Overview
The topic of your policy analysis is up to you, as long as it relates to the sociology of deviance. In your analysis, discuss one existing law, or an area of law as it exists today, and as it creates or reinforces social norms and boundaries. For instance, you could write about drug law and policy, or about laws and policies that restrict access to information in K-12 education. How does this area of law work? What critiques or observations do you have about this area of law? If you were meeting with policymakers and recommending reforms to this area of law (or if you ran for office ourself), what changes would you want to make? Respond to each of these questions in your analysis.
You are not required to integrate and cite specific materials from the class, but will likely find it helpful in supporting your discussion. You must use at least four academic sources (and cite them), whether or not you choose course materials. Academic sources do not include websites, Wikipedia, popular magazines or news articles, social media, handouts or “frequently asked questions”, or anything other than academic books, journal articles, or academic reports. Your policy analysis should be a minimum of 800 words (no maximum). See the assignment guidelines for formatting instructions.
For written assignments, please use double-spacing, 12-point font, and insert page numbers. No particular essay style is required, but your papers should involve paragraphs, rather than notes. When citing materials, you may use any academic citation style (e.g. APA, MLA, ASA), as long as you use it consistently. You must cite all sources used. You may use footnotes, endnotes, or in-text citations with a bibliography, to cite your sources. Uploads may be in PDF or Word only. Bruin Learn will not open documents uploaded in Pages, or other alternate word processing software.
Important: No assignments have “hidden” or unstated requirements not indicated explicitly in the syllabus, or in the assignment in Bruin Learn. There are no requirements regarding writing style or tone, and no formatting requirements besides those listed in this syllabus. Grammar and writing skill are not part of the grading criterion, although proofreading is recommended. All students are invited to make a free appointment with the UCLA Writing Center, for assistance in developing your writing ability.
Per the UCLA Code of Conduct, plagiarism is a form of academic misconduct. Incidents of plagiarism may be reported to the College, and may be subject to further discipline. Assignments containing plagiarized material will not receive any credit. Plagiarism includes submitting the work of someone else, adopting language from another published work without quotations and attribution (citations), using artificial intelligence software to write for you or to re-write/edit your work, or resubmitting your own work for two different assignments. In this course, students are discouraged from using any software that includes an AI component that changes wording, including Grammarly or translation software that combines translation with AI re-writing.