True Costs of the U.S. Penal System: A Research Analysis Paper

There should be a completed data analysis section added to this paper. Volume and clarity of the data analysis section is important. All other edits should be completed but the data analysis section is the most important. Edits should include: 1) Research question. One of the most important areas where this paper has fallen behind is in the development of the research question. There’s a good start, but there needs to be at least one more focused question generated. That question should be answerable with the data, and should be part of the original question. 2) Data and methods. The data and methods section should be reframed. It should begin with an explanation of how the data that will be collected will help answer the research question(s). There should be no statements such as “I possibly . . .” If you don’t know what you’re doing, it shouldn’t be in the paper. However, it is okay to include a description of data collection but later decide you don’t have time to do it. The data and methods section should be much more specific about data sources. At this point, you shouldn’t be referring only to a broad government agency. Instead, you should identify the specific data source by name, and should explain what data will be collected from that source. The plans to collect more information on federal prison expenditures don’t sound that promising, though. It’s hard to see how they would make much of a contribution toward answering the research question, beyond what has already discussed in that area. Instead, it makes more sense to focus on neighborhood data and potential savings from alternative spending. To do this, you’ll need to look much more closely at the lit review. 3) Lit review. In addition to making the improvements I’ve noted above, you should expand the discussion of other costs of the prison system. Follow the citations in the Wilder Foundation paper to review scholarship on savings from social spending. This could easily be another 2-3 pp. of the paper. Developing this is very important to your paper, so it should be the first priority. 4) Data. After greatly improving your understanding of savings from social spending, look at data on some Minneapolis neighborhoods and analyze the savings that could be gained there. Of course, you’ll need also to get some information on social spending that’s already occurring there, but you don’t have to go into great detail on that.