The following is a sample of the kind of analytical
essay you are being asked to write.
Although this essay ends up agreeing with the authors, one could have
a well-argued paper that disagrees with them. In that case, one might
want to spend more time developing the objection, so as to ensure that
one is still being charitable.
DO NOT:
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Do not treat this as a cookie-cutter. That is, do not
try to copy the exact form of this sample, paragraph-for-paragraph.
The number of paragraphs that are necessary for summarizing the argument,
or providing a criticism, or responding to that criticism (if appropriate)
will vary from case to case.
DO:
-
Instead, you can use this as a sample of the style of paper you are being
asked to write. For example, once you have figured out what the key
premises of the author’s argument are, you can communicate them discursively
as I have done in this sample essay.
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Note the use of topic sentences in the paragraphs. This helps
to focus the principle point of the paragraph. Note that the conclusion
is essentially a re-statement of the thesis, which is acceptable for a
philosophy paper.
Having trouble cutting your paper to within 750 words (give or take)?
Click to see the original version
of this paper which was about 150 words over limit. It shows where
I cut, so you can have an idea of how to cut down your paper.
Student Name (Student Number)
Tutorial: D1.XX (Day, Time)
Tutorial Leader: TA’s name
Word Count: 754 (comes out to just under 3 pages, double-spaced)
Just Confessions
Saul Kassin and Gisli Gudjonsson, in their article for Scientific
American Mind, “True Crimes, False Confessions,” argue that “society should
discuss the urgent need to reform practices that contribute to false confessions
and to require mandatory videotaping of all interviews and interrogations”
(2005, p. 26). After analyzing their argument, I shall argue that,
although one might object that Kassin and Gudjonsson focus too heavily
on the importance of protecting criminal suspects, they provide a compelling
argument that social justice requires such reforms as mandatory video-tapping
of police interrogations.
In developing their case for the need to reform interrogation tactics,
Kassin and Gudjonsson survey a number of studies regarding the role of
confessions in criminal investigations. For example, they are at
pains to provide evidence that interrogations are often influenced by a
bias on the part of the interrogator. Further concern is found in
the fact that Miranda rights, as found in the American legal system, are
insufficient safeguards, given that suspects, especially innocent ones,
often waive those rights. Finally, Kassin and Gudjonsson note that
aggressive interrogation tactics can often produce false confessions.
What makes these findings most troubling, according
to Kassin and Gudjonsson, is the strong correlation between false confession
and wrongful conviction. Trial jurors, we are told, are inclined
to give disproportionate weight to a confessions, even taking it to outweigh
so-called “hard evidence.” As a characteristic example, Kassin and
Gudjonsson cite the case of Bruce Godschalk. Even when DNA evidence
proved Godschalk could not have been the rapist, the District Attorney
of the case refused to release him from prison, stating that “…I trust
my detective and his tape-recorded evidence” (Kassin and Gudjonsson, 2005,
p. 28). Because of this tendency on the part of jurors and prosecutors,
together with the facts listed above regarding the potential for unrestricted
interrogations to elicit false confessions, Kassin and Gudjonsson
argue for the need to reform police interrogation tactics.
Underlying their argument is the implicit moral
principle that social justice requires that we do everything we can to
minimize the potential to wrongly convict innocent persons. This
may seem obvious, but one could reasonably question whether it puts too
much emphasis on protecting potentially innocent suspects and not enough
on convicting potentially guilty criminals. In a perfectly just system,
criminals would always be brought to justice and treated appropriately,
and innocent suspects would always be exonerate. However, any system
devised and implemented by humans must deal with the reality of imperfection.
The difficult moral question we need to ask is how
we are to balance the needs of society to protect itself from criminals
while at the same time protecting the rights of innocent persons.
We need to ask at what cost we are willing to limit the ability of police
and Crown prosecutors to prosecute criminal suspects. Imagine,
for example, the following two systems: (1) Almost no innocent persons
are ever convicted, but a very high percentage of recidivist offenders
are able to escape conviction, (2) A very high percentage of offenders
are caught and brought to justice; however, a small but non-negligible
percentage (say 3%) of innocent persons are unjustly caught in the system
and thus wrongly punished for crimes they never committed. Neither
of these is very palatable, but if forced to choose, my intuitions favor
result (2). Of course, there are many variables at work here, and
I do not have the space to delve into a detailed discussion of all the
relevant trade-offs. My basic point is that social justice requires
not only that we protect innocent individuals from prosecution, but that
we hold guilty persons accountable for their actions.
While I think that this is a reasonable worry to
raise given the tenor of Kassin and Gudjonsson’s article, I do not think
it ultimately undermines their argument. That is, I think one might
reasonably object that they are overly focused on the possibility of false
confessions without saying much about the utility of true confessions.
However, their specific proposal that interrogations be video-taped does
not seem to diminish the ability of police to effectively interrogate suspects
and, when possible, to elicit a confession. Indeed, they conclude
their essay by citing a study showing that police largely found the practice
of video-taping to be quite useful and not to inhibit criminal investigations.
So, even if one thinks that Kassin and Gudjonsson are a bit one-side
in focusing on false confessions, ultimately I think these authors provide
a compelling argument for the need for such reforms as mandatory video-taping
of police interrogations.
References
Kassin, Saul and Gudjonsson, Gisli (2005). “True Crimes, False Confessions,”
Scientific
American Mind, July, pp. 24-31.