Assignment 2: How Research Benefits the Criminal Justice System

Criminal justice research benefits society, the practitioner, and you as a student in many ways. The research provides a base of learning competencies regarding various criminal justice research methods and statistics related to criminology and crime, crime control, justice, and policy-making decisions.

As a student of criminal justice, you will be exposed to various practical research endeavors and designs in all areas of the criminal justice system. You will learn a variety of research methods and designs related to criminal justice statistics. Understanding criminal justice research will help you develop practical, critical, analytical, and thinking skills, both as an interpreter and user of criminal justice research and policy decision making.

Tasks:

• Access the databases of articles from each of the following websites:
1. National Institute of Justice Data Collections
2. National Criminal Justice Reference Service Databases
• Review the databases for a topic that interests you and select one article for review and comment. Be sure to select an article that describes research pertinent to the criminal justice system.

Submission Details:

By Saturday, March 19, 2016, in a minimum of 250 words, post to the Discussion Area your response to the following:

• Discuss the researcher's findings in the article you selected.
• What was the purpose of the study?
• Who was the audience for this study?
• What were the conclusions?
• What research methods were used to obtain these conclusions? Was it a qualitative or quantitative approach?
• Did the researchers use individual or aggregate data? Was it a cross sectional or a longitudinal study?
• What is the impact of the study? Will it impact a specific agency or was it an informational study?

By Wednesday, March 23, 2016, read and respond to at least two of your classmates' posts. Consider commenting on the analyses your fellow students provided. Pose questions for your fellow students on any point you would like to explore further.

Discussion Grading Criteria and Rubric

All discussion assignments in this course will be graded using a rubric. This assignment is worth 40 points. Download the discussion rubric and carefully read it to understand the expectations.