Sociology - Questionnaires + Crime & Deviance
- Created by: Iqra
- Created on: 20-12-12 18:59
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- Questionnaires {Crime & Deviance}
- Practical issues
- Useful for gathering large amounts of basic information quickly and cheaply from large numbers of offenders etc
- Researcher's can use questionnaires to correlate factors like offending, victimisation by using variables like age, gender or type of punishment
- Sampling Frame
- Pre made sampling frames may not be available to the researcher due to the sensitivity of the groups involved in law enforcement
- Only a few suitable sampling frames for criminals.
- Lists of prisoners comprise only those criminals who were convicted and further jailed, these lists do not include those who got away with their crimes or those who were given non- custodial sentences.
- Response rate
- Often low response rates, however in certain contexts, like in prisons, the response rates can be higher.
- Inmates and prison officers may be under pressure to cooperate, once a researcher gets the authority to back the reserach
- Police officers may be accustomed to completing questionnaires in relation to their work.
- Researching offenders.
- Offenders usually have below average literacy skills, so short questionnaires may be of little value due to them being unwilling or unable to complete it.
- Representativeness
- Some sampling frames are easy to gain access like police officers or prisoners, but less for other groups like victims of domestic violence.
- Response rates vary according to whose authority is behind the questionnaire and the groups it is sent to.
- A questionnaire from barristers is likely to produce a higher response rate than one sent to people involved in law breaking.
- Ethical issues
- Some crimes are extremely sensitive, so although not having a researcher present may make it easier for victims or witnesses to respond
- being handed a questionnaire to complete after a distressing experience is unlikely to create an empathetic situation.
- Validity
- Victim studies like questionnaires ask the responded to recall back to a traumatic time
- This meaning that they could provide distorted image in relation to being a victim of crime with other events
- Victim studies like questionnaires ask the responded to recall back to a traumatic time
- Practical issues
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