Editorial Free

First, an update: I want to welcome warmly Rick Borgman (University of Maine‐Orono, Professor of Finance) to the editorial review board. Rick has been doing yeoman's work for us over the past several years and has provided reviews that are detailed, constructive, and timely. Those of you whose cases have been reviewed by Rick are fortunate indeed. He is always willing to step in when needed and has helped me over some tricky spots in an area that is sometimes treacherous for me. Thank you, Rick for formalizing your role with The CASE Journal!

The excellent cases that appear in Vol. 10, No. 2:

• “ Charmingly delicious”: childhood obesity and General Mills’ dilemma (Eric D. Yordy, Nita Paden, and Katlin Bryant). Childhood obesity is rampant in America – is a “cereal killer” on the loose? This case has implications for the health of all our children. Undergraduate Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Marketing

• Cupcakes by Lizbeth: flash in the baking pan or here to stay (Sambhavi Lakshminarayanan and Savita Hanspal). Owners of a cupcake retail chain were experiencing second thoughts about the sustainability of its business model and its strategic choices. Undergraduate Strategy and Management

• IHCL's menu of hotels: competing for the Indian hotelscape (Subhadip Roy and Subhalaxmi Mohapatra). The multi‐branded strategy of IHCL posed challenges for the hotel chains involved. Students are challenged to design a strategy that would allow each of the brands to retain their market position. Undergraduate Marketing

• The taxman cometh (Aundrea Kay Guess and Carolyn Conn). When and how to report tax evasion to the authorities is the question that is plaguing the Director of Accounting of a construction company. Graduate and Undergraduate Business Ethics, Accounting, Auditing, and Entrepreneurship

• Making the business of “doing good” a good business (Miranda Lam and Edward Desmarais). It is not easy to convince banks that unemployed and underemployed auto buyers are a good lending risk. How can they prove to banks that they are credit‐worthy? Undergraduate Personal Finance and Financial Institutions

Happy reading!

What follows is a sample teaching note for Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I hope it will help you to structure your own IMs for submission to The CASE Journal.

Although Goldilocks and the Three Bears is not a real case, it presents a story that is familiar to many people, making it easier to understand how to design and use the teaching note. The material in italics is explanatory only.

This is a brief description of the highlights of the case and the challenge(s) presented to the reader.

Goldilocks, a pretty little blond girl, wandered in the forest and came upon the house of a bear family – Momma, Poppa, and Baby Bear. She walked in and tasted their porridge (too hot, too cold, and just right), she sat in their chairs (too hard, too soft, and just right), and she fell asleep in the littlest bear's bed, where the bears found her upon their return from their morning constitutional. Readers are challenged to evaluate the quality and appropriateness of the various decisions made by the protagonists and to design alternative courses of action.

This section lets the instructor know who can benefit from the case, the level at which it is presented, and when during the term it should be offered according to those theories readers should have learned before using this case.

This story is suitable for children of all ages, as well as for adult audiences. This teaching note will focus on adult audiences in criminal justice courses. The case can be introduced at any stage of the term, working equally well as an introductory case to set the stage for a discussion of youth crime, community safety strategies, crime and deviance, and inter‐ethnic conflict as well as at more advanced levels of these topics, focussed on solutions and remediation. The case correlates well with When Crime Appears: The Role of Emergence (McGloin et al., 2011), especially Section II, Chapters 2‐5, Explaining Crime.

The learning objectives make clear exactly what readers can anticipate learning from the case. This is the key section of the teaching note for selection purposes. Learning objectives are action oriented, measurable, and specific. They must be supported by the case. What do you expect readers to be able to DO after analyzing this case? These are often keyed to Bloom's Taxonomy or other learning scheme:

1. identify environmental factors that allow for tacit acceptance of certain kinds of non‐violent crime;

2. apply an ethical framework to respect for property rights; and

3. design a deterrence program that addresses youth crime.

This is a list of discussion questions that relate the learning objectives to the actions in the case. Each question should relate to one or more of the learning objectives, and they should be answerable only in relation to the case itself:

1. What crimes did Goldilocks commit? What types of crimes are they? What role did the Bear family play in Goldilocks’ crime spree? How could they have helped forestall the entire situation?

2. What is appropriate restitution for the Bear family? What additional punishment/penalties should be levied against Goldilocks?

3. What should be done in the future to prevent a recurrence of the violations?

This section provides alternatives to the traditional classroom discussion based on the DQs as a means of enhancing the learning process.

Ice breaker questions get the learning conversation started and help set the scene:

• Who has ever been tempted by opportunity to perform an illegal act? How about if you were pretty sure you would not get caught?

