Criminal Justice Dissertation Ideas

[sanantone]

what kind of research are you thinking? Surveys or something else? My budget was about zero lol, but I created a database of original content. Though it was a ton of work, it was easy work- collect and enter- and then the analysis of my work was fun (lots of graphs and tables). Now, if I'm being honest, I think creating original content rocks because a) the pleasure of doing something for the first time b) your committee hasn't already spent their careers immersed in the topic - so they have a little bit of a learning curve.

You could quarry search terms and hit on the ones with the fewest returns - not sure what the CJ journals are or what search tool you have at your disposal, but I like the idea of exploring new areas too.

Good luck!!

My progress through my degree program doesn't match up with the typical deadlines for fellowship and research funding applications. All of the ones I've seen have application deadlines toward the end of fall or beginning of spring require that the student have all of the degree requirements met other than the dissertation. I'll be finishing my last elective this spring. The School of Criminal Justice does have the highest level account on Survey Monkey for students to use if I wanted to do online surveys. I think they may also be able to contribute a couple of hundred dollars for minor research expenses. I was looking at either doing a survey or experiment. Doing a quasi-experiment with secondary data seems boring, and I don't feel comfortable with doing a qualitative dissertation.

Perhaps something on the use of encryption or other cybersecurity tools for criminal purposes? A look at the ways it has made law enforcement either harder or easier? A related topic would be the misuse of national security related data gathering for regular crime investigations. I remember the FBI having to admit the were using the Patriot Act without any real controls or accountability for how they were using it.

I was looking at doing something related to cybersecurity or biology, but for sinister reasons. It's easier to impress people when they don't have a good understanding of what you're talking about. I have a little bit of advanced knowledge in IT and biology.

oh, there might be something... maybe it's already been done, but are there outcome reports about offender's educational attainment? I mean the overly obvious approach would be to cross the recidivism rates against educational attainment, but if that's already been done, you could look at other things. Even wondering if education obtained while incarcerated has a different recidivism rate than education obtained after release? What is the secret sauce that gets an offender up through a graduate degree?

You're good and making plans, I think you could craft a "best case scenario" - I'd fund that lol

They've studied recidivism by educational attainment and the effect of college programs in prison on recidivism rates. I don't know if they've studied college in prison vs. college after prison, but I know that finishing college is very difficult for ex-offenders to do once they're released. Most of them will end up in low-paying jobs with long hours and most will require tutoring or remedial courses.