Police School Services Research Paper

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Since the time when formal policing began, police officers have provided services to communities in a number of contexts. Components of the police officer role have included traffic control, crime investigation and apprehension, social service referrals, and a wide variety of other tasks that prospective officers do not normally consider when contemplating employment in policing. In the early 1970s, the role of the police took on a new, highly visible context when police begin working regularly in schools as Drug and Alcohol Reduction Education (D.A.R.E.) teachers. This move, coupled with existing relationships between some school districts and police departments that had assigned police officers to patrol the school setting, began a relationship that has blossomed into a field that has now become known as police school services.

The most narrow (and perhaps most commonly used) definition of police school services would define this concept as placement of sworn police officers in school environments to assist with (1) investigation and apprehension of criminal offenders in the school setting and (2) delivery of law-related educational programs to reduce student involvement in crime. Nevertheless, this definition would neglect a wide variety of services that are provided by law enforcement to students in the school setting. First, and perhaps most importantly, many officers providing supervision in police roles in school settings are not sworn police officers. Although these officers do not have official arrest powers, they are an important component of police school services. Second, police also provide coverage for all schools in their jurisdictions, whether they have an officer formally “assigned” to the school or not. These officers often serve as members of safety planning committees, volunteer coaches, and in a wide variety of other roles that assist the students, staff, and teachers in the school setting.

As Brown (2006) states, it is difficult to determine when police school services actually began. Although some trace the origin of school resource officers (SROs) (and thus the beginning of formal police school services) to Flint, Michigan, in the 1950s, there is evidence that police officers were in schools in the United States several decades before that. Police school services are not only present in the United States; police officers are in schools in the United Kingdom and South Korea and other countries throughout the world. Given that the most extensive evidence about school police services is limited to the United States, the following discussion draws primarily from that literature.

Fundamentals

Although police school services vary by state, by county, and often by school, the three most prominent police school services are school resource officers (SROs), D.A.R.E. officers, and officers that deliver Gang Resistance and Education and Avoidance Training (GREAT officers). Each of these programs is discussed in detail below.

SROs

An SRO is officially defined by Part Q of Title I of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and amended in 1998 as a “career law enforcement officer, with sworn authority, deployed in community-oriented policing, and assigned by the employing police department or agency to work in collaboration with school and community-based organizations” (United States Department of Justice 1999, p. 1) although the term is often applied to any sworn law enforcement officer working in an educational environment. SROs are thus sworn officers whose primary function is law enforcement in schools. Nevertheless, this is not the SRO’s only function.

The image of the “typical” police officer is a uniformed and armed individual. The SRO is not the typical police officer; they work in a unique and unusual environment. In fact, the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) recommends that, in addition to the role of law enforcement, SROs should also (a) act as a liaison between the school, the police, and the community; (b) teach law-related education classes; and (c) counsel students (United States Department of Justice 2001).

Although there is a National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) with a number of state chapters, it is difficult to accurately estimate the prevalence of SROs assigned fulland part-time to work in schools. The 2004 census of law enforcement agencies reported that 3,517 officers were deployed in public school districts (Reaves 2007, p. 7), although the National Association of School Resource Officers website reported that there were 6,000 officers who were members of that organization (NASRO 2010). In a recent report, Wald and Thurau (2010) observed that there were an estimated 17,000 SROs within the United States (p. 1).

SRO programs have existed for over 60 years. In 1948, the Los Angeles School Police Department was started. Their website states it was created “to create a safe and tranquil environment for the students, teachers and staff of the Los Angeles Unified School District” (Los Angeles School Police Department 2012). This created a school police department that is based in a school district. Other law enforcement scholars have the first SRO program originating in Flint, Michigan, in the 1950s (Brown 2006, p. 592). As the LASPD website has shown, there were SROs around of different kinds for many, many years. Despite the debate around the origin of the SRO program, there is no debate that the presence of SROs in schools in the United States increased after the school shootings in the 1990s (Theriot 2009), and the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) funding that began in 1994 created a number of SRO positions throughout the United States. In 2006, the National Association of School Resource Officers reported that the school resource officer was the fastest growing area of law enforcement (Theriot 2009).

