Students learn how social scientists investigate social issues and evaluate policy programs.
The class uses an innovative format in which students are told they are participants in a special government task force, assigned to examine an emerging crime problem, to recommend a specific policy program, and then to test the effectiveness of the program. Students must produce three highly structured research reports. In the first report, students will summarize the pervasiveness of the problem and compare it to other kinds of criminal activity. In the second report students will explore the aggregate patterns of the behavior. Using data on its distribution across geographical units and the social characteristics of those units, students will determine the social factors that correlate with it.