• If you came upon a house in the woods and the door was open, would you enter? Would you poke your head in?

• Who has ever left the door to the apartment open while you ran down to the car to fetch your groceries? Or ran to the laundry room to move your clothes to the dryer?

Goldilocks and the Three Bears lends itself well to a role play staged as a mock criminal trial. Participants should be assigned the roles of judge, prosecutor/Crown's attorney, attorney for the defense, defendant/accused, victim, and jury. If additional roles are needed for a larger group, you can add in a bailiff, a court reporter, the press, or other roles as desired. For a smaller group, the victim can be limited to Poppa Bear, and the jury could be reduced from 12 to 6 for convenience.

Prior to the trial, the defense attorney should meet with Goldilocks to hear her side of the story and prepare the defense. The prosecutor does the same with the Bear family.

The process of the trial is as follows:

1. The jury is sworn in by the clerk of the court and their responsibilities are explained to them. Each witness who gives testimony is also sworn in with language like this: “Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you shall give in this cause now before the Court, will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” Emphasize to participants that they should take this process seriously.

2. Both attorneys make opening statements outlining their case, prosecuting attorney first. The evidence that they provide may include witness statements, physical evidence (empty bowl of porridge, broken chair, photos, etc.)

3. The prosecuting attorney presents the case first, and rebuts last.

4. At any time during the trial, attorneys may object to something that has been said. It is up to the judge to sustain or overrule the objection.

5. After rebuttal, the judge instructs the jury on the law and the jury retires to deliberate. The jury should deliberate carefully, considering the two [likely] different stories they have been told – the plaintiff's version (an intruder entered my house, ate my food, vandalized my home, and ran away instead of staying to explain) or the defendant's version (I was exhausted from being lost in the woods, the door was open, I was starving hungry so ate the porridge, I broke the chair by accident, then fell asleep from my long day. I ran away because I was frightened). They must come to a unanimous decision as to guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

6. If “not guilty,” Goldilocks may simply leave. If “guilty,” the judge sets the punishment based on legal precedent. In the “guilty” situation, the class (except for the judge, attorneys, defendant, and plaintiffs) should abandon their roles to advise the judge in terms of restitution and punishment.

7. At the conclusion of this activity, the “community” should propose a variety of methods to help avoid similar situations in the future.

This section presents relevant theory, background information, references, in‐depth analysis and, if appropriate, a literature review. This helps the instructor select a case that fits well with the topical matter under class discussion.

The story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears has changed considerably since its first publication in 1837. Originally, the intruder was an old, perhaps mentally incompetent woman. As an unsympathetic protagonist, her role evolved to the young and pretty girl with whom we are familiar in 1849. In addition, the three bears were originally three male bears and evolved into a bear family to which children could relate more readily.

The “rule of three” is invoked in this story to powerful effect. The rule of three is a literary device that presents two extreme [and opposite] choices along with the preferable “just right” third option. This rule that invokes a balanced solution in math and science is often called the Goldilocks Principle in honor of its origin in this story.

This principle of the balanced solution also appears in the criminal justice literature as derived from Aristotelian philosophy. Aristotle's belief in the virtue of the mean expresses itself in Goldilocks’ quest for the perfect porridge, chair, and bed. In the same way, the philosophy that underlies restitution and remediation also focusses on a balance between too severe and too lenient. It is important to remember this balance when seeking to “make things right” for the Bear family and remonstrate with Goldilocks for her bad judgment.

Theories of legal punishment generally seek a balance between the utilitarian/consequentialist perspective of punishment as deterring factor for future similar behavior and the concept of retribution – punishment as earned outcome for a specific behavior. A balance between the two concepts protects the rights of both the accused and the offended. Society's desire for vengeance is satisfied by a jail sentence, while society's need to protect the offender's rights provides due process throughout the prosecution as well as rehabilitation programs for prisoners.

Questions should be answered as a student doing A‐quality work might answer. Sometimes, the author will answer the questions in an A/C split – an A‐quality answer and a C‐quality answer. The answers in this sample are simple answers; often the discussion question answers are the most extensive element of the teaching note.

1. 1. What crimes did Goldilocks commit? What level are these crimes?

   Goldilocks committed a series of crime, the most obvious of which was breaking and entering. According to www.nolo.com, breaking and entering means “Entering any building through the slightest amount of force (even pushing open a door), without authorization. When someone enters in order to commit a crime, this is burglary. If there is no such intent, the breaking and entering alone may be illegal trespass, which is a misdemeanor crime.” There is no indication in the story as to Goldilocks’ motivation for entering the Bears’ cottage, so at the least she has committed illegal trespass.

