Category: Essays on Controversial Topics
Browse our collection of essays on controversial topics. Each topic in this category represents a controversial issue and thus is a good choice if you are looking for argumentative or persuasive essay topics. When writing an argumentative essay or a persuasive essay you should focus on picking a topic that is current and relevant to society and can be argued logically.
While a strong interest in a topic is important, it’s not enough to be interested. You have to consider what position you can back up with reasoning and evidence. It’s one thing to have a strong belief, but when shaping an argument you’ll have to explain why your belief is reasonable and logical. As you explore the topics, make a mental list of points you could use as evidence for or against an issue.
Power elite refers to societal power under the control of a small number of actors or organizations sharing common interests. Working together, this elite can either create or ameliorate social problems. For many people, the very existence of a power elite would be a social problem. Who really …
Prejudice is a term with many connotations. The most common definition of prejudice in the social sciences is an attitude toward members of a given social group that rests on the fact that they are members of that group (e.g., members of a particular race, ethnicity, religion, or …
Premarital sex refers to sexual interaction between heterosexual men and women prior to marriage. Many scholars chart changes in both attitudes and behavior related to premarital sex to explore the connection between this issue and social problems, such as divorce and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Given …
Prestige is an intangible good (such as esteem or honor) accorded to high-status social positions and enjoyed by persons who occupy those positions. As such, prestige may be intertwined with other dimensions of social stratification. Occupational prestige is a core dimension of socioeconomic status. Most research on occupational …
A prison is both a physical container and an institution. A prison contains people, typically those who have violated criminal law and have been sentenced to a period of incarceration. Prisons, also called “penitentiaries” and “correctional facilities,” are distinguished from jails in the United States by length of …
Convict criminology is a new research perspective in criminology led by ex-convicts who are now academic faculty. They especially focus on how the problem of crime is defined, the solutions proposed, the correctional policies enacted, and the devastating impacts of those decisions on the men and women confined …
Most incarcerated individuals share several underlying characteristics, including delinquent and criminal histories, poverty, substance abuse, and lack of education, but it is their diversities that are most crucial within prisons. Inmate racial, ethnic, religious, and geographic differences become problematic to correctional administrators when they contribute to the formation …
Prison overcrowding, also called “prison crowding,” is a matter of great contention and concern in current criminal justice public policy debates in both Canada and the United States. Coming to public attention as a social problem most recently in the United States in the late 1970s, prison overcrowding …
The number of adults under some form of correctional supervision has been increasing steadily. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2006 more than 7 million people were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole. This accounts for 3.2 percent of all adult residents in …
The term prison privatization commonly refers to the policy of contracting out the management and operation of prisons and jails to private, for-profit companies. Prison privatization is a controversial public policy issue, with ongoing debate over the ethics of delegating the punishment function of the criminal justice system …
The first correctional disturbance reportedly took place in Simsbury, Connecticut, in 1774, in a prison constructed over an abandoned mine. Since this time, individuals have sought to define this phenomenon while seeking an understanding of its causes and solutions. Experts have developed various definitions that describe the elements …
Prison violence occurs when prison inmates or personnel use, or threaten to use, physical force in violation of prison regulations and/or criminal law. Prison violence does not include the routine use of force by correctional officers in response to rule violations or disruptive behavior by inmates, although correctional …
The concept of privacy has a prominent place in historical debates and numerous scholarly works. In the past decade, however, the issue of privacy ascended to the forefront of social debates, frequently centering on the impact of technology (the Internet, data mining, satellite observations), government surveillance, national security, …
Probation is a period of conditional release granted to some criminal offenders at the time of conviction. Probation involves the suspension of a sentence of incarceration contingent upon the offender’s agreement to abide by a number of conditions during a period of community supervision. If the offender violates …
The term Prohibition can refer to the Eighteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, to the approximate historical era during which the Prohibition Amendment was in force, or to the political conditions, extant in this time period, in which the manufacture, distribution, and importation of alcohol were illegal. Constitutional …
In its broadest sense, propaganda is simply “persuasion in bad faith.” That is, it is a species of persuasion, but one distinguishable from other varieties along several dimensions: Accuracy. Propaganda is most commonly assumed to consist of willfully inaccurate communication. But while propaganda can and often does involve …
The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines property crimes as the offenses of burglary, larceny, theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. (Shoplifting and vandalism are also property crimes but are not reported in the UCR.) These crimes do not involve force …
Prostitution, known as the world’s oldest profession, exists in all countries and cultures, and is as old as recorded history. Prostitution consists of male or female exchange of sex or sexual intimacy for money or resources such as food, shelter, or clothing. It can take the form of …
Generally, prostitution or involvement in commercial sex means sexual transactions for money or some form of material goods. Recent research into the problem of child prostitution confirms that, far from abating, its incidence may be higher than ever, particularly in the form of international trafficking of children for …
Any substance that chemically alters the functioning of the brain or nervous system is a drug. A psychoactive drug, also known as a psychotropic drug, is a chemical substance that affects consciousness, mood, perception, and/or behavior. Such drugs are often used to treat various forms of mental illness—including …