School resource officers are trained to work in their primary role of law enforcement officer, and they often answer directly to their agency (municipal police chief or county sheriff) chain of command (Brown 2006, p. 591). They work in a school building filled with teachers, kids, and administrators. Brown states that school resource officers “serve a multifaceted role which incorporates the duties of law enforcement officer, counselor, teacher, and liaison between law enforcement, schools, families, and the community” (Brown 2006, p. 593). As referenced above, SROs are commonly said to follow the triad model. The triad model encompasses three areas: law enforcement, teaching, and advising/mentoring (Brown 2006; Finn 2005; NASRO 2010).

In general, most SROs engage in at least some activities that fall under each part of the triad. They may partake in various kinds of law enforcement activities, from patrolling school facilities to issuing citations. They may advise, mentor, and counsel school staff, students, or families. SROs often teach students about drugs, legal issues, safety education, crime awareness, and conflict resolution. Nevertheless, some evidence suggests that SROs may not be fulfilling all the elements of that triad model equally. May and his colleagues (May et al. 2004; Ruddell and May 2011) have determined that, rather than a triad, a more accurate conceptualization of SRO duties would be a quadrant model, with two of the quadrants devoted to law enforcement (for a total of half their time dedicated to law enforcement duties) and one each to law-related counseling and law-related teaching.

Despite the large number of SROs throughout the United States, there is limited evidence examining the type of training that SROs receive and the effectiveness of that training. Unpublished research by Wheaton and May (2012) suggests that the most common source of SRO training is NASRO. They offer Basic Training, which is a 40-h, 5-day week, and an Advanced Courses, which is a 3-day, 24-h block of training (NASRO 2010). A number of states (e.g., Kentucky, Georgia, Minnesota, and Mississippi) have developed their own basic training for SROs. Other than the description posted on the NASRO website, however, little is known about the type of training SROs receive. Nevertheless, many states also report that no formal training is offered to SROs in their state and none is required (Wheaton and May 2012).

Despite the abundance of SROs throughout the United States, there is limited research examining their effectiveness. The limited evidence examining the effectiveness of SROs suggests (1) principals at schools where SROs are assigned generally value their presence and feel they make a valuable contribution to school safety and (2) the presence of SROs at schools often leads to increases in student arrests for less serious crimes, particularly disorderly conduct. The research is mixed on how the presence of SROs impacts perceptions of students about safety and whether SROs truly make schools a safer environment (Brown 2006; May et al. 2004; Theriot 2009). These results have caused some to question the use of SROs in schools and others to argue they should be removed entirely (Justice Policy Institute 2011).

Nevertheless, Finn (2005) has highlighted four benefits of SRO programs. These benefits include (1) reduced law enforcement workload by decreasing the amount of time that patrol officers have to spend at the school by the SRO handling calls that would previously have been handled through a traditional 911 calls, (2) SROs can improve the image of law enforcement among juveniles, (3) the SRO creates a better relationship between the schools and police, and (4) the SRO can enhance the police agency’s image in the community.

Although SROs continue to be a controversial addition to the school environment, both critics and advocates agree that more research is needed regarding their effectiveness in making schools safer environments. Brown (2006) suggests a number of methodological approaches to answer these questions. Until researchers uncover these answers, SROs will continue to be one of the most visible (and controversial) elements of police school services.

D.A.R.E. Officers

The largest and longest active drug prevention program developed specifically for school-age children is the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program (DARE Annual Report 2007). D.A.R.E. was developed in 1983 by the Los Angeles Police Department and is a police officer-led series of classroom lessons with the goal of educating children on ways to resist conforming to peer pressure by providing students tools to live a drugand violence-free life (D.A.R.E. 2012).

Initially, D.A.R.E. was developed to focus on fifthand sixth-grade students. The belief was that this was the age group most responsive to D.A.R.E. training, and if police officers could instill the abilities to resist pressures to use drugs of students at this age, those students would go on to lead drug-free lives (Rosenbaum et al. 1994). The D.A.R.E. program has now been expanded to cover kindergarten through 12th grade and has even expanded into educating families and communities, creating a national nonprofit organization in D.A.R.E. America.

