Research Methods in Criminology

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Research Methods in Criminology

• 1.Assignment 1
• 2.Research
• 3.Research methods

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Why conduct research?

• Some want to answer practical questions (Will a
  reduction in average class size from 25 to 20
  increase student writing skills?)
• Others want to make informed decision (Should
  our school introduce extracurricular activities
  to reduce deviant behavior of students?)
• Still others want to change society (What can be
  done to reduce rape?)
• Critics of scientific research in criminology
  view it as a detailed elaboration of what any
  person with common sense know

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Sense and Nonsense about crime (Walker, 1989)

• Rates of victimization are higher for males than
  females and for younger people
• In a large proportion of violent crimes, victims
  know their offenders
• Knowledge of imprisoned criminals indicates that
  most criminals have jobs and very few are welfare
  dependent
• The residents of smaller cities have higher rates
  for certain crimes assault, personal larceny,
  and residential burglary

• Females and the elderly fear crime because they
  are the most heavily victimized of all groups
• Victims of crime seldom know their offenders
• The typical criminal offender is either
  unemployed or on welfare
• The larger the city, the greater the likelihood
  its residents will be victims of crime.

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Demographic characteristics (victims and
offenders, 1976-2002)
Rate per 100,000 population
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Demographic characteristics (victims and
offenders, 1976-2002)
Rate per 100,000 population
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Sense and Nonsense about crime (Walker, 1989)

• Rates of victimization are higher for males than
  females and for younger people
• In a large proportion of violent crimes, victims
  know their offenders
• Knowledge of imprisoned criminals indicates that
  most criminals have jobs and very few are welfare
  dependent
• The residents of smaller cities have higher rates
  for certain crimes assault, personal larceny,
  and residential burglary

• Females and the elderly fear crime because they
  are the most heavily victimized of all groups
• Victims of crime seldom know their offenders
• The typical criminal offender is either
  unemployed or on welfare
• The larger the city, the greater the likelihood
  its residents will be victims of crime.

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The Victim-Offender Relationship

• Three types of relationships are often
  identified
• Familial (especially spouses and siblings)
• Acquaintances (including friends, girlfriends,
  boyfriends, neighbors, and coworkers)
• Strangers

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UCR data

• The majority of homicides known to police involve
  acquaintances (57)
• Relatives (22)
• Strangers (21)

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Homicides committed by women

• Female-perpetrated homicides account for 10-12
  of the overall homicides
• Who do women kill?
• The answer is those closest to them, with whom
  they live (intimate partners, or ex-partners and
  family members)
• Over the period 1995-2001, intimate partners
  accounted for 32 of female-perpetrated homicides

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Offender characteristics

• Typical intimate partner killer is one aged b/w
  25 and 40, with below-average level of
  educational attainment, who is likely to
  unemployed and from lower-class background (Mann,
  1996, Goetting, 1987)

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Method of killing

• Women usually kill their partner with a knife or
  sharp instrument (78)
• Poisoning (6.2)
• Blunt instrument (2.6)
• Arson (2.2)
• Shooting (2.0)

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Weapon use in Murder

• A firearm (handgun) is used in about two-thirds
  of all homicides (predominantly males)
• Knives or other cutting instruments
  (predominantly females)
• Personal weapons (hands, fists, and feet)
• Blunt objects
• Strangulation
• Contrary to media images, poison and explosives
  are rarely used as murder weapons

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Sense and Nonsense about crime (Walker, 1989)

• Rates of victimization are higher for males than
  females and for younger people
• In a large proportion of violent crimes, victims
  know their offenders
• Knowledge of imprisoned criminals indicates that
  most criminals have jobs and very few are welfare
  dependent
• The residents of smaller cities have higher rates
  for certain crimes assault, personal larceny,
  and residential burglary

• Females and the elderly fear crime because they
  are the most heavily victimized of all groups
• Victims of crime seldom know their offenders
• The typical criminal offender is either
  unemployed or on welfare
• The larger the city, the greater the likelihood
  its residents will be victims of crime.

