After researching doing more research on my topic I have found that there is a lot that we already know regarding crime and where it happens. However, what we don’t know is why those certain crimes are limited to those certain areas and other possible factors that contribute to crime and how, where, and when it occurs. Police relations and procedures are things that could have an effect on this. When trying to find more specific information on possible new areas of the topic to explore I found a good article that illustrates my point. The article, “Why the Police Have an Effect on Violent Crime After All: Evidence from the British Crime Survey,” written by Ben Vollaard of Tilburg University does a good job of presenting sometimes overlooked problems within the topic of crime, types of crime, and geography. This article goes into depth to try to figure out why property crime and violent crimes are reported differently by police and victims with the violent crimes being those without true numbers being reported. The article uses survey data for its analysis of the problem it is investigating. After analyzing the data the article goes on to conclude that police do have an effect on violent crime and its statistics. This is something not widely known or that would be thought about. That’s why its important to broaden your question to encompass concepts and questions out of the ordinary and that have not been investigated widely yet. They found that police have a bias when reporting thee crimes. The police themselves can have an effect on the information that is even available on the topic.

Ben Vollaard; Joseph Hamed. “Why the Police Have an Effect on Violent Crime After All: Evidence from the British Crime Survey.” The Journal of Law & Economics, Vol. 55, No. 4 (November 2012), pp. 901-924

The research proposal I decided to look at as an example falls under my same research topic, yet is a drastically different research project/proposal. The research proposal I looked into on the topic of crime was titled, From Barrio Street Gangs to Transnational Criminal Organizations: A Qualitative Analysis of Eighteenth Street and Mara Salvatrucha. While it has to do with crime it focuses more specifically on gangs and details surrounding particular issues of a particular one. While it is laid out slightly differently than my own, both research proposals have all of the same information regarding the research project and how it will be carried out. The proposal I examined broke theirs down into eight different parts. These parts were: research topic, background, research objective, core research question, research methods and approach, personals motivation, and timeline. These eight parts encompass all the necessary information that should be presented in a proposal and was carefully thought out.

In the first section research topic the authors briefly explains the topic that they are looking into surrounding the gangs and why it is interesting and worth researching. In the background, the longest section, the author talks about what is already know about the topic they want to research. Research that has already been done and relevant information to know about the topic before engaging in research. This is the section in our proposal where we, “search the literature.” Following this the next section research objective does exactly what it says. It gives an overall objective that the research is trying to accomplish. I found this to be just a more general version of overview of that actual research question. The next section the core research question is where the author presents there specific research question. In this case, the author’s research question was, to identify the catalysts which have facilitated the global expansion of these two gangs, and what this expansion means to the gang itself. The author also went more in depth explaining the question after they presented it. In the research methods and approach section is where the author explains what type of data, and data gathering methods that will be used for the research project. In this case is was interviews and government hearings and reports. The personal motivation sections is just where the author of the proposal explains why this research projected was interesting to them and why they wanted to pursue it. The final section timeline is just that, a timeline of when different sections of the research process will be conducted. Overall the proposal presented all the necessary information well and in an organized way that was easy to follow which is the point and sign of a successful proposal.

http://www.urop.uci.edu/SURP/sample_proposals/SURP%20Social%20Sciences%206.pdf

In an article produced by Richard Burk and Kenneth Lenihan from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, they do a great job in explaining crime and poverty. Yes, crime and poverty is something that is linked and it has been noticed that crime occurs at a much higher rate in poverty stricken areas. This is pointed out at the very early on. However, there are certain issues that arise while trying to study such a topic such as collinearity the ecological fallacy, and defining different terms and boundaries. This looked at participants of the TARP program which stands for Transitional Aid Research Project. The project took felons and put them into four different groups after they were released from prison and this study analyzes these people for a 12-month period after they were released. They took a look at participants in each of four different groups. They analyzed the effects of different amounts of support over different period of time to try and figure out what worked best for reducing the rate of recidivism. With several variable they found that the data was insufficient to make any conclusions and that a longer analyzation time of possibly 24 months would have helped. The study focused predominately on unemployment benefits and what was found is that extending unemployment insurance benefits to released prisoners will not increase recidivism overall. This makes it possible to argue for policies of this nature but just like most studies there is no causal proof. This study took a more in depth look at the crime and poverty debate and focused more on issues of how to solve the problem.

