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Adventures in Criminal Justice Research
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Adventures in Criminal Justice Research
Data Analysis Using SPSS 15.0 and 16.0 for Windows

Fourth Edition
July 2012 | 216 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
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This text is an ideal supplement to any research methods in criminal justice textbook. Used primarily in lab settings, this text teaches students how to analyze issues and use SPSS for criminal justice research. The text explains to students, with the aid of step-by-step instructions in over 150 Windows screen shots, how to conduct and analyze their own surveys, comparing data collected with national data. Recent GSS data sets, including 2000 Census data, and the Public Health College Alcohol Survey, are utilized and available on a bundled CD.
 
About the Authors
 
Preface for Instructors
 
Part I: Preparing for Criminal Justice Research
 
Chapter 1: Theory, Measurement, and Research Development
1.1 Research in Criminal Justice

 
1.2 Theory in Criminal Justice: Routine Activity Theory

 
1.3 Hypotheses in Criminal Justice Research

 
1.4 Should Abortion Be Legal?

 
1.5 Crime, Punishment, and Violence

 
1.6 The Logic of Measurement

 
1.7 Validity Problems

 
1.8 Reliability Problems

 
1.9 Multiple Indicators

 
1.10 Level of Measurement

 
1.11 Units of Analysis

 
1.12 Summary

 
 
Chapter 2: Criminal Justice Data Sets
2.1 Primary and Secondary Data Analysis

 
2.2 Description of a Data Set: The General Social Survey

 
2.3 Sampling: How Representative Are Your Data?

 
2.4 Data Collection

 
2.5 General Social Survey Variables

 
2.6 Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study

 
2.7 Other Criminal Justice Data Sets Available on the Web

 
2.8 Downloading Data from the Internet

 
2.9 Your Own Criminal Justice Survey

 
2.10 Summary

 
 
Chapter 3: Using SPSS
3.1 Using SPSS to Open Existing Data Sets

 
3.2 Learning More: The Windows Tutorial

 
3.3 Creating Your Own Data Set

 
3.4 Coding Your Data

 
3.5 Entering Your Data

 
3.6 Using Published Criminal Justice Data

 
3.7 Summary

 
 
Part II: Univariate Analysis
 
Chapter 4: Describing a Variable
4.1 A Graphic View

 
4.2 Measuring Central Tendency and Dispersion

 
4.3 Modifying Variables With Recode

 
4.4 Practicing Recodes

 
4.5 Saving Your Work

 
4.6 Summary

 
 
Chapter 5: Working With Variables
5.1 Political Views: Liberalism Versus Conservatism

 
5.2 Political Policy Affiliation

 
5.3 Gun Laws and Capital Punishment

 
5.4 Understanding Binge Drinking

 
5.5 Other Survey Items About Crime and Justice

 
5.6 Crime and Justice Data for the American States

 
5.7 Summary

 
 
Chapter 6: Creating Composite Measures
6.1 Using Crosstabs

 
6.2 Combining Two Items in an Index

 
6.3 Checking to See How the Index Works

 
6.4 Creating a More Complex Index With Count

 
6.5 Creating the FBI Crime Index

 
6.6 "Secondhand Binge Effects": Creating an Index

 
6.7 Summary

 
 
Part III: Bivariate Analysis
 
Chapter 7: Investigating the Correlates of Binge Drinking and Attitudes Toward Gun Control and Capital Punishment: Independent Versus Dependent Variables
7.1 Moving Beyond Description: Comparing Two Variables

 
7.2 Comparing Binge Drinking and Gender

 
7.3 Examining Binge Drinking and Race

 
7.4 Continuing the Analysis: Binge Drinking and Religiosity

 
7.5 The Impact of the Minimum Purchase Law: Bingeing and Age

 
7.6 Political Orientation, Guns, and Capital Punishment: Independent Versus Dependent Variables

 
7.7 The Relationship Between POLVIEWS and PARTYID

 
7.8 Age and Politics

 
7.9 Religion and Politics

 
7.10 Gender and Politics

 
7.11 Race, Class, and Politics

 
7.12 Education and Politics

 
7.13 Martial Status and Politics

 
7.14 Gun Laws and Capital Punishment

 
7.15 Summary

 
 
