When thinking about Criminal Justice it’s obvious that research is involved in solving crime. But it goes much further than that. Research is actually conducted in Criminal Justice itself. Research is done in Criminal Justice for a number of reasons. Research can be conducted in Criminal Justice for three main reasons; social problems, policy and academics. Then a number of other additional reasons are exploration, description, explanation, application, predictive and finally intervening. Within why research is conducted is another important aspect of Criminal Justice is Methodology; which is how the research is being conducted. Each of these topics will further be explained in depth.
Research is important in every field but especially in
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Academics can be used in two different ways here; learning to help criminal justice professionals and providing information for students. Just like our textbook, criminal justice research can be done for academic purposes to teach all aspects of Criminal Justice. Criminal Justice classes range from high school to graduate school, that means there needs to be academic resources for all those years’ worth of learning and teaching. But it can also be to learn more about the Criminal Justice system as a whole for those who are working in it. For example, research may be done to learn why adolescences are behaving the way they are. Then social service personnel can read and learn from this research to further help …show more content…
Explanatory research is done to explain why things are happening. This is very important in the Criminal Justice field because if it’s impossible to understand why someone is doing something, it will be very difficult to stop it. This is very relevant to researching because of social problems. By understanding and explaining social problems perhaps they can be prevented in the future. An example of explanatory research from Dantzker and Hunter’s book is why particular people become serial killers. (2016) Gathering this important research that gives answers can help find ways to stop or try to prevent it. The methodology of explanatory research would be researching and gathering evidence then further analyzing that evidence as to why a specific event or issue occurs in Criminal Justice. Explanatory research is a very important part of all Criminal Justice research conducted, because if it’s not understood why something is happening there is a very small chance that it’s possible to come up with a way to stop
Research allows us to better understand what is unknown, how a human thinks, why a dog barks when they hear a stranger approaching or that the earth is round and not flat. Research allows us to find answers to the questions we have. Research attempts to both understand and define. There are three kinds of research; Explanatory; Exploratory and Descriptive research. Explanatory, Exploratory and Descriptive research define what research is; Research is the attempt to explain, explore and describe (Neuman, 2006, 24).
When I first started college, my academic goals were to learn as much as possible, join a Christian fellowship, get into the criminal justice program, decide whether or not to go to graduate school, and to graduate in four years. In addition, to also to either get a job or get accepted into an internship. My overall goal was to enjoy and make the most out of my college experience. My career goals back when I was a freshman, were to figure out if I want to join law enforcement or go to law school and find a job in the field of criminal justice, while being happy working the job. Over the course of two years, some of those goals have been achieved and some goals have been changed.
In the article entitled “Criminologists Should Stop Whining About Their Impact on Policy and Practice,” Wellford (2010) argued that criminologists should celebrate the influences criminology, as a discipline, has made thus far on policy and practice, rather than focusing on having a greater impact. Wellford (2010) examined two essential proportions on this issue, policies influenced by research and research influences policy.
Students also learn the history, concepts, and critical issues related to the role of gender and race/ethnicity in the criminal justice system, victimology, and ethics in criminal
The role of this psychology field is to evaluate laws that is brought up to their attention to add too, revise or remove all together. According to Garrison (N.D), research for Criminal Justice policies is to reduce crime by analyzing and assessment. This psychology role is essential to law enforcements because it can affect the laws that we follow in either a positive or negative way. An example of a policy evaluator at work would be to conduct research on the policy of teenagers being able to dropout of school at the age of sixteen. A question that might be asked pertaining this law would be “Will it increase graduation numbers?” This career field can affect a community so this task can’t be taken
Criminal justice practitioners are necessary for a civilized society. Without those who form boundaries to our freedom, and the ones that reinforce those laws, our community would be chaos. Some of the main social issues our society faces are drug abuse, gang violence, child abuse, and terrorism. The criminal justice practitioners face these types of issues daily. These professionals must act on the morals and laws stated by society rather than their own opinions, sometimes facing hard decisions. The criminal justice field is always active and busy, dealing with countless amount of criminal activity throughout the country.
Through out the years Criminologists has conducted a great amount of research and through that research Criminologist has developed different theories in order to better understand and explain criminal behavior. Theories try to help make sense out of many observations that are conducted presenting the facts of the principal that connects and explains the theories. If good theory has been developed; then it becomes very valuable to Criminologist, because it shows the knowledge that is beyond the facts that has been presented; which will show Criminologist how to predict how others might behave (Andrews, D and
Criminal justice degree programs start with advanced overviews of the operation and organization criminal justice systems. Students learn about the purposes and functions of these system in apprehending, prosecuting, punishing and rehabilitating offenders. Historical and current theories of criminal behavior, such as comparative criminology, are explored. This will include theories about the biological and sociological roots of criminal behaviors. Crime categories are introduced, such as drug, organized and white-collar crimes. Students study crime measurements through statistics, research and analysis of social trends. Coursework covers criminal law and procedures, such
Public criminology takes information, research and education to the next level, as discovered through this essay. It doesn’t just include lab work, research and discoveries, it involves community based teaching in a way that the public can be informed and educated through upfront communication. Throughout this essay, the broad definition of public criminology will be discussed as well as its relevance to society. As with anything, there are challenges and promises that accompany public criminology and those will be stated in this essay. Examples will be given to help you learn the different concepts of public criminology and how it relates to our modern society. Given as a starting point, according to
By constructing theories or representations we can increase our understanding of criminal conduct. Through improving our understanding we can create effective, and operational strategies to handle crime issues. We must have a sufficient amount of accurate and documented research, and or experiments to prove the validity of our research. Research is attaining the information and data needed to generate a theory. We gather research by creating specific controlled experiments to reach a conclusion that will satisfy, or otherwise attest our theories.
The study conduct will assist in finding ways that will possibly allow criminal justice agencies and elective officials look closer at the issues that are affecting our criminal justice system within the United States. As we have witnessed, studies have been conducted on the cost of incarcerating offenders, the overcrowded prisons, and evidence programs that can aide with the problem at hand. We need those in higher positions to really take a deep look into the issue that is affecting our country and come to terms with the fact that there needs to be another way to ensure that the safety and security of the citizens are protected and that we find other ways to sentence those who are only a threat to
Research in criminal justice is important to have a better understanding of the crimes that are committed, and those committing the crimes. Having a strong research method foundation would give a better understanding and a proper strategy how to collect certain information to evaluate if your answer makes sense. Those who plan on becoming police officer would most focus there research on crime rates, crimes being committed, crimes affecting communities, approaching situation and better prevention. Gaining a better understanding to the situations they will be facing on everyday base, the people that surround them such as their behaviors, if drugs could be a factor. Research in the field of criminal justice is a gain to our knowledge which will
In a study done by Mustaine and Tweksbury (1998), over a thousand college students in criminal justice/sociology courses in
Gathering data and researching material is very important within the criminal justice system. No matter what profession one may have within the judicial system, researching information is something that has to be done at one time or another. Within this paper I plan on discussing what I’ve learned about research for criminal justice and its criteria. Emphases of this paper are to give some informational data on police officers and why they choose protecting the community a profession.
This personal case study will be giving a brief summary on the key aspects of research that I believe will have the greatest influence on my future career as a Law Enforcement Officer, wishing to study the minds of juveniles and how to reduce the recidivism rate before they become an adult. The key components that I learned about research which I will be discussing are, formulating a research question, generating hypothesis, and threats to internal validity.