Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
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- All Subjects: Progress
- All Subjects: Susan Estrich
- Creators: O'Flaherty, Katherine
The concept of rape has been a prominent part of historical U.S. criminal law, and legislation and statutes have changed significantly over time. Despite numerous reforms, however, there is still a lack of reporting, arrests, and convictions for sexual assault cases. This is due to several factors influencing the judgement of criminal justice actors, such as how cases are handled by police officers and prosecutors, who decide whether to further investigate a case, send the case to prosecution for sentencing, or bring the case to trial. Some of these influences include legal and extra-legal factors and certain beliefs or assumptions about sexual assault victims, which affect these officials’ discretionary decisions. As a result, criminal justice officials tend to dismiss or unfound a sexual assault case, especially with acquaintance rape, contributing to the substantial lack of arrests and convictions. These facts, which are examined in the paper, emphasize the need to reassess our criminal justice system's current response to sexual assault cases. This includes adjusting the evaluation markers for prosecutors, improving the communication between the relevant criminal justice actors, and implementing evaluations of prosecutorial ethics and community satisfaction.
Progress is a term used to describe advancement for humanity. It can be measured in many ways, most commonly by GDP, especially in the United States. One way of measuring progress can be to apply a wide range of elements that are used in measuring happiness, like well-being, education, social connections, health, and security. Happiness is useful in measuring individual progress by using subjective measurements and reflecting on one’s lifestyle, but it can also be useful in measuring societal progress. The World Happiness Report uses data to show how happiness can be used globally to measure progress by looking at aspects of well-being, conceptions of happiness, social media, biological components of happiness, and balance and harmony. Real life applications of this method exist with Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness that was started in 1972, where the country decided to reorganize their policies to align with these new ideals that placed its citizens happiness above all. If a similar thing is done in the US, where progress is defined not only by GDP but also by elements used in measuring happiness, then policies can be made with these ideals in mind that should benefit the citizens of the US. Areas that would greatly profit from this type of progress include education, healthcare, and the economy.