Statistics for Criminology and Criminal Justice

NEW TO THIS EDITION: 

• NEW Thinking Critically feature encourages students to apply the concepts from the chapter to real-life scenarios, with open-ended questions that are designed to inspire students to think about the nuances of science, statistics, and their application to criminal justice. 
• Additional illustrations and examples in every chapter keep students engaged with the content and offer ample opportunities for them to practice the techniques. 
• New and updated data sets from a wide range of relevant sources, such as the NCVS and UCR, BJS, LEMAS, the Census of Jails, and much more have been incorporated to give students insights into the state of criminal justice research today. 
• New research on critical topics encourages students to discuss changes happening in the field such as the Census of Jails, inmate-on-staff assaults in prisons, and homicide rates.
• Practicing Statistics Whiteboard Videos, available in SAGE edge, walk students through statistical calculations to reinforce key concepts. 
• An increased amount of Research Examples enables readers to see the rich variety of research that has been taking place over time and to foster discussion of key research questions, such as What factors influence police agencies’ ability to identify and investigate human trafficking? Do neighborhoods with higher immigrant concentrations experience more crime? and How extensively do news media stories distort public perceptions about racial minorities’ criminal involvement? 
• Expanded coverage of statistical concepts helps simplify difficult concepts and processes such as Nonspuriousness, Empirical relationship, Temporal ordering, representativeness, Null and Alternative Hypotheses, hypothesis testing, correlation testing, and using SPSS.
• Previous edition errors have been corrected by a statistician.

  KEY FEATURES: 

• In-text examples and end-of-chapter exercises use real data to demonstrate how statistics are used in criminal justice and criminology. 
• Research Example boxes explore key research questions related to criminal justice and criminology from peer-reviewed journal articles that illustrate techniques and show students how statistics and research are used to find solutions. 
• Data Source boxes describe common, publicly-available data sets like the Uniform Crime Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey, State Court Processing Statistics, General Social Survey, and others, to demonstrate practical applications of statistics. 
• A breadth of probability coverage better acquaints students with its application to criminal justice and of the practical application of statistical techniques so that students can develop genuine comprehension.
• Learning Check boxes in each chapter test student comprehension of concepts as they progress through the chapter and include an answer key in the back of the book to help ensure mastery of the content. 
• Chapter-ending sections on SPSS can be used with one or more pared-down versions of a major data set in SPSS format. 
• Extensive end-of-chapter review questions and exercises include answers to the odd-numbered questions/exercises in the back of the book.