Richard A. Berk, Kenneth J. Lenihan and Peter H. Rossi. “Crime and Poverty: Some                           Experimental Evidence From Ex-Offenders.” American Sociological Review, Vol. 45,                  No. 5 (Oct., 1980), pp. 766-786 http://www.jstor.org/stable/2094894

Crime rates and how they are effected by poverty is the topic of interest to me. The journal Crime and Social Justice put out an analysis of the correlation between these two things. The article, “Crime Rates and Poverty – a Reexamination,” dives into the issues surrounding this very topic. The study of the topic was carried out using existing previously collected data from the US census bureau and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reports. The two sets of data were then compared with one another in the efforts of searching for a correlation between the two. They tested for four different variables to represent poverty those being: low educational achievement, unemployment rates, and broken families. The study was designed to see specifically if violent and property crimes had a positive correlation with any or all of the four variables being tested. However, each variable was examined independently in order to see relationships between specific ones as well not just poverty in general. The researchers are suggesting that in the case of their study these variables “cause” crime and in that case they would like to make the argument that social interventions and actions could be used as a possible solution or to help begin to solve this positive correlation. The research did prove a positive correlation between all the variables and crime.  However they did find discrepancy in populations when testing for violent crime and therefore populations who commit violent and non-violent crimes are different socially. This combats the argument that social interaction may prove effective and leaves the discussion open for more debate and analysis.

Lieberman, Louis, and Alexander B. Smith. “Crime Rates and Poverty — A Reexamination.” Crime and   Social Justice, no. 25 (1986): 166-77. www.jstor.org.books.redlands.edu/stable/29766301.

There is an article from the journal, “Criminal Justice and Behavior,” that begins to dive into a more specific segment of my research topic.  I am interested in researching crime and geography relationships and the article, “Linking different types of crime using geographical and temporal proximity,” does a good job of beginning to pull apart my research project using a more specific study. Basically what that means in lay persons’ terms is that the study is trying to analyze if there is a relationship between the type of crime that was committed, where and how far apart they are committed, and how long in between each crime. The number of days of time between each crime is the temporal proximity. The study also focused on specific types of crime. These types were violent, sexual, and property related crimes. The research question presented for this study is, is it possible to link different types of crime using simple aspects of offender behavior? The type of data elicited by this research question is reports of acts, behavior, or events because the researching is finding out what crimes people committed when and where. They did indeed find a relationship between these things in the research that they produced. While this study is a good one to beginning to narrow down such a broad topic of criminal behavior, it at the same time is a little messy. What I mean by messy is that it still leaves room to specify even more and focus the research a little harder. It allows for further research into the topic which is discussed and suggested at the end of the article.

Bond, John., Bull, Ray., Palmer, Emma., Tonkin, Matthew., Woodhams, Jessica. “Linking          Different Types   of Crime Using Geographical and Temporal Proximity.” Criminal Justice      and Behavior. vol.38,  no.11 (2011) November. 1069-1085.

I selected the Journal, “Criminal Justice and Behavior,” to look at more closely. I chose this journal in particular because it has to do with my general topic of criminal justice. For my research project I would like to look at why certain types of criminal behavior occur, some of the roots causes, and how these could be combated. In volume 41 of the journal, released on November 11^th 2014, I found an article that aligned with my interests. The title of the article is, “A Longitudinal Analysis of Adolescent Offenders.” Steven Pirutinsky from Columbia University is the author of this particular article that I looked at. The Articles research question was clearly stated and is as follows, does religiousness increase self-control and reduce criminal behavior? I believe this is a great research question because it is very specific and allows us to figure out exactly what kind of data will be necessary to collect. In the case of this research question, the most efficient types of data that should be used would be acts and reports of acts. In the case of this study from which there were 1,354 participants and the goal was to see if religiousness lead to more self-control, and in turn reduced criminal behavior. The study was very clear about proving this process rather than the inverse, more self-control leading to higher religiousness. In the case of a study like this the best way to collect data, and the way the researchers did in fact collect the data, would be to do an ethnography. Throughout the study they did find that Religiousness did lead to reduced offending, in the short term at least. This article seemed to have a clear research question from which it completed the remaining five steps of the process. It is interesting and has broadened my view to help me narrow in a specific research question for my topic.

Pirutinsky, Steven. “A Longitudinal Analysis of Adolescent Offenders.” Criminal Justice and       Behavior. vol.14, no. 11 (2014) November, 11. 1290-1307.