D.A.R.E. has trained literally hundreds of thousands of police officers and has educated millions of children about drug prevention strategies in 43 countries. Each year, a day in April is set aside as National D.A.R.E. Day (Berman and Fox 2009). While the D.A.R.E. program focuses on teaching the skills needed to stay drug-free, it is different than other drug prevention programs because it utilizes specially trained police officers to teach and interact with students in a school environment. This provides an opportunity for the D.A.R.E. officer to develop a relationship with his/her students that goes beyond the normal crime and punishment aspect most perceived as the cops’ job. Through the D.A.R.E. program, police officers become “humanized” and “young people can relate to officers as people” (dare.com). D.A.R.E. helps to foster a community policing relationship by developing an open line of communication between school, law enforcement, and families (Carter 1995).

Unlike the limited research around the effectiveness of SROs, widespread evidence indicates that D.A.R.E. does not reduce drug use among its participants (Pan and Bai 2009). Although D.A.R.E. does not reduced drug use, D.A.R.E. does appear to improve perceptions of police among the parents and students involved in the program (Lucas 2008). In determining the effectiveness of D.A.R.E. officers, not only are the children’s and parents’ opinions necessary but so are the perceptions of the educators. Little research has been committed to the task of exploring the importance of D.A.R.E. officers in the classroom. Donnermeyer’s (1998) study of the educator’s perspective of D.A.R.E. officers in 300 public schools throughout Ohio’s school districts found that overall, there was a positive perception of the work that the officers were doing. More than two in three teachers and principals involved in the study found that the “graduation ceremony, the content of the curriculum, teacher/officer interaction, the student workbook, and the role playing exercises” were excellent. Nevertheless, only 20 % of the teachers and principals believed that the students’ change to a more positive attitude was because of the D.A.R.E. program (Donnermeyer 1998).

D.A.R.E. requires the officers to go through a specific and detailed training program before entering a classroom. Dusenbury and colleagues (2002) found that one of the characteristics needed for a drug abuse prevention program to be successful was determining how the officer was prepared based on the training that was required of the officer. Hensley (2002) found that the specific training for D.A.R.E. officers required 80 h of instructor training in topics such as classroom management, teaching strategies, communication skills, adolescent development, drug information, and instruction of the D.A.R.E. lessons. An additional 40 h of training is geared toward teaching a high school curriculum to the officers. As a result of this training, the instructors are prepared to teach a structured curriculum consisting of hourly sessions with the officer in the classroom over the length of 17 weeks. Due to the supervisory position that is required of a D.A.R.E. officer, it becomes necessary to understand how important the role actually is. The supervisor must be able to relate to their students in a positive and supportive relationship (Kadushin 1992).

Despite the limited effectiveness of D.A.R.E. in reducing drug use, it appears that the D.A.R.E. program is in no danger of losing funding in the near future. D.A.R.E. is supported by numerous corporate, private, and government organizations, and according to the D.A.R.E. website, over 200 communities have started programs in the last 3 years (www.dare.org). In fact, D.A.R.E. is lauded for its innovative training strategies, its permanence and effect on police-child relationships in local communities, and its widespread impact across most school districts in the United States and many throughout the world (Berman and Fox 2009). Thus, despite the limited success in reducing drug use (and unlike SROs reviewed earlier), most researchers, policymakers, police officers, and local community leaders accept D.A.R.E. as an important police school service.

G.R.E.A.T. Officers

The first Gang Resistance Education and Treatment (G.R.E.A.T.) program was developed in 1991 by a law enforcement agency in Phoenix, Arizona. In response to the local gang problem in Phoenix, the initial goal of this program was to educate school-age children about gang violence. The G.R.E.A.T. program was created to emulate the D.A.R.E. program described earlier and follows a similar structure and curriculum as that of D.A.R.E. (Esbensen et al. 2011). Where the D.A.R.E. program brings in police officers to the schools to teach students about how to resist drugs and educate them on drug abuse, the G.R.E.A.T. officers deliver an antigang message within the schools. The semblance of the curriculum’s structure and content to that of the D.A.R.E. program can be seen from the influx of the D.A.R.E. officers into the G.R.E.A.T. program (Winfree et al. 1999). The skills that the program intends to create are based on various life skills that are needed in order to reduce negative attitudes toward law enforcement and reduce gang involvement and subsequent gang violence and other negative ramifications of gang membership (Humphrey and Baker 1994).

