Basics of Research Methods for Criminal Justice and Criminology

Preface     xiiiAn Introduction to Criminal Justice Inquiry     1Criminal Justice and Scientific Inquiry     2Introduction     3Home Detention     4What Is This Book About?     4Two Realities     4The Role of Science     6Personal Human Inquiry     6Tradition     7Authority     7Arrest and Domestic Violence     8Errors in Personal Human Inquiry     8Inaccurate Observation     8Overgeneralization     8Selective Observation     9Illogical Reasoning     10Ideology and Politics     10To Err Is Human     10Foundations of Social Science     11Theory, Not Philosophy or Belief     11Regularities     13What about Exceptions?     13Aggregates, Not Individuals     13A Variable Language     14Variables and Attributes     15Variables and Relationships     18Purposes of Research     18Exploration     18Description     19Explanation     19Application     20Differing Avenues for Inquiry     20Idiographic and Nomothetic Explanations     21Inductive and Deductive Reasoning     22Quantitative and Qualitative Data     23Knowing through Experience: Summing Up and Looking Ahead     24Main Points     24Ethics and Criminal Justice Research     26Introduction     27Ethical Issues in Criminal Justice Research     27No Harm to Participants     27Ethics and Extreme Field Research     28Voluntary Participation     31Anonymity and Confidentiality     32Deceiving Subjects     33Analysis and Reporting     33Legal Liability     34Special Problems     35Promoting Compliance with Ethical Principles     37Codes of Professional Ethics     37Institutional Review Boards     38Institutional Review Board Requirements and Researcher Rights     41Ethics and Juvenile Gang Members     42Ethical Controversies     42The Stanford Prison Experiment     42Discussion Examples     45Main Points      46Structuring Criminal Justice Inquiry     49General Issues in Research Design     50Introduction     51Causation in the Social Sciences     51Criteria for Causality     52Necessary and Sufficient Causes     53Validity and Causal Inference     53Statistical Conclusion Validity     53Internal Validity     55External Validity     55Construct Validity     55Validity and Causal Inference Summarized     57Does Drug Use Cause Crime?     57Causation and Declining Crime in New York City     58Introducing Scientific Realism     60Units of Analysis     61Individuals     61Groups     61Organizations     62Social Artifacts     62The Ecological Fallacy     63Units of Analysis in Review     63Units of Analysis in the National Youth Gang Survey     64The Time Dimension     65Cross-Sectional Studies     66Longitudinal Studies     66Approximating Longitudinal Studies     67The Time Dimension Summarized      70How to Design a Research Project     70The Research Process     71Getting Started     73Conceptualization     73Choice of Research Method     74Operationalization     74Population and Sampling     74Observations     75Analysis     75Application     75Research Design in Review     75The Research Proposal     76Elements of a Research Proposal     76Answers to the Units-of-Analysis Exercise     78Main Points     78Concepts, Operationalization, and Measurement     80Introduction     81Conceptions and Concepts     81Conceptualization     83Indicators and Dimensions     83What Is Recidivism?     84Creating Conceptual Order     84Operationalization Choices     86Measurement as Scoring     87Jail Stay     88Exhaustive and Exclusive Measurement     88Levels of Measurement     89Implications of Levels of Measurement     91Criteria for Measurement Quality     92Reliability      93Validity     94Measuring Crime     97General Issues in Measuring Crime     97Units of Analysis and Measuring Crime     98Measures Based on Crimes Known to Police     98Victim Surveys     102Surveys of Offending     103Measuring Crime Summary     104Composite Measures     105Typologies     106An Index of Disorder     107Measurement Summary     109Main Points     109Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs     112Introduction     113The Classical Experiment     113Independent and Dependent Variables     114Pretesting and Posttesting     114Experimental and Control Groups     115Double-Blind Experiments     116Selecting Subjects     116Randomization     117Experiments and Causal Inference     117Experiments and Threats to Validity     118Threats to Internal Validity     118Ruling Out Threats to Internal Validity     120Generalizability and Threats to Validity     121Variations in the Classical Experimental Design     123Quasi-Experimental Designs     124Nonequivalent-Groups Designs     125Cohort Designs     128Time-Series Designs     128Variations in Time-Series Designs     132Variable-Oriented Research and Scientific Realism     133Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs Summarized     135Main Points     136Modes of Observation     139Sampling     140Introduction     141The Logic of Probability Sampling     141Conscious and Unconscious Sampling Bias     143Representativeness and Probability of Selection     144Probability Theory and Sampling Distribution     145The Sampling Distribution of 10 Cases     145From Sampling Distribution to Parameter Estimate     149Estimating Sampling Error     150Confidence