Advanced Statistics In Criminology And Criminal Justice

This book provides the student, researcher or practitioner with the tools to understand many of the most commonly used advanced statistical analysis tools in criminology and criminal justice, and also to apply them to research problems. The volume is structured around two main topics, giving the user flexibility to find what they need quickly. The first is “the general linear model” which is the main analytic approach used to understand what influences outcomes in crime and justice. It presents a series of approaches from OLS multivariate regression, through logistic regression and multi-nomial regression, hierarchical regression, to count regression. The volume also examines alternative methods for estimating unbiased outcomes that are becoming more common in criminology and criminal justice, including analyses of randomized experiments and propensity score matching. It also examines the problem of statistical power, and how it can be used to better design studies. Finally, it discusses meta analysis, which is used to summarize studies; and geographic statistical analysis, which allows us to take into account the ways in which geographies may influence our statistical conclusions.

Statistics in Criminal Justice takes an approach that emphasizes the application and interpretation of statistics in research in crime and justice. This text is meant for both students and researchers who want to gain a basic understanding of common statistical methods used in this field. In general, the text relies on a building-block approach, meaning that each chapter helps to prepare the student for the chapters that follow. It also means that the level of sophistication of the text increases as the text progresses. Throughout the text there is an emphasis on comprehension and interpretation, rather than computation. However, as the statistical methods discussed become more complex and demanding to compute, there is increasing use and integration of statistical software. This approach is meant to provide the reader with an accessible, yet sophisticated understanding of statistics that can be used to examine real-life criminal justice problems with popular statistical software programs. The primary goal of the text is to give students and researchers a basic understanding of statistical concepts and methods that will leave them with the confidence and the tools for tackling more complex problems on their own. New to the 4th Edition · New chapter on experimental design and the analysis of experimental data. · New chapter on multi-level models, including growth-curve models. · New computer exercises throughout the text to illustrate the use of both SPSS and Stata. · Revision of exercises at the end of each chapter that places greater emphasis on using statistical software. · Additional resources on the text’s web site for instructors and students, including answers to selected problems, syntax for replicating text examples in SPSS and Stata, and other materials that can be used to supplement the use of the text.

Thoroughly updated and revised, the Third Edition of Statistics in Criminology and Criminal Justice: Analysis and Interpretation provides criminal justice students with a firm knowledge base in the theory and application of statistical analyses. Students will be introduced to methods of identifying and classifying data, followed by explanations and demonstrations of statistical procedures. They will learn what statistical techniques are appropriate for particular data, why procedures give the results they do, and how to interpret the output of statistical analyses.

Designed for students with little or no familiarity with statistics, this text presents clear explanations for underlying concepts of statistical inference and hypothesis testing, and features step-by- step demonstrations of common statistical procedures used in criminal justice research. Excel application exercises allow students to visualize the processes of statistical calculations and to perform advanced statistical techniques using the function wizard and data analysis tool. Other learning features include boxes introducing statistical techniques for addressing specific research problems, boxes requiring students to perform different statistical tests, key terms, and problem sets. Proctor teaches statistics at Indiana University. Badzinski teaches statistics and communications. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Statistics in Criminal Justice and Criminology Research: An Introduction is for advanced undergraduate and graduate level students in criminology and criminal justice statistics courses. It is designed for students pursuing careers in criminology and/or criminal justice by adequately and evenly covering statistical research for both professions. The engaging writing style, real-life applications, and comprehensive format will distinguish this text from its competitors and help establish it as more than just another statistics book. Fitzgerald and Fitzgerald have teamed up to create a flexible and useful text that will not only meet the needs of criminal justiceiminology students but also provide motivation for students who have math anxiety yet strive to become criminal justice professionals.Features and Benefits:1) Frequent use of diagrams and graphs to illustrate ideas and procedures discussed in the text.2) Attention devoted to discussing 'conceptual' formulas and what they represent about the data to help students make sense of the results.3) Extensive sets of review questions and exercises at ends of chapters help students master the content presented. 4) Quotes from actual reports in 'From the Literature' boxes help connect the discussion of research methods and statistical analysis with the research process as a whole.5) 'Pause, Think and Explore' boxes follow the mathematical formulas and are intended to help students develop an understanding of how the formula works, gain confidence in working with the mathematics, and develop better insight about what the formulas are signaling about the data being analyzed.

Using Statistics in Criminal Justice is designed to be an accessible, readable introduction to statistics, written with the criminal justice student in mind. The text teaches students not only how to engage in basic statistical analysis, but, more importantly, how they might use statistics in real and helpful ways. The book is designed for students to understand that statistics is a mechanism by which we take a picture of the world around us. Murray starts by taking students through the steps of creating a rough outline with basic descriptive statistics, then moves to providing more detail and clarity with sampling and inferential statistics. Finally, the author explains using multivariate techniques to fill in the details of the picture, making it more and more indicative of reality. Features: Carefully structured text provides an overview of concepts for each chapter, and explains how concepts in the book interrelate. Multiple examples for each analysis Practice questions at the end of each chapter Clearly ties in theory, methods and statistics , linking concepts from other courses Gives numerous step-by-step examples of analyses Information on how to use in a variety of software: STATA, SPSS and Excel to better accommodate various approaches Conversational tone with real world examples Application to professionals in criminal justice, not just undergraduate students Chapter on Evaluation Research gives students more marketable skills Workbook will be available on line with additional practice problems to use with statistical software

This book takes a unique approach to explaining permutation statistical methods for advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, researchers, and other professionals interested in the areas of criminology or criminal justice. The book integrates permutation statistical methods with a wide range of classical statistical methods. It opens with a comparison of two models of statistical inference: the classical population model espoused by J. Neyman and E. Pearson and the permutation model first introduced by R.A. Fisher and E.J.G. Pitman. Numerous comparisons of permutation and classical statistical methods are illustrated with examples from criminology and criminal justice and supplemented with a variety of R scripts for ease of computation. The text follows the general outline of an introductory textbook in statistics with chapters on central tendency, variability, one-sample tests, two-sample tests, matched-pairs tests, completely-randomized analysis of variance, randomized-blocks analysis of variance, simple linear regression and correlation, and the analysis of goodness of fit and contingency. Unlike classical statistical methods, permutation statistical methods do not rely on theoretical distributions, avoid the usual assumptions of normality and homogeneity, depend solely on the observed data, and do not require random sampling, making permutation statistical methods ideal for analyzing criminology and criminal justice databases. Permutation methods are relatively new in that it took modern computing power to make them available to those working in criminology and criminal justice research. The book contains detailed examples of permutation analyses. Each analysis is paired with a conventional analysis; for example, a permutation test of the difference between experimental and control groups is contrasted with Student's two-sample $t$ test. An added feature is the inclusion of multiple historical notes on the origin and development of both parametric and conventional tests and measures. Designed for an audience with a basic statistical background and a strong interest in parametric and non-parametric statistics, the book can easily serve as a textbook for undergraduate and graduate students in criminology, criminal justice, or sociology, as well as serving as a research source for faculty, researchers, and other professionals in the area of criminology. No statistical training beyond a first course in statistics is required, but some knowledge of, or interest in, criminology or criminal justice is assumed.