Criminal Justice Dissertation Ideas

[sanantone]

My first thought was to look for CFPs in Criminal Justice as a starting point, with the hope that a CFP would merge with your research interests or coursework. There is a general master list here, of course:
https://www.asc41.com/cfp.html

But really, I had special issues of journals, hot conference proposals, etc., in my head. This sort of thing:
https://cjrc.osu.edu/newsletter/au15/opportunities
or even
Call for Papers — Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice

You could also look at the proceedings of annual conferences in your field for the past few years to see if you could eke out a topic with ready-made references. Even if a topic has previously been discussed, your goal would be to address an issue arising from their work in your own.

Oh, and if you are planning to go into academia, obviously, it would be a bonus if your dissertation chapters coincided with a series of potential journal submissions.

Looking at calls for papers is a good idea. Thank you.

Wait, you mean you're going to pass on this???

That would be good for a bachelor's or master's thesis, but isn't likely to be approved for a dissertation.

Not sure if this is "CJ" related, but it's something I question. As more and more municipalities have budget shortfalls, how many use the police to make up that shortfall, with more and more fines and fees for things? For instance, getting a ticket here in CA will run you a couple hundred bucks for the actual "crime." But then, with the "court paperwork fee" and the "we used our cop car so now you owe him 15 minutes for his time and $3 for gas fee", the price doubles or even triples, to somewhere between $600-$1000. It's beyond ridiculous.

This has been getting worse and worse over the years, but it did also come out in Ferguson. Many poor and minority communities feel that they are singled out - people who have lots of money can just pay the fee, but people who don't are just crushed by the costs.

Just a thought. Not sure if it's what you're looking for, but an interesting topic: what percentage of budget comes from fees/fines, and what percentage was it 20 or 40 or 60 years ago?

Good luck with your dissertation!

That's a good idea. Thank you.

Hmm. Are there states like Virginia where the value where theft becomes a felony is rather low? (In Virginia, it's $250.) Maybe something about the cost of those felonies versus the costs if the value were raised. Maybe something about the return to (what I call) rational sentencing. Putting kids and adults in prison and throwing away the keys for their crimes got out of hand in the 1990s. I think that the tide is turning. Maybe that topic.

As I have NO clue as to what one does with a dissertation, I apologize if my suggestions are ignorant and lame, but they're subjects of interest to me.

Good luck.

Thank you. One could probably look at the cost of incarceration and see if there was any improvement on recidivism when the sentences were made harsher.