college thesis - help appreciated
 

Hi fellow reefers.

I am currently studying criminology at A level (mature (ish) student) and we have been asked to come up with a plan for an extended project which can be about anything that is connected to criminal activity and deviant behaviour. I have spent ages tossing ideas around, and tonight, after following a link on here. I found my topic.

It would appear that there is a rather grey area surrounding divers that die for the sake of catching rare fish, often forced into the job by poverty and refused wages if they do not complete these dangerous and frequent dives. (see here: [url]http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11575001#post11575001[/url])

I thought I could use this as a subject matter as for me that post has been an eye opener in relation to how little value is put on a human life, just so the rich can get richer. I also wanted to talk about the ecological effect of fish, corals and anemones (amongst other things) being taken from the ocean to further someones bank balance.

If you feel you have anything that could help me begin my research I would appreciate it if you could either reply to this message, or send me a PM if you prefer.

I will be posting this across the boards, to get a full spectrum of replies and I hope this does not annoy management or members alike. I think this is an extremely important subject to study and that when my thesis is complete I will be able to post it here with my findings for all to read.

as I said, if you have any information, or links (obviously I will be searching too and not relying on other people to do my research) then I would greatly appreciate you taking the time to reply to this message.

At some point in the future I may need to post a questionnaire, I hope that lots of you will take time to fill it in. No details will be revealed and the questions will not be asking if you have committed crime lol, more on the basis of reef practises that need looking at in order to 'save the planet' so to speak.

Anyway, that's all for now, I do hope that I get a few replies and that I can learn valuable lessons from what I find out.

thank you for reading thus far.

Good call. This place is a veritable fountain of deviant behavior.

So I've heard... ;)

Your biases come through very strong in your post, and that won't help you in writing a convincing thesis.

The thesis I am being asked to write is to form an opinion on something that can be classed as criminal or deviant, to lay out what I believe to be the truth and then to prove and disprove my initial thoughts with supporting evidence from both sides. the conclusion is to show that I was either proved conclusively right in my beliefs or proved conclusively wrong (which I think is almost iimpossible with any arguement but then I don't write the courses so what do I know lol). I apologise as I should have pointed this out in the orginal post.

The style of paper you would be looking to write is a persuasive one. I'm sure you can Google all sorts of good information on how to construct the paper and present your ideas.

Speaking of ideas, I am unsure as to how this topic is criminal or deviant from a criminology perspective. This is socially unethical, but not criminal or socially deviant.

I agree, I wouldn't consider taking advantage of someone to be something illegal.

Perhaps you could look into fish/coral collection practices in a certain region that have been outlawed, but the lengths people (may or may not) go to to continue those practices.