Criminal justice, criminology, and law students get a lot to learn and to remember during their study years. Apart from that, they need to write a lot of academic works starting from a short argumentative essay and finishing with a serious thesis. Often they get assigned with topics, but there are scenarios when they are free to choose what to research. It’s where some students struggle a bit. Some cannot decide what direction to choose as there are so many themes and topics to investigate and some just need a list of basic topics to get their inspiration from.

If you are either asked to choose a controversial criminal justice topic or want to find one for a research yourself, there are many fields and angles to dig into. The main characteristic feature in a good controversial paper is that it should bring in a discussion; usually, there are two or more groups of people advocating opposite opinions about some matter. You can either choose a side to support or objectively describe an issue from different angles.

So, let’s take a look at different possible controversial criminal justice research paper ideas.

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Police topics

  • – Ethical issues of the police system in America.
  • – The loudest police brutality cases.
  • – Police role in prevention of domestic crimes.
  • – Neighbor patrol: can citizen help policemen?
  • – Police corruption in the third world countries.

Different crimes

  • – Is cybercrime as serious as crimes in real life?
  • – The history of hate crime in the USA.
  • – The correlation of crime rate and streetlights.
  • – The most famous serial killers of 21 century.
  • – Research proposal on identity theft.

Juvenile Crimes

  • – Most controversial aspects of juvenile courts.
  • – Should underage repeat offenders be trialed as adults?
  • – What are the ways to prevent juvenile crimes?
  • – Cases of teen subculture members committing crimes.
  • – Street youth gangs: how to stop them?

Drugs Topic Ideas

  • – Marijuana legalization: good and bad sides.
  • – Should drugged offenders be trialed differently?
  • – Drug selling at schools: ways to prevent and fight this issue.
  • – Anxiety pills, sedatives, depressants – can such medicine be dangerous?
  • – The problem of drugs among policemen.

Racial issues:

  • – Most famous cases of race crime in our century.
  • – Racial issues in the American Justice System.
  • – Punishment options for KKK and similar groups.
  • – What is racial profiling and what’s its role in different countries?

Punishments and prisons:

  • – How should female jails differ from the male ones?
  • – The issue of drug addiction in prison.
  • – The real cases of the death penalty on innocent people.
  • – Countries with the cruelest crime punishments.
  • – Healthcare peculiarities in prisons.
  • – Education in prisons.
  • – The connection between capital punishments and crime rates.

Sexual crimes:

  • – Prevention of rape in college dorms.
  • – Ways of fighting domestic violence.
  • – Human trafficking in Europe and Slavic countries.
  • – Online predators: how to identify and avoid.
  • – Are there fewer sexual crimes in more religious countries?

Justice System Topics:

  • – Should justice system rethink the punishment for mentally unstable criminals?
  • – The most famous cases of sentencing innocent people.
  • – The criminal justice system in Africa.
  • – Should there be more pro-bono cases per lawyer?
  • – What would I change in the current justice system in the USA?

Researching a controversial criminal justice topic is a very interesting task. Hopefully, at least one of the topics has inspired you for your own investigation for the class. If you still find too difficult to go into, though, we can help!