CMRJ 505 Week 5 DQ 1, 2 and 3, Essay Example

Theories of criminology would be best for implementing qualitative research as opposed to quantitative research. The various theories of crime causation particularly look into why criminal minds choose to commit crime rather than the numbers of crimes committed by criminal offenders. Then the crime theories try to categorize the psychological motivating factors that prompt re-offenders to commit such crimes. Often they try to recommend facts or opinions that would prevent future offenses and make decisions contributing to lower future crime rates. The topics that would be better qualified for qualitative research would be theories of criminology whereas research involving crime data trends over periods of time would be better suited for quantitative data.

Targeted sampling procedures are more representative and valid than random sampling because they give a true representation of what criminologists are seeking to discover with an analysis whether qualitative or quantitative. An example would be if a criminologist or police department is seeking to determine how many people in the Detroit, Michigan area as compared to the rural areas have committed aggravated assaults in the year 2010, they would target these areas versus targeting other areas as such. “A random sample would not give specific insight to what data they would be seeking. This data would be used to compare to other data from past years and into future years.” (Dantzker & Hunter 2006). An example would be DNA sampling where criminologists would target certain profiles that could possibly fit the profile for the crime. 

Surveys can be used with official records in instances such as trying to determine if the white or black population has committed more heinous crimes in the past ten years. How this would be accomplished is to find the prison population of those incarcerated in the past ten years for such crimes according to their race and the police official records of all convictions of heinous crimes with convictions in the past ten years. One example clearly begins with the sampling of the population and ends with the concentration of the trends of the official records for the past ten years which are projected outlooks. Surveys can be used for observations and official records of sexual predator marking areas and areas that they predatate and other areas that they focus on. Another example would be what neighborhoods poorly classed cultural predators choose to case for thievery of items such as breaking and entering. People often use surveys to get public opinion on what they think of the crime rate in their geographic residential area and how they wish to improve it with police protection and citizen oversight.

Works Cited

American Psychological Association CMRJ 505 – Concise Rules of APA, 2009

Creswell CMRJ 505 – Research Design 3d Edition Implementing the New York crime model. Sage Publication

Maxfield CMRJ 505 – Basics of Research Methods for Criminal Justice and Criminology. Wadsworth, Inc.

Dantzer, L. & Hunter, D. (2006) Research Methods for Criminology and Criminal Justice: A Primer. Jones and Bartlett Learning, 2006.