Levels and Confidence Intervals     151Probability Theory and Sampling Distribution Summed Up     152Populations and Sampling Frames     153Types of Sampling Designs     154Simple Random Sampling     154Systematic Sampling     154Stratified Sampling      155Disproportionate Stratified Sampling     156Multistage Cluster Sampling     157Multistage Cluster Sampling with Stratification     158Illustration: Two National Crime Surveys     160The National Crime Victimization Survey     160The British Crime Survey     161Probability Sampling in Review     162Nonprobability Sampling     162Purposive Sampling     162Quota Sampling     163Reliance on Available Subjects     164Snowball Sampling     165Nonprobability Sampling in Review     166Main Points     166Survey Research and Other Ways of Asking Questions     169Introduction     170Topics Appropriate to Survey Research     171Counting Crime     171Self-Reports     171Perception and Attitudes     172Targeted Victim Surveys     172Other Evaluation Uses     172Guidelines for Asking Questions     173Open-Ended and Closed-Ended Questions     173Questions and Statements     174Make Items Clear     174Short Items Are Best     174Avoid Negative Items     174Biased Items and Terms     175Designing Self-Report Items     175Questionnaire Construction     177General Questionnaire Format     177Contingency Questions     177Matrix Questions     178Ordering Items in a Questionnaire     180Don't Start from Scratch!     181Self-Administered Questionnaires     181Mail Distribution and Return     182Warning Mailings and Cover Letters     182Follow-Up Mailings     183Acceptable Response Rates     183Computer-Based Self-Administration     184In-Person Interview Surveys     185The Role of the Interviewer     185Coordination and Control     186Computer-Assisted In-Person Interviews     187Telephone Surveys     189Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing     190Comparison of the Three Methods     191Strengths and Weaknesses of Survey Research     192Other Ways of Asking Questions     194Specialized Interviewing     194Focus Groups     195Should You Do It Yourself?     196Main Points     198Field Research     200Introduction     201Topics Appropriate to Field Research     202The Various Roles of the Observer     203Asking Questions     205Gaining Access to Subjects     207Gaining Access to Formal Organizations     207Gaining Access to Subcultures     210Selecting Cases for Observation     210Purposive Sampling in Field Research     212Recording Observations     214Cameras and Voice Recorders     214Field Notes     215Structured Observations     216Linking Field Observations and Other Data     217Illustrations of Field Research     219Field Research on Speeding and Traffic Enforcement     219Conducting a Safety Audit     220Bars and Violence     222Strengths and Weaknesses of Field Research     224Validity     224Reliability     225Generalizability     226Main Points     227Agency Records, Content Analysis, and Secondary Data     229Introduction     230Topics Appropriate for Agency Records and Content Analysis     230Types of Agency Records     232Published Statistics     232Nonpublic Agency Records     234New Data Collected by Agency Staff     236Improving Police Records of Domestic Violence     238Reliability and Validity     239Sources of Reliability and Validity Problems     240How Many Parole Violators Were There Last Month?     242Content Analysis     244Coding in Content Analysis     244Illustrations of Content Analysis     246Secondary Analysis     247Sources of Secondary Data     248Advantages and Disadvantages of Secondary Data     249Main Points     250Application and Analysis     253Evaluation Research and Problem Analysis     254Introduction     255Topics Appropriate for Evaluation Research and Problem Analysis     255The Policy Process     256Linking the Process to Evaluation     257Getting Started     260Evaluability Assessment     260Problem Formulation     261Measurement     263Designs for Program Evaluation      266Randomized Evaluation Designs     266Home Detention: Two Randomized Studies     269Quasi-Experimental Designs     271Other Types of Evaluation Studies     273Problem Analysis and Scientific Realism     273Problem-Oriented Policing     274Auto Theft in Chula Vista     275Other Applications of Problem Analysis     276Space- and Time-Based Analysis     276Scientific Realism and Applied Research     280The Political Context of Applied Research     282Evaluation and Stakeholders     282When Politics Accommodates Facts     283Politics and Objectivity     284Main Points     285Interpreting Data     287Introduction     288Univariate Description     288Distributions     288Measures of Central Tendency     289Measures of Dispersion     291Comparing Measures of Dispersion and Central Tendency     293Computing Rates     295Describing Two or More Variables     296Bivariate Analysis     296Murder on the Job     298Multivariate Analysis      301Inferential Statistics     303Univariate Inferences     304Tests of Statistical Significance     305Visualizing Statistical Significance     306Chi Square     307Cautions in Interpreting Statistical Significance     309Main Points     311Glossary     313References     321Name Index     332Subject Index     334