Issue in research
design
Steps in research
 Idea
 Review of the literature
Use of journal articles
Using the internet
Data bases: psychinfo, proquest
(scholarly journals), NCJRS, LexusNexis
Steps
 Re-evaluation of the original idea
 Conceptualization, specification of terms
Gun control
Recidivism
Violence in prisons
Operationalization—how will concepts be
measured? Examples
Steps
 Population and sample
 Research method(s)
 Experiments, surveys, observation,
record analysis, evaluation
 Data processing
 Statistical analysis, descriptive and
inferential
Steps
 Discussion, theoretical and practical
applications
 APA style
Research proposals & grants
 Granting agencies
 i.e., MO Department of Public Safety,
National Institute of Justice (NIJ),
National Institute of Corrections (NIC),
Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency
Prevention (OJJDP)
 Open grants
 Requests for Proposals (RFPs)
Components of a proposal
 Abstract or Executive Summary
 Introduction: problem, literature review
 Method: subjects section, instruments
section, procedure (data collection)
 Schedule
 Budget
 Bibliography and appendices
Research article
 Abstract, Introduction, Method section
with 3 possible subsections (subjects,
instruments, procedure), Results,
Discussion, Bibliography, Appendices
 Research article in the past tense,
includes results and discussion
 Proposal in the future tense, no results
and discussion, but has schedule &
budget
Conceptualization
 Specify what is meant by a particular
term
 Dimension: specifiable aspect of a
concept
 Liberal vs. conservative
 What are some aspects of this concept?
 Gun control
Operational definition
 How a concept will be measured
 Prison violence—how will we “count” it?
 Incidents
 Perceptions
 Morale in an agency
 Citizen satisfaction/dissatisfaction of
police
 Trait of aggression
Characteristics of
measurement
 1. Levels of measurement
 Nominal
 Ordinal
 Interval/ratio
 Must be constructed
 Statistical analyses dependent on level
of measument
Characteristics of
measurement
 2. Reliability: test-retest, inter-rater
reliability, split-half
 3. Validity: face, content, criterionrelated, construct
 Convergent and discriminant validity
Some forms of measurement
 Scales and indices
 Use of multiple questions, added
together to create measurement
 MMPI—your responses compared to
that of known psychiatric groups.
Responses for a particular scale are
added together
Forms of measurement
 Typologies
 Criminal behavior systems.
Measuring crime
 UCR
 Victimization surveys, NCVS, National
Crime Victimization Survey
 Self-report
UCR
 Major problems
 Unreported crime—misinterpretation of
crime rates
 Dark Figure
 Citizens do not report, and sometimes
police do not (can be political, use of
discretion)
 Hierarchy rule
Incident based measures
 Supplementary homicide reports (SHR)
 Collects information about victims,
offenders age gender and race,
relationship between victim & offender,
weapon, location, circumstances
 National incident-based reporting system
(NIBRS): broader in terms of offenses,
information about offenders and victims
NIBRS
 Also includes victimless crimes,
attempted and completed, drug related
offenses, computer crimes
 Requires more time, police may
selectively report
 Voluntary
NCVS
 Conducted by Census Bureau since
1972
 Interview survey technique, face-face
 Tends to miss business crimes,
victimless crimes, status offenses
 Does not include murder
 Recall errors-can’t remember,
telescoping, acquaintance crimes
Other surveys
 Community surveys
 Monitoring the future: annual surveys of
high school seniors
 Self report studies
 Use in combination with arrests as a
measure of criminal behavior
Other CJ records
 Arrests
 Convictions
 Recidivism
 All are affect by discretion and by
changes in policies
 Juvenile statistics are particularly
vulnerable to these problems