Each student will be responsible for submitting a research paper. The student may select the topic he or
she would like to write about, but the topic must be approved by the instructor. The topic needs to
address an aspect of the criminal justice system covered within this course and needs to incorporate at
some place in the paper a discussion of the Saint Leo core value of responsible stewardship as it relates
to the topic. Download the worksheet CRM220 How to Choose a Research Paper Topic in Doc Sharing
and follow the directions. Submit your topic on the worksheet as an attachment to your instructor. If you
do not submit your topic by the due date, you may lose points. Submit to your completed topic worksheet
to your instructor via course email by no later than Sunday 11:59 PM EST/EDT of Module 2.

The paper must be at least 2000-2500 words, excluding the title page and reference page, and must
adhere to the APA sixth edition writing format. Please reference the APA Guide link under Resources. If
you paper does not comply with this format, you will lose points. Commercial software program templates
are available for purchase to assist in the correct formatting for use of APA. One example is found at
http://www.perrla.com.
Please cite at least five scholarly references for your paper. Please be aware that websites such as
Wikipedia are not scholarly sources. You are encouraged to access the University’s online library
resources to find scholarly journal articles, etc. Proquest and EBSCO may be helpful, but remember to
limit your search to scholarly journal articles. Please remember to review the information available for
locating and citing proper sources in your syllabus. No more than 20% of this paper may be attributed to
referenced sources.
Submit the Research Paper to the Dropbox by no later than Sunday 11:59 PM EST/EDT of Module 7.
(This Dropbox basket is linked to Turnitin.