Terms and essays in academic discourse

¶ … Identifications:

Empirical question: Asking an empirical question in the social science of criminology requires actual research into real-world conditions. The question is usually factual in nature. For example, a study that asked if juveniles from single parent homes are more likely to commit crimes, based upon a study of a sample population in the inner cities of Chicago, would be asking an empirical research question.

Philosophical question: In contrast to an empirical question, a philosophical question cannot be answered with statistical or anecdotal research alone, or rendered into quantifiable terms. For example, the question if it is moral for the government to use capital punishment as a part of its system of justice is a philosophical question, depending upon subjective definitions of right and wrong, in contrast to an empirical question if the death penalty has a statistically determined deterrent effect upon crime.

Probabilistic statement: When testing a causal hypothesis regarding the behavior human beings that cannot be proven (usually) with the level accuracy demanded of an experiment in the natural sciences, a social scientist will make a probabilistic statement. This is a statement, before the study takes place intended to support the statement of what is likely or probably will occur.

Index crime: An index crime is a crime that is tracked over a period of time with some regularity. These are generally defined crimes like burglary, sex offenses, and murders that occur frequently and have conventional definitions according to the law to the extent that these offenses can be tracked within communities for a long duration. They are often considered to be indicators of the level of violence, efficacy of the police, or respect for the law within a community.

Independent variable: When conducting a study, the independent variable is the variable that is under scrutiny, or the variable the researcher believes will influence the answer to the study's central question. For example, when comparing the crime rate within two similar but different communities to see if graffiti removal affects the crime rate, the independent variable is the graffiti removal, while the dependent variable would be the crime rate, because it presumably was the variable affected by the independent variable.

Cohort study: A cohort study is a form of observational studies to eliminate the influence of selection bias with randomization in a controlled trial of a real population. They are usually longitudinal -- i.e. take place over a long time, and have follow-up studies, to also reduce potential bias of selection and duration.

Meso-analysis: A meso-analysis is an analysis of a situation that is holistic, and relates the conditions studied to a social and community context. A meso-analysis of juvenile crime might consider factors like education, family, peers and social support, all categorized under the mesosystem and how it affects the individual's path in life.

Victim-precipitated criminal homicide: The term victim precipitated criminal homicide refers to those instances in which the victim's actions resulted in his or her demise, as when the dead victim may have made an intentionally or unintentionally provocative gesture used words like hate speech towards the perpetrator.

Urban zones: Urban zones are cities, or locations with the population density and high levels of commerce, concentrated transport, anonymous relationships of most of the residents, and lack of large green spaces that characterize a city.

Qualitative data: In contrast to quantitative data, which deals in numbers, qualitative data takes the form of non-quantifiable information, such as words elicited from a questionnaire or interview.

Question

Assess the empirical questions and evidence in these articles in Classics of Criminology:

46 (President's Commission); #7 (National Commission...); #4 (Shaw & McKay); #8 (Wolfgang, Sellin & Figlio); #11 (Blumstein & Cohen); #s 53, 54. 57 - experiments in policing.

First, compare and contrast.

For each of these reports, identify the topics covered, types of data, data strengths/limitations/advantages/disadvantages and strengths/weaknesses of the research method. You may, if you wish, organize this in a table or chart. Second, discuss and assess research in criminology.

46. The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice) ics Covered: This was a 1967 investigation of a wide varieties of crime in the United States. It studied law enforcement, and administration issues relating to police, the courts, and prison. It had specific focuses on organized crime, juvenile delinquency, narcotics and drug abuse. (Jacoby, 2004, p.361)

Types of data: It collected data through surveys, visitations, and conferences on police-community relations, interviews with professional criminals, questionnaires on unreported crimes, and observations of correctional personnel and facilities Strengths/limitations/advantages/disadvantages and strengths/weaknesses of the research method: Its strengths lay in the comprehensive nature of its scope, which was also the study's weakness. The commission attempted to remedy the problems of its broad nature with using data from federal agencies as well as local agencies. Some aspects of the study, such as survey questionnaires to 2,200 police departments as what field procedures they had found especially effective were not always validated by independent analysis. Some data was supplemented with field data from observers who went with members police on patrol, observed procedures in lower criminal courts, prisons, and high crime areas, and interviewed prison inmates and criminals.

7. Violent Crime: Homicide, Assault, Rape, Robbery The National [Advisory] Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (NCCPV) of 1968:

ics: Youth and adult violence -- causes and prevention

Types of data: Observation and statistical correlations, such as between hours watched of television and rates of violence.

