2 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.

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.

· Chapter 6: Indexes, Scales and Typologies

· Chapter 7: Sampling

M4D1: Indexes and Scales

With this activity, you will answer questions on the topics of indexes and scales.

1. What indexes and scales do you plan on utilizing to support your inquiry methods for your research proposal? How will these help in answering your research questions? What limitations might these impose as you conduct your research?

Scale Construction: Bogardus Social Distance Scale Thurstone Scales Likert Scaling Semantic Differential Guttman Scaling

Index Construction: Item Selection Examination of Empirical Relationships Index Scoring Handling Missing Data Index Validation The Status of Women: An Illustration of Index Construction

M4D2: Measurements and Sampling

With this activity, you will answer questions on the topics of indexes and scales.

2. What sampling methods will you employ in your research design that will enable you to generalize future findings to events, items and/or people not observed? What are the benefits and drawbacks of these sampling methods?

Types of Sampling Designs: Simple Random Sampling Systematic Sampling Stratified Sampling Implicit Stratification in Systematic Sampling Illustration: Sampling University Students Sample Modification

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).