2 discussion questions

Respond to the following: Answer each discussion(X2). Include at least 2 references from Babbie, E. (2017). The Basics of Social Research 7th Ed. Boston: Cengage Learning ONLY. Include page numbers as well. Thank you.

· Chapter 4: Research Design

· Chapter 5: Conceptualization, Operationalization and Measurement

A good response to a written question should combine your personal experiences with theory to support your work. Be thoughtful and insightful and it must demonstrate critical thinking and analysis. A good response to the question should be about 3-4 paragraphs, and address all of the issues that are raised. (Introduction, body and conclusion.) Thank you.

M3D1: Implications and Impacts

We will discuss the impacts of research design on a proposal

1. How have the implications of research design impacted the research questions utilized in your proposal? Provide at least three examples of the implications and impact.

M3D2: Definitions

We will discuss the definitions of terms used in your research proposal.

As stated in the Module Notes the definition used for Florida Law Enforcement Officers is:

“Any person who is elected, appointed, or employed full time by any municipality or the state or any political subdivision thereof: who is vested with authority to bear arms and make arrests; and whose primary responsibility is the prevention and detection of crime or the enforcement of the penal, criminal, traffic, or highway laws of the state. This definition includes all certified supervisory and command personnel whose duties include, in whole of in part, the supervision, training, guidance, and management responsibilities of full-time law enforcement officers, part-time law enforcement officers or auxiliary law enforcement officers but does not include support personnel employed by the employing agency (WPPD, 1996).”

2. Provide at least three terms that must be defined in your research proposal. Provide the term, your definition and what possible interpretations would/could a reader surmise if you failed to define the term.

My topic proposal is:

Crime and Mental Illness. What can be learned about how mental illness influences whether or not someone is likely to commit crimes? Are certain mental illnesses more prone to criminal behavior?

The research project topic which I have selected is “Crime and Mental Illness. What can be learned about how mental illness influences whether or not someone is likely to commit crimes? Are certain mental illnesses more prone to criminal behaviour?” The relationship that exists between mental illnesses and crimes is a topic that has long been discussed, debated and also researched. Research shows that in the United States every one individual among five suffers from a mental illness, and this high and increasing rates of mental illness in the country is greatly alarming. It majorly affects the criminal justice system in a country in different ways and this is the main reason why it is highly relevant to the field (Schug & Fradella, 2015).

First, the mental states of these individuals usually make them highly vulnerable to committing crimes against others, for example, violence and also crimes against themselves, to include attempting suicide (Winstone, 2016). Since the role of the criminal justice system is to reduce the number of crimes in a society, it means that they ought to be concerned with the different factors that lead individuals to commit crimes, and this is one of the major ones. Having an understanding of this topic can help them with mental health professionals to contain mentally ill individuals from committing crimes and therefore this topic is relevant in helping reduce the level of crimes.

Second research has indicated that even if mentally ill individuals are more vulnerable to being violent due to their state, they are even more at risk of falling victim to crimes since individuals mostly undermine their rights due to their conditions (Peay, 2011). Understanding this topic is highly relevant to this field since it can help law enforcers enhance more fairness in the society by watching out more for the rights of such vulnerable groups in the areas where their rights are undermined.

This topic is of great relevance to me because I understand that for the criminal justice system to be effective different needs of different populations need to be met differently. The first step and understanding these needs is the very essential (Gosselin, 2017). The population of mentally ill individuals is one of the groups with special needs in the system and therefore this topic can help understand me their needs further. Researching this topic is important to me since it can help make important reforms in the system, for example, how they are punished (Erickson & Erickson, 2008).