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The Contact Person for the Fieldwork

The contact person selected for the field work will be a former employee who has worked within a correctional setting. This may include a retired prison guard who has already established strong network of experts working in prisons, police stations, as well as juvenile detention centers. The contact person will be charged with the responsibility of providing links of information or representations between the authorities and other research participants and the fieldwork researchers. The person will also coordinate with the authorities and other research participants to determine the right time for conducting data collection and the most appropriate venue. Furthermore, the contact person will update the data collecting agents on any possible changes that may come up, especially with respect to the schedule or place of data collection. The contact person will have to be a reliable person whom the fieldwork team will be a reliable individual that the field work team may contact on a regular basis.

The type of fieldwork that will be conducted

Since the research will entail visiting many sites, the type of field research that will be carried out is referred to as the multi-field site approach (Burgess, 2003). Some of the sites or locations that will be visited include: prisons and other community correctional institutions; police stations, as well as juvenile detention centers. The multisite field study is both qualitative and quantitative research approach that is meant for gaining a comprehensive understanding of different phenomenon within the correctional setting, especially issues that are rarely studied. It is a form of strategic scanning, since it merges various approaches to case studies, drawing from the positivist culture, the interpretative approaches as well as the qualitative study corpuses (Hannerz, 2003). This type of fieldwork is important since it entails the observations and evaluation of various locations using namely cross-case comparisons and explanation developing strategies for data analysis.

The organizations that will be visited

For the field work to be successful, various organizations will be selected as the research sites. The main organization that will be visited is the Illinois River Correctional Center and the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice. These organizations have data and information that is relevant to the topic under investigation (IDOC, 2015). They include: prisons and other community correctional institutions; police stations; as well as juvenile detention centers. The reason for choosing these firms as the potential research sites is that the three selected organizations are significant for gathering knowledge since they have forensic psychologists who work in such areas. For instance, the juvenile detention centers have forensic psychologists who may offer valuable knowledge regarding juvenile delinquency, and the reasons their expert views on the subject. In police stations forensic psychologists working there may provide the field work teams with knowledge concerning ways of assessing mental fitness for trial or why it is important to measure fitness to stand trial (IDOC, 2015).

Background information of the organization

The Illinois River Correctional Center is correctional institution for adult men. The organization is made up of twenty-nine buildings, which occupy a total area of four hundred thousand square feet (IDOC, 2015). The living sections are made up of four x-type housing units, each getting an orientation unit, segregation unit, as well as a healthcare facility containing fifteen beds. Furthermore the organization is managed by a special unit, which offers special security services for the prisoners that are hosted there. The firm rests on a total of approximately 100-acre piece of land, 40 of which are encased by a long fence (IDOC, 2015). The main mission of the institution is to safeguard the public from criminals by embracing a system of incarceration, supervisions, as well as programs that are aimed at returning appropriate criminals to the society with skills that are helpful in making them productive to the nation.

The date of the fieldwork

The fieldwork will be conducted for three consecutive days. This is because there will be many sites to be visited. Therefore, the date for conducting the field study in the Illinois River Correctional Center will be on 5th December 2015, while the appointment date for visiting the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice will be 6th December 2015.

Expectations regarding the fieldwork

After the fieldwork, there are many expectations of the course areas that will be covered. First, the study will help in understanding the causes of recidivism and the necessary steps that can be taken to avert this trend. Secondly, the study will help in understanding the measures used by forensic psychologists to understand the level of sanity of suspects and what can be done to ensure that they are fit to stand trial. Thirdly, the field work will help in evaluating the methods used to treat various psychiatric disorders that patients may be suffering from. For instance, the fieldwork will assess the intervention strategies used to treat substance abuse and major depression among inmates.

Fieldwork plan

Alternative Fieldwork Plan

References

Burgess, R. G. (Ed.). (2003). Field research: A sourcebook and field manual. London:

Routledge.

Hannerz, U. (2003). Being there... and there... and there! Reflections on multi-site ethnography.

Ethnography, 4(2), 201-216.

IDOC. (2015). Illinois River correctional center. Retrieved from

http://www.illinois.gov/idoc/facilities/Pages/illinoisrivercorrectionalcenter.aspx