Record research Agency records Content analysis Secondary data

Record research Agency records Content analysis Secondary data

Agency records Published statistics Nonpublic records for routine internal use Data collected by agency staff for specific research

Published statistics Compilations of data Census bureau NCVS, Census of children in custody, FBI (UCR), Survey of inmates in local jails, correctional populations in the US

Published statistics Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) Criminal Victimization in the U. S. (based on NCVS) Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics Public perceptions, characteristics of agencies, Gallup polls http: //www. albany. edu/sourcebook

Published data Ecological fallacy Summary data cannot be used, for example, to describe individual facilities or individual inmates. Example use: high levels of crack use in the population were found in cities that had high robbery rates, lower rates of burglary

Published statistics Useful in the understanding of social trends and forces. Consider examples (i. e. , breakdown of the family, media violence, etc)

Nonpublic agency records Usually kept on individuals Must be made available to researchers In some instances (children and youths) records require special protection (i. e. , names and identifying information blacked out, of staff must pull information

Child abuse Various data sources had to be used, including school records, juvenile records, DFS, marriage license bureaus, law enforcement records at the adult level Unreported activity a problem

Hot spots Calls for service (CFS) 50% of calls in Minneapolis came from 3% of locations “hot spots” Potential problems: duplicate calls for same incident, false reports

Agency records can reflect decision making rather than actually what is happening Baumer et al—inconsistencies between juvenile probation violation and other indicators of client behavior such as new arrests and EM infractions. Pos were not catching violations

Agency records If unexpected patterns appear, review data collection procedures (i. e. , 1% violation rate) Example from drug rehab facility

New data collected by staff Adding a question onto an existing form Drug Forecasting, ADAM (arrestee drug abuse monitoring system) Supplementary interviews Cooperation of staff: how intrusive is the data collection?

Problems Agency data is a function of offender behavior, organization’s ability to detect behavior, and decisions about how to respond to behavior Agency data are not always designed for research, but rather for legal mandates, and specific personnel Erasing of records (computer tape example

Problems Backlogging old records Example of judge vs. jury sentencing Records sometimes do not “match up” Might be better to maintain records on individuals rather than incidents, but this is not always done Clerical errors

Content analysis Study of messages and the meaning of those messages Can be applied to any form of communication Books, magazines, movies, songs, speeches, TV programs, letters, laws, constitutions TV program example

Content analysis Sampling See p. 340 Open ended and close ended coding Manifest and latent content Examples Crimes reported in newspapers TV and crime

Content analysis Showing content to criminals and obtaining their reactions as to victimization Assault example Burglary example Gang related homicides—had to classify information in homicide files, need for reliability checks, interrater

Secondary analysis NIJ and BJS Interuniversity consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) National Youth Survey (NYS) National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, established by the BJS and ICPSR