Chapter 1 - Intro to Research Methods Flashcards
(76 cards)
What groups fear crime the most and why?
men and the youth; they are the most heavily victimized
How often do victims of crime know/recognize their offenders?
Very often
What kills more Americans each year than street muggers?
Unsafe work conditions
What did Hirschi and Stark find in “Hellfire and Delinquency”
a weak relationship between church attendance and nondelinquency
Why does Brown and Curtis say that practitioners within criminal justice have met repeated failure?
They only relied on their common sense
What does Wilkins say that statistical experience can be based on?
Samples of the population on which we thought was unbiased
What is knowledge?
What people create symbolically to represent reality
Less than 100 years ago, why were “feebleminded” people locked up?
For the protection of society; believed that feeblemindedness causes crime
What did French sociologist Auguste Comte describe the progression of knowledge as?
Being one from predominantly theological or supernatural explanations of reality to metaphysical or philosophical ones and finally to scientific approaches
What did science combine rational explanation with?
empiricism, experimentation
What did the scientific orientation emphasize?
Observation, measurement, replication, and verification
What is replication?
The repetition of experiments or studies utilizing the same methodology
What is verification?
A confirmation of the accuracy of findings or attainment of greater certitude in conclusions through additional observations
What three suggestions does Bayley suggest for improving criminal justice research?
- Research requires interdisciplinary efforts as well as the tackling of field-oriented, practical problems
- researchers should stop giving speeches to practitioners about the value of research and attack their practical concerns with a realistic appraisal of error proneness of any research endeavor
- stop with methodological narcissism
What is methodological narcissism?
the view that there is only one way of doing research by using the “best method”
What was found in the Martinson Report?
Rehab programs didn’t reduce recidivism or rehab clients
What advice did Hirschi and Selvin give to those doing research or those criticizing the research of others?
Those concerned with good research should be objective and vigilant as well as sympathetic
What does objectivity entail?
Value neutrality or a dispassionate approach to the subject matter that holds constant personal bias
What does vigilance in research involve?
Accuracy and efforts to eliminate error
What does theory in criminal justice represent?
An attempt to develop plausible explanations of reality
What does theory define?
The parameters for how we think about our objects of study, and provides us with the lenses through which we filter out subject matter in order to make sense of complex phenomena
What does Thomas Kuhn define a paradigm as?
Some implicit body of intertwined theoretical and methodological belief that permits selection, evaluation, and criticism
What is serendipity?
An unanticipated and surprising discovery
What do Wilson and George say about unrepaired broken windows?
They can signal to people that no one cares about a building and lead to more serious vandalism, untended property, disorderly persons etc. which creates fear in citizens and attracts predators