Course Project Description: Individual Who is or Has Been Incarcerated

Project Worth 25 Points

The course project is worth 25 points, (there are 100 total points for the class).  The finished written course project will be due on November 11^th.  You must submit the full course project by November 11^th  for full credit on the project.  Each student will present a description of a real or fictional individual – no two students may present on the same individual.  Please submit the name of the person on whom you will do your course project as soon as possible as approval for your selected individual will be given on the basis of who has submitted their request first.  The written course project will have two parts.

Part One (which should be at least 2-3 pages) will be a description of an individual who is or has been incarcerated.  The individual can be a fictional character created by you or a real person who has been incarcerated.  If your choice is a real person, please make sure you provide accurate background information about the individual.  Here is what must be included in your description of the individual:

• Date of birth
• Description of the individual’s family and home life as a child
• Presence or absence of any history of mental illness or substance abuse present in the individual’s family that affected the individual’s development
• Presence or absence of any history of substance abuse or mental illness for the individual
• The level of educational achievement of the individual and reasons for educational successes or lack of sufficient educational achievement by the individual
• Description of the individual’s employment history, including both traditional jobs and “off the books” jobs the individual has held in the community
• The nature of the individual’s relationships outside his family or origin, including marriages, number of children, etc.
• The age of the individual when he or she first committed a crime
• The number and types of crimes the individual has committed, and reasons for committing those offenses
• The length of time the individual has been incarcerated and his or her behavior while incarcerated (compliant with facility rules, disciplinary infractions, program participation, etc.)
• The amount of time the individual has left on his or her current sentence

Part Two (which will be an additional 2-3 pages) will be a description of the interventions you, if you were this individual’s case manager, would choose to maximize the likelihood of the individual successfully transitioning into the community.  If your individual is a real person and was never paroled or was executed you must change that part of his/her history and write the program/treatment plan as if the individual was being released into the community.  Here is what must be included in your plans:

• Therapy or other forms of treatment suggested for the individual while incarcerated, and reasons for choosing one type of therapy over another.
• Programs in which you would want the individual to participate while incarcerated and reasons for choosing those programs.
• Programs, treatment, types of supervision, requirements for drug testing, employment, etc you would require once the individual has been released to the community.
• Part of your listing of treatment and programs should include an explanation of those treatments and programs you believe would not be well suited for individual you chose for your project.

Part Two should include both reasons why you would choose one program over another and any research or theory to support your choices.  Your choices for which programs and/or types of interventions you would select for your individual are very important components of this project.  It is expected that you will cite the theory, research or other literature that supports choosing the interventions you have selected.

The project should be at least 5-6 pages in total.  If you would like to create a powerpoint for your presentation that will be in addition to the submission of the paper.  In order to receive full credit for the project you must present it to the class on either November 18^th or December 2^nd.   

Your grade for this project will be based on how completely you address each of the required elements of the project described above as well as how well you support your program and treatment choices with citations from the research literature on programs and treatment for offenders.  Your choices for which programs and treatment you would choose and which ones you believe would not be beneficial to the individual you have chosen should be supported by research and theory you have cited.