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Homicide rates
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The proportion of intimate homicides differs by
type of area
Intimate homicides (spouses, ex-spouses,
boyfriends, and girlfriends) made up a larger
percentage of murders in rural areas than in
suburban or urban areas
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Research as an attack on common sense

• Hirshi and Stark (1969) in Hellfire and
  Delinquency have found a weak relationship b/w
  church attendance and nondeliquency
• damned if you do and damned if you dont
• Study was attacked as false, stupid, or an
  illustration of inadequate methods
• Had they found a strong relationship, they would
  have been accused of wasting time on the common
  sense knowledge

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Research as the use of standardized systematic
procedures in the search of knowledge

• Pure research
• for the sake of scientific knowledge
• Construction of theories of models that allow for
  a better understanding of criminal behavior
• No immediate direct relevance

• Applied research
• Practical goal in mind
• Development of strategies intended to address the
  problem of crime

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Purposes of Research

• Exploration, Description, and Explanation (Earl
  Babbie, 1999)
• Exploration provides beginning familiarity with a
  topic
• To satisfy the researchers curiosity
• To test the feasibility of undertaking a more
  extensive study
• To develop the methods to be employed in any
  subsequent study

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Description

• Describe situation or events
• U.S. Census, UCR
• Computation of crime rates for different cities
• Many qualitative studies aim primarily at
  description

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Explanation

• Explain things
• Reporting why some cities have higher crime rates
  than others involve explanation

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Quantitative and Qualitative

• Hypothesis
• Data are in the form of numbers from precise
  measurement
• Theory is largely causal and deductive
• Replication is possible
• Analysis proceeds by using statistics, tables, or
  charts

• No hypothesis
• Data are in the form of words and images from
  documents, observations, and transcripts
• Theory noncausal and inductive
• Replication is rare
• Analysis proceeds by extracting themes or
  generalizations (although numbers are possible)

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Quantitative and Qualitative

• Two logical systems
• Deductive logic-(hypothesis, observations,
  empirical generalizations, theory)
• Inductive logic (observations, empirical
  generalizations, theory)

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A model of the Research Process
THEORY
Deduction
Induction
HYPOTHESIS
FINDINGS
Operationalization
Analysis
DATA GATHERING
RESEARCH DESIGN
Measurement
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Qualitative Research on Diversity

• Educational system
• Manners and everyday interactions
• Friendship and social activity

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Manners and everyday interactions

• Americans ask routinely How are you doing but
  they are not interested in how I am doing
• American smile has a different meaning than
  smile in my culture. Here it is a polite
  greeting, nothing more
• I feel that people who smile at me are insincere
  because their smile appears suddenly and then
  disappears also suddenly

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Manners and everyday interactions

• Americans are obsessed with cleaning of their
  bodies, but they routinely put their feet on a
  chair or even small coffee table.this does not
  go along with hygiene
• All my Americans friends do not take off their
  shoes at home. It seems to me that they can bring
  a lot of bacteria and viruses into their homes

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Friendship and social activity

• If I cook my real national food, no one from my
  department will try itI need to Americanize my
  native food to make it attractive to my American
  class-mates.
• It is to difficult for us to make American
  friends. Although, Americans are talkative and
  friendly, they are not opened to new
  relationships
• Usually it takes much more time to establish a
  friendship with Americans than with people of my
  own culture

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Research Methods in Criminology

• Experiments
• Survey research
• Field research
• Content analysis
• Existing data research
• Comparative research
• Evaluation research

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Classic Experiment

• At least two groups (control and experimental)
• Randomly assign people to groups
• Treat the experimental group by manipulation the
  independent variable
• Observe the effect of the treatment on the
  dependent variable in the experimental group
• Compare the dependent variable differences in the
  experimental and control groups
• Control is crucial (to eliminate alternative
  explanations)

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Experimental research

• Researchers use deception to control what the
  subjects believe is occurring
• Researchers intentionally mislead subjects
  through verbal or written instructions
• It may involve the use of confederates or stooges
  people who pretend to be subjects but who
  actually work for the researcher
• For realistic deception, researchers may invent
  false treatment and dependent variables to keep
  subjects unaware of true ones (ethical issues)

