INSTRUCTIONS:

Your essay should skillfully answer integrate all parts of the question(s) in to your paper. Your essay must be a minimum of 500 words (YES, you can always write more!!!). Each essay must include the following components parts:

A topic sentence along with a clear thesis (your main argument in your paper) in the first paragraph.

The body paragraphs of your paper should support your argument. You should skillfully integrate at least two SHORT quotes and be sure to cite all paraphrasing. Paraphrasing is when you take the basic idea of an author’s work and put it in your own words (you need to cite this!).

Essay Details:

Write a minimum 500-word essay on the ways in which race and class operate in the American prison system. In this essay, you must directly draw upon the following two articles: “Masked Racism” by Davis and “Trends in US Corrections” by the Sentencing Project. The above articles will comprise the majority of your attention. Be sure to cite all quotes and also when paraphrasing. However, Finally, your essay must directly utilize at least two concepts from Chapter 5 of our textbook, You May Ask Yourself – Social Control and Deviance to support your argument and one reference to an online video clip Michelle Alexander's New Jim Crow, Victor Rios, Angela Davis, etc) we watched in this class. No outside websites (or readings) are allowed for this essay. You are only allowed to use the readings and course materials listed above.

*Note, these are formal essays. This means, you should not break up your paragraphs as separate answers to questions. Instead, you need to integrate all of them into a single essay. Essays should have a topic sentence, thesis statement, and you should avoid colloquial or overly informal language.

You should integrate in-depth overviews of the following questions: Your essays should first provide an in-depth overview of how racism and classism shape the American justice system by focusing on prisons, policing, and sentencing. What is the Prison Industrial Complex and how does this exacerbate the structural impact of policing on poor communities of color? How is social control and the construction of “criminality” impacted by racism and classism?

Be sure to proofread your essays for grammatical errors. These are argumentative essays and NOT opinion essays. You should write in 3rd person and avoid passive language within your essay. Be clear as clear as possible in framing your responses to the essay prompts. Use the authors’ last names to identify the articles, not the titles. (For example, “Lopez (2012) argues that…. (12).”)