COMMUNITY RESOURCES IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
CJ 543—Spring 2015
Instructor: Alan Mobley, PhD Email: amobley@mail.sdsu.edu
Phone: 594.2596
Office Hours: PSFA 160A. Tuesdays 3-4pm, and by appointment.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
The administration of justice is certainly one of the most important functions of government. In recent years, however, because of financial limitations and other factors, government has increased its efforts to encourage nongovernmental agencies to play larger roles in justice system processes. Whether as arbitrators, mediators, jurists, or service delivery specialists, whether involved in education, treatment, law-making or law enforcement, or whether for the purposes of crime prevention, intervention, punishment, diversion, or community peacemaking, nongovernmental organizations, both profit and nonprofit, have taken on important roles in the administration of justice.
The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the various agencies (and ideas) at work in the fields of justice. And this is a practicum course!
Consequently, you will go out from the classroom to identify and work with local organizations as they pursue their respective pieces of the justice puzzle.
In class, we will discuss the social, political, and economic contexts that justice agencies help to create, and within which they operate. In our readings and discussions we will critique the very principles that underlie key concepts such as “justice,” “community,” and “organizations.”
COURSE OBJECTIVES
1. The primary goal of this course is to help you apply social science theories and methods toward the analysis of “real” problems encountered within the context of your field placement. In this way, theoretical understandings of issues will be integrated with supervised experience in the field.
2. Our meetings together are designed to provide an opportunity to discuss both the pragmatic and academic issues related to the field placement. Toward those ends, students will:

Investigate learning opportunities and justice resources beyond the classroom
 Explore the many meanings of “community” and “community resources”
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Become familiar with the reach and limitations of justice resources
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Conceptualize reasons why community resources are important for the administration of justice
 Identify justice system “clients” and their needs

Deconstruct strategies on how society responds to crime, addresses the needs of all stakeholders, (victims, offenders, and communities, etc.) and enacts justice

Work with diverse others on issues of common concern
 Uncover and interrogate one’s own biases and predispositions

REQUIRED TEXTS


Pranis, Stuart & Wedge, Peacemaking Circles

Glassman, Instructions to the Cook

Clear, Imprisoning Communities
Additional readings will be posted on Blackboard. Please read prior to class.
COURSE EVALUATION
1. Attendance and participation are important. Students should attend all classes and maintain active, positive participation throughout the semester.
2. Completion of acceptable fieldwork at your placement site. A three-unit practicum requires approximately 60 hours of fieldwork during the semester. Students are strongly encouraged to keep a log of their hours.
3. Completion of an analytical fieldwork journal (more below).
4. Completion of a paper (or poster).
5. Timely completion of other assignments required throughout the semester.
Final grades will be based on the following:
Practicum performance and Journal:
Class Attendance
50%
25%
Final Paper
Journals
25%
Keep a journal on Blackboard during the semester. Write an entry EACH WEEK.
Your journals are to be used for two primary purposes. Each week you must:
1. Describe and reflect upon your practicum experiences. This means to take note of the sights, sounds, feel, and people encountered in your work. How does it feel to be working at the practicum site: What are your expectations? What expectations are placed upon you? How does your experience change over time?
2. Use the journal to discuss course readings and apply the key concepts found in the texts to your practicum situation. For example, if you are working in a community with high rates of incarceration, you ought to find Clear’s Imprisoning Communities useful in gaining insights into the community. In this way, you will integrate course concepts into your actual experience.
Minimum Number of Journal Entries : 14 total. You ought to have an entry for each week of the course, including notes of each practicum site visit,. In fact, you can start your journal by describing your thoughts on our practicum site(s). What topics, tasks, and locations, related to that site, are of interest to you?
Length of Journal entries : journals will be evaluated on “quality” not “word count.”
Conscientious journaling will result in some days where you have much to write, and others not so much. This is natural. On days when not much is happening for you in the

field, you might turn your attention more to applying key concepts from your readings.
But make sure to discuss both the readings and your experience each week.
Selecting a Topic for your Paper
Your paper topic should emerge from your own individual curiosities.
Questions that spontaneously come to us in the course of our experiences are precisely the type of questions that make for excellent research topics. As a first step in determining your research topic I suggest you make a list of researchable questions as they arise for you.
Initial questions may be somewhat abstract, such as “why is this school predominantly immigrant and minority?” Other questions may be very specific: “what does the school police officer do?” Or, “why does the math teacher send out so many students from class?”
As you can see, different types of questions can be pursued in different ways. The question about the school’s population might be explored through research into San Diego residential land use planning, immigrant settlement programs, and the foster care system. The question about teaching style and classroom management may lead to interviews with teachers and research on school policies. The question about school police might give rise to interviews with diverse members of the school population, as well as research into the origins of school-based police.
This paper should be 6-8 pages (not including references & cover page), and incorporate at least 5 references to journal articles, legal case studies, books, and/or other academic sources. Assigned readings must be referenced.
OTHER ISSUES
Plagiarism: Plagiarism is cheating and when detected will result in a zero. For definitions of plagiarism please see the following University site: http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/htc/Plagiarism.pdf
Disabilities: Students with documented disabilities should see the instructor regarding special accommodations. University policies are available online at: http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/dss/dss_home.html

1. Introduction to the course: what we are doing, where, and why.
2. Read Braithwaite on RJ.
3. Read Clear Chaps 1-3: Clear describes community trauma.
Also, watch the Rethinkers 2010 video on YouTube.
*Do some research and write about your practicum community of Cherokee Point and its characteristics. Is it the kind of place Clear writes about? How do you know?
4. Read Building Solutions Trauma Toolkit
Begin at Cherokee Point.
5. Read Pranis et. al. (Chaps 1-3) on Restorative Justice, healing.
*Reflect on the differences between this perspective and Clear’s description.
6. Read Pranis et. al. (Rest of book).
*Does this sound “real”? Write a reaction essay in journal.
7. Read Clear (rest of book).
*Write on how Trauma Informed Care relates to RJ? To Clear’s research subjects?
8. Read Amos Clifford’s RJ Pamphlet--Part 1(Bb).
*Write in journal your questions/comments about the model.
9. Read Amos Clifford’s RJ Pamphlet—Part 2 (Bb).
*Write in journal your questions/comments about the methods described.
10. Read Amos Clifford’s RJ Pamphlet—Part 3 (Bb).
*Write in journal your questions/comments about your ability to lead.
11. Read Glassman & Fields on personal (self-care) and social healing.
*Choose a “course” and write about it in your journal. Tell why you chose it.
12.
Read Glassman & Fields on personal (self-care) and social healing.
*Choose a different “course” and write about it in your journal. Tell why you chose it.
13. TBA
14. TBA
15. Presenting your work: videos, audio interviews, research papers, curriculum for change…

16. Presenting your work: videos, audio interviews, research papers, curriculum for change. Please turn in journals and papers to my office (PSFA 160a)
THIS IS A LIVING DOCUMENT. EXPECT CHANGES.