Chapter 8: Measures of Association
8.1 Lambda

 
8.2 Gamma

 
8.3 Pearson's r, the Correlation Coefficient

 
8.4 Regression

 
8.5 Summary

 
 
Chapter 9: The Existence, Strength, and Direction of an Association
9.1 Chi-Square

 
9.2 t-Tests

 
9.3 Analysis of Variance

 
9.4 Summary

 
 
Part IV: Multivariate Analysis
 
Chapter 10: Examining Several Independent Variables
10.1 Age, Sex, and Religiosity

 
10.2 Family Status and Religiosity

 
10.3 Social Class and Religiosity

 
10.4 Other Variables to Explore

 
10.5 Multiple Linear Regression

 
10.6 Summary

 
 
Chapter 11: Exploring What Shapes Attitudes About Guns and Capital Punishment
11.1 Political Philosophy and Party Identification

 
11.2 The Mystery of Politics and Marital Status

 
11.3 Guns and Capital Punishment

 
11.4 Summary

 
 
Chapter 12: Logistic Regression: Understanding College Student Drug and Alcohol Abuse
12.1 Binge Drinking: A Dichotomous Dependent Variable

 
12.2 The Odds Ratio: Gender and Binge Drinking

 
12.3 Using SPSS for Windows Student Version for the Odds Ratio

 
12.4 Logistic Regression in SPSS for Windows

 
12.5 Multiple Logistic Regression

 
12.6 Summary

 
 
Appendix A: How to Read a Research Article
 
Appendix B: College Alcohol Study Questionnaire (on the Student Study Site)
 
Appendix C: Chapter Review Quizzes and Independent Projects (on the Student Study Site)
 
Appendix D: Answers to Chapter Review Quizzes (on the Student Study Site)
 
References and Suggested Readings
Glossary/Index

 

I am happy with the current text. I will continue to use it as long as it is viable.

Dr Mike Miller
Criminal Justice, South College
November 6, 2012
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Excellent guide to using SPSS for criminal justice.

Dr Richard Wiebe
Behavioral Sciences Dept, Fitchburg State College
February 7, 2011
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Useful for helping students get into actual data analysis.

Dr Richard Wiebe
Behavioral Sciences Dept, Fitchburg State College
December 2, 2009
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Kim A. Logio

Kim A. Logio is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. She teaches research methods for sociology and criminal justice students. She is actively involved in research on victims of juvenile crime and adolescent body image. More About Author

George W. Dowdall

George Dowdall teaches undergraduate and graduate Criminal Justice and Sociology at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. He is chair-elect of the American Sociological Association’s Section on Communication and Information Technologies. He has taught methods, statistics, and data analysis courses at St. Joseph's University, the Harvard School of Public Health, and the Brown University School of Medicine. More About Author

Earl Robert Babbie

Earl Babbie was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1938, but his family chose to return to Vermont 3 months later, and he grew up there and in New Hampshire. In 1956, he set off for Harvard Yard, where he spent the next 4 years learning more than he initially planned. After 3 years with the US Marine Corps, mostly in Asia, he began graduate studies at the University of California—Berkeley. He received his PhD from Berkeley in 1969. He taught sociology at the University of Hawaii from 1968 through 1979, took time off from teaching and research to write full-time for 8 years, and then joined the faculty at Chapman... More About Author

Frederick S. Halley

Fred Halley, Associate Professor Emeritus, SUNY-Brockport, received his bachelor’s degree in sociology and philosophy from Ashland College and his master’s and doctorate degrees from Case Western Reserve University and the University of Missouri, respectively. Since 1970, he has worked to bring both instructional and research computer applications into the undergraduate sociology curriculum. Halley has been recognized for his leadership in the instructional computing sections of the Eastern and Midwest Sociological Societies and the American Sociological Association. At Brockport, he served as a collegewide social science computing... More About Author

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