basic points of structure and information I wanted to cover as it originally included grades.
The main points of information for the 7-8 level were:
i. Covers several sub-topics and research questions that show a deep understanding of the concepts and is relevant to the goal of the report.
ii. Shows excellent formatting and logical structure, the report should have a clear layout of each section and their conclusions.
iii. Has conducted interviews with police officers, professors, and civilians, has gathered and portrayed their varying or similar perspectives.
iv. Includes a wide range of sources (around 50 or more) and uses in-text citations.
v. Has around 25 pages of research, excluding the work-cited list. Shows a deep understanding of the topic and has organized information to fit the page requirement and/or limit.