To successfully complete this assignment, view the Final Project Guidelines and Rubric document and Milestone One Guidelines and Rubric document.

You will need the following resources to complete this task:

• List of Public Policy Issues
• Examples of Departmental Policies
• Criminal Justice Library Tips

For your final project, you will develop a basic departmental policy recommendation to address a public need. You will analyze historical data and relevant state or federal policies, apply relevant criminological theories, and evaluate the potential impact of the departmental policy on the general public.

Public policy can be defined as the decisions, actions, laws, and positions of both the state and federal government. A public policy issue is at the center of public policy, and the state and federal government react to the issue and make decisions such as creating laws and regulations to help address the public policy issue.Public policies also provide guidance and direction to public safety organizations and are the principles that guide the actions of the personnel. The term public policy is not normally used to denote what is actually done. Departmental policies are the procedures or protocols that are created to address this public policy issue, andthese departmental policies are what will be scrutinized in a highly publicized incident. Therefore, it is vital that departmental policies are developed and updated to be consistent with public policy, to address issues within public policy, and tobest serve the interests of the department and the community. To do soeffectively, criminological theories are applied to address specific motives and underlying factors influencing the issue at hand. Thesetheories assist in developing departmental policies that can stand the test of time, not conflict withpublic policy,and remain flexible enough to adapt to societal changes.