Free Essay On Research Process And Terminology Paper

The first terminology to needs to be understood is the word statistics. The term assumes two meanings depending on whether it is used in singular or problem. The first meaning is the science that improves our understanding of how data is collected, organized, and interpreted. The second meaning of the term is the actual pieces of information and numbers that provides an apt description or summary of something. Understanding this terminology is crucial for a criminal justice career because it will be easy to know the prevalence of crime, the process to use in collecting criminal data, organizing it, and correctly interpreting it (Neumann, 2000). Collection of data about crime will be approached from a scientific perspective, and the interpretation of the same will enable the deep understanding of the extent of crime in society. This understanding of crime activities in a society will inform the policy decisions to be adopted to counter crime.
Additionally, the term population is part and parcel of statistics. This term refers to the complete set of phenomena that is being studied. The phenomena may be inanimate objects or people. Elsewhere, population parameters refer to the particular characteristics that the set of phenomena espouses. The term population will find application in criminal justice because it will relate crime to criminal offenders. The population may mean the extent of criminal activities among young people, men or women. Juvenile criminals form the population when the research is focused on studying crime among children and teenagers. The differentiation of population in research about crime will guide the criminal justice professional in deciphering what motivates different people to engage in crime and the main types of crime they commit (Weisburd and Britt, 2007). This understanding will enable the professionals to come up with appropriate approaches to counter crime among the different segments of the population. Failure to understand what population means in statistics will result in a poor approach to criminal research and failure to decipher the important factors that motivate various segments of society to engage in crime. The criminal justice professional will fail to have a systematic approach to crime research.
Moreover, in statistics, a sample means the population’s subset from which data is collected. In addition, raw data refers to actual measurements that are collected from the sample. Understanding what a sample constitutes can be crucial in accurately extrapolating the extent of crime in a society (Neumann, 2000). A criminal justice professional does not require to research about the entire society. What he or she only needs to do is to study a subset of the population and use the information to gauge the extent to which crime has pervaded society Additionally, a subset will help him or her to understand the types of crimes people engage in and how they execute these criminal activities. By focusing on a subset, the criminal justice professional will able to approximate the amount of resources required in countering crime, prosecuting criminals, and rehabilitating them. Additionally, raw data collected from the people used in the subset will help the criminal professional know the factors that motivate people to engage in crime, the type of crimes mostly committed and even the arms they use. Such data will help the criminal justice professional get information like the type of arms, for example guns that are in wrong hands and the approximate number of these weapons that are wrongfully owned. Such information is crucial in helping the criminal justice professional to develop appropriate strategies to de-arm the communities thus bring down criminal activities in a country. Not knowing what a subset means will lead to cumbersome research into crime hence failure to come up with appropriate strategies to counter crime.
Furthermore, there are several steps to be followed when conducting a statistical study. The first step is stating the goals of the study in a precise manner. In criminal justice, the population to be studied is identified, and the specific information to be gathered from this population is articulated. This step is crucial because it dictates how the entire study will be conducted. A population to be used may be juvenile criminals in a city or segment of a population. The information to be gathered can be the main types of criminal activities that these young people engage in.
The second step in a statistical study is making a choice of the sample from the population (Neumann, 2000). The sample chosen will help a criminal justice professional to narrow down to the specific information types he or she is interested in. The specific information can be the factors that motivate young people to engage in crime. This is crucial in informing policy makers to focus on addressing these factors in order to minimize crime activities among the juvenile population.
The third step in the statistical study is to collect raw data from the chosen sample and summarize it into aspects of interest.
Sample statistics important to a criminal justice professional include information about the percentage of a population that has been affected by crime. This is important in approximating the extent to which crime is spread in the community.
The fourth step of the study is identifying the population parameters which are essentially characteristics that are in tandem with the sample statistics (Weisburd and Britt, 2007). In the case of crime, the population parameters will be the approximate number of young people who engage in crime. After identifying the population parameters, the criminal justice professional will make conclusions on the same. These conclusions include the prevalence of crime, factors that motivate people to engage in crime, the segment of the population that crime affects most. This may, for example, be children, women or the disabled.
Essentially, there are several steps to be followed in conducting statistical research, and to ensure the success of such a study, and it is important to follow these steps to the letter. By carrying out a systematic research about crime, the criminal justice professionals are able to unravel the key characteristics of crime in a particular society. After this unraveling, the criminal justice system will be able to come up with strategies to counter crime and rehabilitate criminals thus lowering the crime menace.

References

Neuman, W. L., & Wiegand, B. (2000). Criminal justice research methods: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Weisburd, D., & Britt, C. (2007). Statistics in criminal justice. Springer Science & Business Media.