Advatnages and disadvantages: The comission had a tendency to see correlation as cause, such as hours of violent television watching seeming to be the 'cause' of violence, rather than a likely correlative factor (children from violent or neglectful homes might have parents that allow them to watch more unsupervised television) and the too-broad range of data surveying of many kinds of violence, including adult violence as it correlated to offenders time in system with youthful violence. (Jacoby, 2004, p.37)

4. Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas (Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay) ics: Study of urban juvenille delinquency to determine if it was a normal response of individuals to abnormal social conditions.

Types of data: Proposed so-called concentric zone theory, suggested that poorer areas more prone to delinquency. Delinquency rates were measured by number of arrests, court appearances, and commitments to facilities within certain areas, ethnic heterogeneity, and population turnover. Selected 56,000 juveniles, 10- to 16-year-old boys, using court records from 1900-1933.

Advantages and disadvantages: Used time frames to show that delinquency not caused by particular immigrant groups but by environment. When immigrants lived within certain zones of poverty, negative social factors such as single-parent families, gangs, and the neighborhood, regardless of ethnicity seemed to show higher rates of violence. Believed crime rates go down from the city centre outward -- hence the high crime in the 'inner city.' However, the disadvantage with the small population selected is that in some cities, not always the case that crime exists in zones, can also occur in 'pockets,' and various cultural factors may cause individuals to remain within crime cultures, even after migration.

8. Delinquency in a Birth Cohort (Marvin E. Wolfgang, Thorsten Sellin, and Robert Figlio)

Juvenile delinquency

Data: Study of ten thousand boys born in 1945 and living in Philadelphia.

Advantages/Disadvantages: Suggested strong correlation between living location and delinquency, given high proportion of boys living in same area to be delinquent if their brothers were delinquent. Disadvantages, however, include small nature of study, and other causative factors than the environment, including environment and similar family influence.

11. Characterizing Criminal Careers (Alfred Blumstein and Jacqueline Cohen)

Race and crime

Data: Studied over 250,000 individuals to examine participation in crime. Studied racial disparities in participation in index crimes of robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and auto theft. Found racial profiling to be ineffective in an empirical fashion. In aggregate arrest rates of frequencies, age, race, were very similar for repeat offenders, although African-Americans, young males, and teens were only more likely to participate in crime at some times in their lives. However, over time statistics for the criminally active were not characterized by a particular racial profile. Suggested different crime control approaches as a prescription for initial/repeat offenders.

53. Police Control of Juveniles (Donald J. Black and Albert J. Reiss, Jr.)

Juvenile crime

Data: Analysis of racial makeup of arrest practices by police, found that regardless of crime, African-Americans more likely to be subject to arrest and incarceration.

Advantages/disadvantages: Causes of disparity could be traced to other factors than race such as location of where juveniles were found, experience level of police in those areas, and other causal factors.

54. The Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment (George L. Kelling, Tony Pate, Duane Dieckman, and Charles E. Brown)

Assessment of effects of patrolling

Type of data: Experimental study tracing patrols in marked police cars to see if they affect the level of crime. Also conduced subjective surveys of patrolled public's sense of security

Advantages/Disadvantages: Considered perceptions and crime rates, however many other factors can affect crime rates within a relatively short study, and public's perceptions of safety can be affected by many other variables such as media, outside events.

57. The Deterrent Effects of Arrest for Domestic Assault (Lawrence W. Sherman and Richard A. Berk)

Domestic violence

Types of data/methods: Sherman and Berk found that arresting batterers reduced by half the rate of subsequent offenses against the same victim within a 6-month followup period. However, in follow-up studies, sometimes offenders assigned to the arrest group had higher levels of (recidivism) while others showed a reduction in repeat cases.

Advantages/Disadvantages: Although the repeat nature of the offenses in a series of trials shows thoroughness, the inconsistent findings about whether mandatory arrest reduces domestic violence suggests more information about the different cases might be necessary to show if arrest helps in some cases but not in others.

Question

Summarize the overall prevalence and incidence of the crime problem in the 1960s as portrayed by the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice (pg.361) and by the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (pg.37). Likewise, summarize the present state of affairs (draw from websites in Lessons One and Two for comparative data). Compare the two eras and analyze the differences.

President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice (Jacoby, 2004, p.361) presented a picture of law enforcement that was fundamentally ineffective, in terms of the way it treated the problem of criminality. It presented a vision of the justice system with a high recidivism rate, and a hostile state of affairs between police and the public. Along with the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (Jacoby, 2004, p.37) it was inclined to see crime as a cultural and social problem, spawned by the problems of poverty, inequality, and racial justice. The National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence also targeted the media, such as the negative influence of violence on television as a potential cause of the crime rate.