   However, as we saw in the story, as Goldilocks went through the house, she committed a series of escalating crimes. We have learned that criminals are likely to go from performing relatively minor property crimes to more serious ones, from property crimes to violent crimes, or from violent crimes to relatively more serious violent crimes as they gain expertise in their commission (Britt, 2000). Goldilocks moved from simple illegal trespass to larceny and vandalism as she ate the porridge and broke the little Bear's chair.

2. 2. What is the role the Bear family played in Goldilocks’ crime spree? How could they have helped avoid the situation? The Bears appear to be trusting and naive, simply leaving their door open and going out for a walk. Depending on the area of the forest in which they live, this might not be a wise course of action. If their corner of the forest is comfortably populated and their neighbors participate in a Community Watch scheme, they can feel safe with this behavior. If, however, their area of the forest is out‐of‐the‐way, with a transient population who do not know one another by sight (as appears to be the case), their normal behavior is unwise. They could have helped to preclude the home invasion by securing their door before they left for a walk.

   Momma and Poppa Bear could volunteer to serve on community boards of various kinds, including youth outreach groups and other service groups that help integrate young people into the community and socialize them in local customs and acceptable behavior. They could participate in neighborhood justice panels, mediation boards, and similar groups that focus on restorative justice. It is important to remember that the Bears did not cause their own victimization; Goldilocks is the offender here, not the Bears. Victims may go through a series of emotional reactions, starting with shock, denial, anger, fear, frustration, guilt, shame, and grief. It is clear from the story that Baby Bear is outraged that Goldilocks has eaten his porridge, broken his chair, and is calmly asleep in his bed. None of this was Baby Bear's fault. The Bears need to seek out appropriate counseling or other services to help Baby Bear cope with this violation of his privacy, safety, and security. Momma and Poppa Bear need to be aware that Baby Bear may suffer sleeping difficulties and other anxieties for a period of time, until he recovers from this ugly episode in his life. Speaking to groups of other crime victims may help him to recover sooner (Canadian Resource Center for Victims of Crime, 2005).

3. 3. What is appropriate restitution for the Bear family? What additional punishment/penalties should be levied against Goldilocks? Restitution and penalties can be handled through a system of restorative justice rather than a purely legal option. Restorative justice is a system in which both parties to a youth crime work together with a facilitator to come to a satisfactory resolution of the crime, one in which the victim receives acceptable restitution and the perpetrator commits to a set of positive actions. These may include:

   • apologizing to the victim (Goldilocks would apologize to the Bear family);

   • repairing or paying for the repair of the broken chair;

   • replacing the bowl of porridge;

   • washing the bedclothes Goldilocks dirtied; and

   • performing any other activity the Bear family and facilitator think would help avoid a recurrence of the breaking and entering activity.

The key to successful restorative justice is the willing participation of both parties in coming to a successful solution. If the Bears are unwilling to forgive Goldilocks and work with her to change her ways, the system will not work. The benefit of this alternative to the traditional justice system is that Goldilocks will not end up with a criminal record, which can often launch young people on a life of crime.

1. 4. What should be done in the future to circumvent a recurrence of the violations?

   If the Bears have opted for a legal resolution, Goldilocks will receive rehabilitation in jail or while on parole. This kind of rehabilitation has limited success rate. According to a 2010 report presented to Parliament by the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice 75 percent of youth offenders reoffend within a year. Proposals in the UK include options that relate to more serious work afforded to prisoners, more diligent repayment made to victims, a community approach to crime overall, and taking an integrated approach to offenders (is Goldilocks a Person in Need of Supervision?).

   In addition, a community policing option could help. The goal is to deter young people from criminal activity, and this includes creating an environment of safety and protection for the rights of property owners and the rights of potentially disaffected youth. Property owners must participate in their own protection, however. Leaving doors open can be an invitation to vandalism and theft, so the simple expedient of locking front doors can help deter the casual illegal trespass. Electronic monitoring can serve as a replacement for jail time for first offenders, reminding them of the serious nature of their offense but not warehousing them with hardened criminals. It is equally important to assure that the young violator is returned to a protected environment, with appropriate housing and supervision within the community (Is Goldilocks homeless? Are her parents or guardians available? Is she mentally/emotionally stable?).

   If the Bears have opted to participate in restorative justice, the answer is subsumed within DQ 3, above.

This section brings the story up to date at the time of the writing of the case and answers that question which is most important to students: What happened at the end of the story?

Although we have no updates on the outcomes or further actions in this story, nonetheless it seems clear that no further instances of criminal behavior were recorded about Goldilocks.