Originally, the program consisted of eight lessons over a 9-week period that was targeted mainly to middle school students. Based on evaluations over the last decade, the program has been extended to a 13-session curriculum for middle schools, as well as an elementary school curriculum, a summer program, and a family training program. As the G.R.E.A.T. program has expanded, so has its coverage. What was intended to be a locally based program has now expanded nationwide, consisting of four regional training centers for law enforcement across the country (GREAT.com).

The G.R.E.A.T. program is designed to help youths avoid gangs and youth violence and delinquency. The G.R.E.A.T. program has four primary components – an elementary school curriculum, a middle school curriculum, a summer program, and a families training component. Although officers may offer up to four of the programs at the G.R.E.A.T. program sites, the required, core component of the program is the middle school curriculum, which teaches students problem-solving strategies and life skills with the end goal of helping them avoid violence, delinquency, and gang membership (Promising Practices Network on Children and Communities 2012).

Each of the two school components (elementary and middle school) is delivered by uniformed police officers in the school setting, while the summer program component and the families program component are led by facilitators trained in those components (usually uniformed officers as well). The 13-week middle school curriculum consists of 13 lessons that are 45–60 min long and are designed to produce changes in behavior and attitude through active learning, including positive-behavior rehearsal and other role-playing scenarios. The elementary school curriculum is also a skills-based curriculum designed to be delivered to fourth-and fifth-grade students. In addition to curriculum designed to reduce delinquency and gang membership, the curriculum consists of six 30–45-min lessons covering topics such as bystander intervention in bullying situations and the importance of involving adults when problems arise. The summer program extends the lessons taught to the students through the curriculum delivered in the school setting and works to enhance students’ cognitive and social skills by providing alternatives to gang involvement in the summer months. The families program is designed for youths age 10–14 and their families and consists of six sessions that work in conjunction with the other curriculums to engage entire families in cooperative lessons whose goal is to improve both communication and decision-making skills among family members (Promising Practices Network on Children and Communities 2012). From its inception, G.R.E.A.T. has focused on the importance of training and program integrity (Dusenbury et al. 2003). Dusenbury et al. (2003) listed four areas that were important to fidelity for programs like G.R.E.A.T.: officer/instructor training, officer/instructor characteristics, the support the officer received from the host organizations (i.e., school and national G.R.E.A.T. program), and the integrity of the program itself (e.g., manual and curriculum). G.R.E.A.T. officers receive two different types of required training; separate trainings are designed and delivered in oneand 2-week training sessions. The variations in training are based on classroom experience. The 1-week training requires the officer to have experience in classroom management or to have a teaching certificate. The 2-week training is required for all officers that do not meet the requirements of having classroom experience.

Esbensen et al. (2011a) completed a comprehensive study of the fidelity of the G.R.E.A.T. Officer Training (G.O.T.) 2-week training period (the 80-h training). The authors studied three specific areas based on Dusenbury et al.’s (2003) four characteristics of fidelity: how the officer was prepared, the commitment the officer gave to delivering the program to students, the support that was received, and the value of the G.R.E.A.T. program. As outside observers of the training, Esbensen and colleagues found that the G.O.T. sufficiently prepared officers with the knowledge and skill to execute the G.R.E.A.T. program effectively in a classroom environment. To prepare the officers, the G.O.T. requires them to practice public speaking daily, beginning with 2to 3-min presentations and eventually building up to a presentation of an entire G.R.E. A.T. lesson. Along with presentations, the officers went through lessons in a variety of teaching styles and attended discussions of pedagogy led by educational specialists who also showed officers examples of gang crime and gang research.