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Laud Humphreys Tearoom Trade (1970)

• Study of impersonal sexual activity between male
  homosexuals
• Where the average guy go just to get a blow job
  and Who are they
• Observational research (how men approach each
  other and how they negotiate sex)
• License plate numbers
• Health care research

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Laud Humphreys Tearoom Trade (1970)

• Middle class
• High educational level
• Mostly married with children
• Only one nonconventional thing about
  them-tearoom for anonymous sex
• Great scandal (police could demand the names of
  the subjects)

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The Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment
(1983)

• Goal was to find the most
• effective strategy
• Three groups two with different treatment and
  control
• Police officers volunteering to take whatever
  action was dictated by a random system
  instruction in an envelope
• Three different instructions (1) arrest the
  suspect (2) separate or remove the suspect from
  the scene for 8 hours (3) advise and mediate

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Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment

• Victims have been interviewed every two weeks for
  the next 6 months, police records have been
  monitored as well
• Most influential policy experiment
• Arrest works more effectively in deterring
  domestic violence

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Experiments in Criminology

• Not always possible (ethical issues)
• Long-term study
• Quasi-experiments or natural experiments
• Example Effect of the decision to conduct
  crackdown on drinking and driving by a local
  police force (planned interventions)
• Occasionally, natural events (catastrophe or
  tornadoes) might substitute planned interventions

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Strengths Weaknesses

• the only method that allows us to test the causal
  relationships between variables
• Random assignment of subjects to experimental and
  control groups allows us to test our hypotheses

• In real life, only rarely one variable actually a
  cause of another one
• Difficult to test very complex hypotheses
  (difficult to manipulate and control more than
  one or two variables)
• Ethical issues

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Survey Research

• Survey is a series of questions asked of a number
  of people and designed to measure the attitudes,
  beliefs, values, and personality traits
• Based on sampling

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Different research designs
Cross Sectional Design 1990 41-50 51-60 61-70 71-8
0
Cohort Study 1990 2000 41-50 41-50 51-60 5
1-60 61-70 61-70 71-80 71-80
Trend Study 1990 2000 41-50 41-50 51-60 51
-60 61-70 61-70 71-80 71-80
Panel Study 1990 2000 41-50 41-50 51-60
51-60 61-70 61-70 71-80 71-80 81
Denotes comparison Denotes same individuals
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Observation

• Observation is a research technique in which a
  researcher directly observe the behavior of
  individuals in their usual social environments
• Observational research is often called field
  research

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Different strategies

• Complete Participant researcher goes
  undercover and does not tell people being
  observed that he/she is doing research
• Complete Observer researcher views things from a
  distance or one-way mirror
• Participant Observer people know that they
  are observed

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Strengths Weaknesses

• Relatively small groups can be observed at once
• Labor-intensive
• Can be subjective
• Hawthorne effect (participation in research can
  influence subjects)

• Observation of behavior in natural context
• Get information about those individuals who
  cannot fill out survey or respond orally
  (children)

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Life history and case studies

• In-depth analysis of one or a few cases
• Qualitative research
• Sutherlands The Professional Thief (1937)
• Shaw's The Jack-Roller (1930)

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Unobtrusive Research

• Unobtrusive methods are strategies for studying
  peoples behavior in ways that do not have an
  impact on the subjects
• Homicide rate

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Unobtrusive methods

• Artifacts (archeologists use)
• Use of existing statistics
• Content analysis

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Strengths Weaknesses

• We do not need cooperation of people being
  studied
• Research does not affect the behavior of people
  being studied

• Study social things only after they have occurred
  and left traces
• These traces must solid enough to last until can
  be observed
• If we use secondary data we do not have control
  over the quality of these data

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Triangulation

• Every method has both strengths and weaknesses
• Whenever possible researchers use more than one
  method to obtain data
• Triangulation methods are combined so that the
  strengths of one method overcome the weakness of
  another method

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Example of Triangulation

• Suppose you study the impact of neighborhood
  problems on youth development
• Census information (unobtrusive) about poverty
  level in neighborhoods
• Survey among youth and parents
• Observations