Chapter 1 Criminal Justice and Scientific Inquiry 2 Realities o 1 Agreement reality Agreed upon concepts o 2 Experiential reality Created through empirical research Empirical research is the production of knowledge based on experience or observation Importance of logical and empirical support in determining the scientific validity of a reality you have never experienced o For something to be scientifically correct it must make sense and agree with empirical support o Epistemology is the science of knowing or the science of finding out o Methodology is the science of knowing how why Ex how social scientific methods can be used to better understand crime and criminal justice policy Importance of causality and probability o Causality is recognizing that future circumstances are somehow caused or conditioned by present ones Ex studying harder will result in better grades o 3 conditions of causality 1 Association There is a relationship between A B 2 Temporal order A must come before B 3 Spuriousness lack of Absence of a 3rd variable Only a small part of or knowledge comes from personal experience a much larger part comes from agreed upon knowledge 2 sources of agreement reality o Tradition By accepting tradition we are spared the overwhelming task of starting from scratch in our search for regularities and understanding Ex In the US we drive on the right side of the road o Authority teaching it The truthfulness of the knowledge depends on the authority that s Ex someone off the streets tells you that you have herpes verse when a doctor tells you that you have herpes Errors in personal inquiry o Inaccurate observation Keystone of inquiry is observation Incorrect observations will lead to inaccurate assumptions about the world Effect of priming Things can subconsciously effect your behavior Ex effect of weather on your mood Solution scientific observation A systematic and conscious activity which uses measurement devices o Overgeneralization Assumption that similar events are evidence of a general pattern Overgeneralization leads to misrepresentations Solution Repeating a study checking to see whether similar results are obtained each time o Selective observation support our world view Once we make a decision we often only see and remember details that These observations play a role in the maintenance of prejudices Solution specify in advance the number and kind of observations to be made Ex if you believe there are UFO s and then you see something weird in the sky then you will probably think it is a UFO o Intentional blindness Ex looking out the window of a car admiring the scenery then focusing on your reflection in the window Ex if you play one song in one ear and another song in the other you can only hear one You can only focus on one at a time not both o Illogical reasoning The way we handle problems may contradict our judgments about the way things are foreshadow its opposite Gambler s fallacy consistent run of good or bad luck is presumed to Ex in horror movies the person always choses to go into the creepy basement that they hear screams are coming from instead of running away o Ideology and politics Can undermine objectivity in scholarly research Solution stay objective 4 Purposes of research o Exploration explore a specific problem An exploratory question is a question that has never been asked o Description focused on the how of behavior phenomena Counts and documents observations The research process o Research a problem Rates and statistics Ex UCRs o Explanation focused on why things occur Criminal theories attempt to explain why criminals behavior occurs Ex why do some people believe that the police are doing a good job and others do not o Application focused on policy implications Evaluations Uses social scientific methods to test the results of a program or policy change etc Policy problem analysis actions Ex evaluating the effects of specific criminal justice programs Attempts to anticipate the future consequences of alternative Ex Problem oriented policing crime analysts work with police and other organizations to examine recurring problems Interest may form an idea which could lead to a theory which could lead to a new interest and so on o Literature review After doing some literary review you may want to revise your research question and make note on how other researchers approached the problem o Research questions Statement of hypothesis o Sample o Measurement o Method o Statistical analysis o References are you studying Who Are you going to do a retro study Or study children What are the key variables How will you measure them Survey direct observation etc Purpose of research exploratory descriptive etc Importance of looking at prior literature on your topic Conceptualization specifying exactly what you mean when you Operationalization specifying exactly how you will measure a refer to a concept concept Chapter 2 Ethics of Research Mortality is different from ethics Common ethical concerns o No harm to participants in an experiment 2 types of harm Physical o Ethics are ran agreed set of principles that are followed by a group of people o Morality doesn t change Have to weigh the benefits of the research against the possibility of harm o 3 groups at risk Subjects Researchers 3rd parties o Ex Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment 1 arrest most effective in preventing domestic violence 2 mediation 3 time out send away Psychological o Ex Stanford Prison Study 21 college men in good physical and mental shape Some were guards some were prisoners No physical harm was to be used Supposed to last 2 weeks only lasted 6 days Guards would make them do unethical things Prisoners suffered from psychological trauma o Voluntary participation Being a participant takes time and effort May have to answer uncomfortable questions May have to perform or witness difficult acts Voluntary participation makes it to achieve other important goals in research Voluntary participation may be a risk for generaliziblity Generalizability is the ability to generalize your results to a large population o Anonymity and confidentiality Have to protect the identity of those you study Anonymity when researchers cannot identify subjects Confidentiality when research will not disclose the subjects identities o Deception Important to protect our interest as researchers Sometimes if respondents knew our true intentions or the behavior we wanted to study they would alter their behavior Consequently
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