In assessing their second area of fidelity (the support that was received), the authors surveyed school personnel. In general, school personal were supportive of programs such as G.R. E.A.T. They generally felt that these types of programs could encourage kids to stay away from drugs and gangs. While most school personal supported the G.R.E.A.T. program, few continued or reinforced the education of the program after the officers left. Their evaluation found that the school personnel were still “untapped resources” and that school personnel should have a greater involvement in program delivery and implementation in the future than they had in the past.

Finally, Esbensen and colleagues (2011) also examined the quality of program delivery. In this analysis, the researchers focused on the management of time and classroom, the teacher involvement in the program, and the overall quality of the program. Officers were found to be competent in all categories. In the category of teacher involvement, Esbensen and his colleagues suggested that better coordination between teacher, student, and officer equaled better program quality.

The G.R.E.A.T. program has received a “promising” rating from at least one agency evaluating its effectiveness membership (Promising Practices Network on Children and Communities 2012). The evaluators cite two evaluations of the program that suggest that students receiving G.R.E.A.T. training were less involved in both total and minor delinquency than their counterparts who had not participated in G. R.E.A.T. Although the evaluators cite methodological weaknesses of the evaluations and accurately highlight that no significant evidence of reduced gang involvement was found in either evaluation, Esbensen et al. (2001) suggest that the G.R.E.A.T. program may have a delayed (rather than an immediate) impact on participants. Esbensen et al. (2001) determined that while there were no significant differences in outcome variables between control and treatment groups after 1 year, there were some significant differences at 1-, 2-, and 3-year follow-ups.

A more recent evaluation provides even more promising results. Esbensen and his colleagues (2011) conducted an outcome evaluation using a longitudinal panel of approximately 3,800 students from 31 middle schools in 7 cities where G.R.E.A.T. was being used. This evaluation determined that (1) the vast majority of school personnel that were familiar with G.R.E.A.T. in schools where it was being used had positive attitudes about the program and (2) the officers implementing G.R.E.A.T. did so with high program fidelity. Additionally, the evaluators also determined that G.R.E.A.T. students were significantly more likely than non-G.R.E.A.T. students to report lower rates of gang membership, more positive attitudes about police, less positive attitudes about gangs, more frequent use of refusal skills, and greater resistance to peer pressure. G.R.E.A.T. students were just as likely as non-G.R.E.A.T. students to engage in general delinquency and did not show improvements over their counterparts who were not exposed to the G.R.E.A.T. curriculum on measures of empathy, risk-seeking, and conflict resolution (Esbensen et al. 2011b).

Despite the somewhat ambiguous evidence around the effectiveness of G.R.E.A.T., particularly in reducing involvement in gangs, the support for G.R.E.A.T. continues among funding agencies, law enforcement officers delivering the program, and personnel working in schools where G.R.E.A.T. is delivered. Of the three most well-known police school services, G.R.E.A.T. has the most empirical support for its effectiveness and thus will continue to be delivered in communities throughout the United States.

Future Directions

This research paper has reviewed the three most common police school services. Despite the differences in the program goals, missions, and delivery, there are a number of similarities among the programs. First, and most importantly, each of the three programs needs more rigorous evaluation to determine its effectiveness. In fact, the current evidence suggests the three programs could be placed on a continuum of effectiveness with D.A.R.E. on one end as largely ineffective (at least when it comes to reducing drug use) and G.R.E.A.T. on the other end, with the majority of the empirical evidence suggesting that the current program is meeting its goals of reducing involvement in gangs. Given the lack of rigorous evaluations, SRO programs would best be placed between the two on this continuum. A second similarity between the three programs is that, by and large, in schools where the program is being delivered, school personnel (and, to some extent, students) have positive things to say about the program. In each case, the harshest critics of the police school service programs are not within the school, but those outside the school. Finally, none of the three programs appears to be in danger of extinction in the near future. For each of the three programs, funding at the national level has been reduced in the last 5 years with minimal impact on program delivery, suggesting that local communities are so supportive of the police school services in their community that they are willing to find funding to keep those programs afloat. In fact, if anything, the future may hold further expansion of police school services, as improved relations between school administrators and law enforcement agencies may bring about further expansion of the role of law enforcement in the school environment.

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