Home  /  Back to disciplines  /  Request exam/desk copy  /  Purchase  /  View cart  /  Checkout

Statistical Analysis in Criminal Justice and Criminology

A User's Guide, Second Edition

Gennaro F. Vito, Michael B. Blankenship, and Julie C. Kunselman

Statistics provide information about the nature of crime and exactly which factors should be addressed in the attempt to minimize its occurrence. Statistical analysis has far-reaching effects at all levels of the criminal justice system—from patrol officers to precinct captains to criminal courts to the Department of Justice. With the skills needed to detect and interpret statistical data criminal justice professionals can assess whether current practices are working and change the ones that aren’t.

Written for undergraduates with little or no background in statistics, this text clearly explains how to use statistical tools to organize and interpret data and then to reach conclusions based on statistical analysis. The authors draw from their longtime classroom experiences to present difficult concepts in an understandable way. They avoid a comprehensive approach common to many statistics texts and instead focus on statistical tools typically used in the social sciences. New to this edition is the accompanying CD that contains five criminal justice data sets. Students use the data sets to answer the questions in end-of-chapter exercises and data analysis sections. These hands-on, real-world activities provide a variety of opportunities to use statistical tools and understand their applicability.

$29.95 list, 250 pages

10-digit ISBN: 1-57766-524-4

13-digit ISBN: 978-1-57766-524-3

© 2008

Instructor's Manual available

Table of Contents

1. The Purpose of Statistical Analysis

The Validity and Reliability of Crime Statistics / Percentage Change Analysis / Lying with Statistics

2. Basic Elements of Criminal Justice Research

Elements of the Research Process / Program Evaluation / Levels of Measurement / Measurement and Types of Variables / Using SPSS: An Introduction

3. Summarizing Data and Presenting the Results

Frequency Distributions / Displaying Frequency Distributions Graphically / Presenting Your Results

4. Measures of Central Tendency

Measures of Central Tendency / Using SPSS to Analyze Data

5. Measures of Dispersion

Measures of Dispersion Defined / Calculating Measures of Dispersion with SPSS

6. Contingency Table Analysis

Nonparametric Statistics / Constructing Contingency Tables / Chi-Square Test for Independent Samples / Calculating Chi-Square / Measures of Association with Chi-Square / Introducing a Third Variable

7. Probability and the Normal Curve

Introduction to Probability / Probability and the Normal Curve / The Binomial Distribution / The Central Limit Theorem / Establishing Confidence Intervals

8. Difference between Means: The t-Test

The t Distribution / Hypothesis Testing

9. Analysis of Variance (One Way)

Source of ANOVA / The F Test (F Ratio) / Calculating ANOVA by Hand / One-Way ANOVA Using SPSS

10. Correlation

Defining Correlation / Interpreting Correlation / Considering Causation / Bivariate Correlation Using SPSS

11. Regression

Defining Regression

12. The Use of Statistics in Policy Analysis

The Purpose of Research / Examples of Successes and Failures