Throughout my career, at Longwood University, my writing has improved a lot since high school. When coming to Longwood I knew that my writing needed work and was very nervous about the transition because of that. I graduated high school in June 2021 and started college soon after in August 2021. I knew coming in as a transfer that I would not be able to take the normal classes that are required for first-year students to improve my writing, so I had to take the criticism as I wrote the different papers. Therefore for the different classes as I received this criticism I would continue to use it and take notes so that each paper I write gets continually better.
While choosing the classes and papers I choose for this section I was thinking about the different social institutions that impact the field of work I want to go in the most. I plan on pursuing a career in law enforcement so I chose, the family from my Violent Offending class, education from my Corrections class, and government from my U.S. Court Systems class. All three of these institutions help to create the field as we know it, as we respond to different family situations, are constantly being educated, and of course, the government has a play in the field no matter the level. The institution that I believe is the most important when it comes to criminal justice would be the family. I say this because most cases that come through the system are cases involving the family in one way or another. The paper that I chose was a paper about family violence, I picked this one because of the number of domestic violence calls that are received by police officers. I also hope to work in the field more closely associated with families. A core concept that I learned in this class and through this paper would be Conflict Theory, as it tries to help explain family violence. This theory will help me in my career as it is one reason why someone might commit these violent acts, although I continue to learn even more as I am continuing my education. Second I chose the government as an institution because no matter what level of criminal justice you view government is always involved. Where a core concept I learned was about the systematic issues that are in the criminal justice system. For this, I looked at a paper on Wrongful Convictions in the United States, where I will be taking this information with me into my career as I have learned why and how people are wrongfully committed for different crimes. Lastly, I chose education because of all the different pieces of training that officers have to go through, as well as anyone in the criminal justice system. When looking at education, the paper I chose to talk about is the debate on rehabilitation in correctional centers. As someone in this field, we must stay updated on everything going on, whether that be by educating ourselves or the department educating us. In this class, I focused on educating myself on the different rehabilitation tactics, and the different education that is received by offenders. Throughout this paper a core concept that I learned was Deterrence Theory, this theory talks about how the punishment needs to outway the rewards to deter people from committing crimes. This helps in my future career, as it gives me a better understanding of why we do the things we do in the corrections system, and what could be better when it comes to helping individuals move back into society. In this paper, I talk more about the rehabilitation of the offenders, but the Deterrence Theory still plays a big role, as hopefully the offenders will get rehabilitated so that they can reenter society but hopefully it will cause others to not commit the same crimes. All three concepts and classes/papers that I have shared here have helped to shape the way that I think, and I will be carrying this information and concepts into my future career.
The knowledge that I have learned about these different institutions will help me in my dream profession as a police officer because I now am able to understand at a deeper level the institutions that affect my career the most. When learning about families I am able to use the different laws and information that I researched when it comes to domestic violence cases. Which will help me be more prepared when it comes to starting the job and going on the different calls that come with that issue. I chose this paper on education, Rehabilitation in Correctional Facilities, because this paper talks about the different education that is provided in correctional centers and as well as it looks at if this education is provided is enough. This also helps me in my career in the criminal justice system as I was able to learn more about the different educational systems that they have. This would help me as I now know what someone might be working with and what they might know if I am working with a case that involves someone that was in a correctional center. Lastly, I chose my U.S. Court Systems paper about Wrongful Convictions in the United States because this paper deals heavily with the United States Court system, which I will be working with heavily as an officer.