1 INDIANA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINOLOGY COURSE SYLLABUS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT INTERNSHIP CRIM 498/698 MRS. MELISSA BENNINGFIELD, INSTRUCTOR HOLMSTEDT HALL, ROOM 232 812/237-2441 [email protected] OFFICE HOURS:2 COURSE DESCRIPTION Placement in an agency in the field of law enforcement or an agency that performs some law enforcement functions. OBJECTIVES This course is designed to integrate work experience in a criminal justice agency with knowledge gained through library research and past classroom instruction for the criminology student. PREREQUISITES The student enrolled in the internship program should have completed 24 hours of criminology, have at least a 2.5 GPA in criminology, and be of senior status or a graduate student. All others must the consent of the instructor to enroll in the course. COURSE REQUIREMENTS Each student is required to have a placement in an agency that meets the approval of the instructor. A personal history sheet will be filled out by each student at the time of the internship meeting. Depending on the agency, students may also be required to obtain or sign other forms. If possible, copies of these additional forms should be provided to the internship instructor. Each student should perform a minimum of 96 hours at his/her placement agency. The following requirements are expected of each student. Meeting(s) All students are required to attend the mandatory meeting at the beginning of the semester OR to meet individually with the instructor regarding the internship placement and to receive the syllabus and pertinent paperwork. Additionally, some placements require students to meet with a representative of the agency prior to beginning the internship. Personal Photo All interns may submit a personal photo to the instructor so that it may be placed in their permanent files. Students may have their pictures taken in the Criminology Department during regular hours for a nominal fee ($1.25). This picture may be turned in on the date indicated on the following schedule. Resume Each student is required to submit an updated resume to the internship instructor. Any format may be used for the resume. Record of Hours All students are required to maintain a record of hours and dates worked at the agency. Student time sheets should be used for this purpose. Time sheets should be signed by both the student and the student’s internship supervisor. These sheets are available in the Criminology Office.3 Daily Log Sheets All students are required to maintain a daily log which specifies the activities performed and the amount of time spend on each activity for each day at the internship placement. Two daily log sheets have been provided by the instructor and should be used for this purpose. You may copy more as needed. Please arrange the daily log sheets in chronological order and staple them together before submitting them. Do not submit a notebook or journal as a daily log. Papers Each undergraduate student is required to write two papers, a placement/self-appraisal paper and a research paper. Graduate students only need to write a research paper. Placement/Self-Appraisal The placement/self-appraisal paper should be 4-6 pages in length not including the title page. It should be typed, double spaced and stapled. In order to assist the undergraduate in writing the placement/self-appraisal paper, the following format is provided. Not all placement experiences will lend themselves to this format, so the student is encouraged to alter it in any way necessary to strengthen his or her paper.  Two to four paragraphs should be spent on describing the setting of the agency in which the student did the internship. Describe the placement, its location, your immediate agency supervisor, etc.  Another two to four paragraphs should be used to describe the various functions of the agency and exactly who the agency serves.  Summarize in about two paragraphs the activities you performed for the agency and the amount of time devoted to each. (Information could be taken from the daily log sheets.)  The next four pages should be used to discuss your self appraisal of performance on each of the specific tasks and for the placement as a whole. Support your appraisals by offering specific illustrations (how you handled a given incident, being given increasingly more responsible assignments, being reprimanded for not being punctual, etc.). It is also appropriate in this section for the student to discuss any difficulties he/she may have had working with clients, other interns, staff members, or the general public.  Briefly provide an overall evaluation of your internship placement in a conclusion and recommendations section of the paper. Tell what you learned at the agency and explain how what you learned related to classroom development. Explain why you functioned well or did not function well on your internship. Outline any recommendations you feel might have improved your internship. Research Paper Undergraduates are to write an 8-10 paper not including the title page, and graduate students are to write a 15-20 page paper. This paper should be the student’s original work and should be typed, double-spaced, and stapled. Graduates are to use the APA style of writing. Undergraduate and graduate students must approve their paper topic with the instructor. The form included in the packet will serve as the topic approval form for the research paper. You should bring this form with you to my office (or e-mail me) to have your topic approved. The following steps should be used by students to choose a suitable topic.4 1. Think of a specific problem in the field of law enforcement. For example: Training of police officers. 2. Ask yourself a question about the problem. For example: Is training for police adequate? 3. This question will be your main focus for the paper. You will conduct research on the topic and attempt to answer your question. Inclusion of scholarly research in your paper is required. You must conduct research in the library; document sources used in the paper, and include a reference page. A minimum of five recent (within the last 10 years) sources (books and/or journal articles) should be used. Articles retrieved from the Internet should be limited to official and legitimate sources only. Copies of the table of contents for any books used and