Research Methods for Criminal Justice and Criminology

This book explains and illustrates criminal justice research topics, including ethics in research, research design, causation, operationalization of variables, sampling, methods of data collection (including surveys), reliance on existing data, validity, and reliability. For each approach, the book addresses the procedures and issues involved, the method’s strengths and drawbacks, and examples of actual research using that method. Every section begins with a brief summary of the research method.