Research Methods in Criminology

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Research Methods in Criminology

• Experiments
• Field Studies
• Surveys
• Existing statistics

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Research Methods in Criminology

• Experiments
• Field research
• Survey research
• Existing data research
• Comparative 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

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The Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment
(1983)

• Goal was to find the most effective strategy
• Three groups two treatment groups and one
  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)
• 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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Social Science Experiments

• Laud Humphreys Tearoom Trade (1970)
• Stanley Milgrams Obedience to Authority (1974)
• Philip Zimbardos simulated prison experiment
  (1972-1974)

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Laud Humphreys and the Tearoom Sex Study

• He stationed himself in "tearooms" and offered to
  serve as "watchqueen"
• He was able to gain the confidence of some of the
  men he observed, disclose his role as scientist,
  and persuade them to tell him about the rest of
  their lives and about their motives
• Humphreys secretly recorded the license numbers
  of their cars
• A year later and carefully disguised, Humphreys
  appeared at their homes claiming to be a
  health-service interviewer and interviewed them
  about their marital status, race, job, and so on.

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Humphreys' findings destroyed many stereotypes

• 54 of his subjects were married with kids
• 38 were neither bisexual nor homosexual they
  were men whose marriages were marked with tension
• 24 were clearly bisexual, happily married, well
  educated, economically quite successful, and
  exemplary members of their community
• Another 24 were single and were covert
  homosexuals
• Only 14 of Humphreys' subjects were members of
  the gay community and were interested in
  primarily homosexual relationships

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Stanley Milgrams Obedience to Authority

• Psychologist at Yale University, conducted a
  study focusing on the conflict between obedience
  to authority and personal conscience
• Character flaw Readiness to obey authority
  without question, no matter what outrageous acts
  authority commands
• Everything in the experiment was staged except
  one person-subject
• Milgram changed a lot in his initial script
  because people were obeying too much

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Experiment

• Learner is taken to a room where he is
  strapped in a chair and an electrode is placed
  on his arm.
• The "teacher" is instructed to read a list of two
  word pairs and ask the "learner" to read them
  back.
• If "learner" gets the answer wrong, the
  "teacher" is supposed to shock the "learner"
  starting at 15 volts

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Experiment

• The generator has 30 switches ranging from
  "slight shock" to "danger severe shock
• The final two switches are labeled "XXX
• The "teacher" automatically is supposed to
  increase the shock each time the "learner" misses
  a word in the list

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Links

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vBcvSNg0HZwkfeature
  related
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vIzTuz0mNlwU
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vCmFCoo-cU3Y

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Results

• Two-thirds of this study participants fall into
  the category of obedient' subjects, and that
  they represent ordinary people drawn from the
  working, managerial, and professional classes
• 65 of all of the "teachers" punished the
  "learners" to the maximum 450 volts
• No subject stopped before reaching 300 volts

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Results

• The theory that only the most severe monsters on
  the sadistic fringe of society would submit to
  such cruelty is disclaimed

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Zimbardos simulated prison experiment

• Subjects males, undergraduate, paid volunteers
• Role of either guard or prisoner
• Mock prison was constructed in the basement of
  Stanford university
• Experiment was to have lasted for two weeks but
  Zimbardo cancelled the study after 6 days because
  of possible harm

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What went wrong?

• Individuals became carried away with their roles
• Guards behaved aggressively and dehumanizing
  toward prisoners
• Prisoners behaved ether passively or were hostile
• Subjects did consent to participate in the study,
  but they did not expect the consequences

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Field Study

•  A piece of research undertaken outside the
  laboratory or place of learning, usually in a
  natural environment or among the general public
• METHODS Observations and interviews

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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,
  not in a laboratory

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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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Interviews

• Active offenders - hidden population
• Criminals behind bars?

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Criminals behind bars

• Unsuccessful criminals
• Unskilled criminals
• Lacking access to nice criminal network
• Might not be honest

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How to locate active and not apprehended
criminals?

• Snowball sampling
• Appropriate when members of a population are
  difficult to locate.
• Researcher collects data on members of the target
  population she can locate, then asks them to help
  locate other members of that population.
• New cases are sampled until there is no
  additional information from new cases.

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Snowball Sampling
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Limitations of the Snowball Sampling

• The role of the 1st person sampled is crucial in
  determining who else get sampled
• Bias may be high since people are more likely to
  mention people that are like themselves, i.e. no
  variation on the characteristic of interest.

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Statistics

• Source The National Crime Victimization Survey
  (NCVS)
• Ongoing since 1972, this survey of households
  interviews about 134,000 persons age 12 and older
  in 77,200 households each year about their
  victimizations from crime.

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Life history and case studies

• In-depth analysis of one or a few cases
• Sutherlands The Professional Thief (1937)
• Shaws The Jack-Roller A Delinquent Boy's Own
  Story

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Survey Research

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

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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

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Unobtrusive methods

• Use of existing statistics
• Content analysis

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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