Fundamentals of Criminological and Criminal Justice Inquiry [Paperback]

A fundamental introduction on how to think about, do, and evaluate research in the criminology and criminal justice field.This book helps students to develop the sensibility of a researcher for thinking about, conducting, and evaluating research. Students need a one-stop source to integrate and apply what they learn in methods - as well as statistics, theory, and diverse topic-specific - classes. Fundamentals of Criminological and Criminal Justice Inquiry addresses this gap and does so through numerous real-world examples.This book helps students to develop the sensibility of a researcher for thinking about, conducting, and evaluating research. Students need a one-stop source to integrate and apply what they learn in methods - as well as statistics, theory, and diverse topic-specific - classes. Fundamentals of Criminological and Criminal Justice Inquiry addresses this gap and does so through numerous real-world examples.How to think about, conduct, and evaluate research is fundamental to the study and understanding of criminology and criminal justice. Students take methods, statistics, theory, and topic-specific classes, but they struggle to integrate what they learn and to see how it fits within the broader field of criminology and criminal justice research. This book directly tackles this problem by helping students to develop a 'researcher sensibility', and demonstrates how the 'nuts and bolts' of criminal justice research - including research design, theory, data, and analysis - are and can be combined. Relying on numerous real-world examples and illustrations, this book reveals how anyone can 'think like a researcher'. It reveals, too, why that ability is critical for being a savvy producer or consumer of criminological and criminal justice research.About the authors; Preface; Part I. Criminological and Criminal Justice Research: 1. Introduction; 2. Science and criminological and criminal justice research; 3. The science and art of conducting, evaluating, and ulã‰