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The National Institute of Justice (http://www.ncjrs.gov) has
a wealth of information on crime mapping. Search the site for information on
crime mapping and you will find that the site contains a multitude of
information, including the latest technological advances in crime mapping
strategies for police departments as well as full-text articles discussing
recent research that uses crime mapping techniques. Select a report and
summarize its findings.

Go to the Rutgers Center on Public Security
(http://www.rutgerscps.org/) and then go to the RTM menu. There you will find
several places to browse, including a “Topics” section that will direct you to
recent journal articles that have used RTM. Find a recent publication and
describe the methodology. What were the independent variables, and what was
used as the dependent variable? Are there any other variables that could have
been added to predict the dependent variable?
Ethics Exercises

Big data begin as little data; that is, as the records of
phone calls, Twitter posts, or pictures taken by individuals in their daily
lives. What limitations should be imposed regarding access to and use of such
data once they have become aggregated into massive datasets? Is removing
explicit identifiers sufficient protection? When does access to big data
violate rights to privacy?

Evaluate the ethics of one of the studies in which human
subjects were used. Sherman and Berk’s (1984) study of domestic violence raises
some interesting ethical issues, but there are also points to consider in most
of the other studies. Which ethical guidelines (see Chapter 3) seem most
difficult to adhere to? Where do you think the line should be drawn between not
taking any risks at all with research participants and developing valid
scientific knowledge? Be sure to consider various costs and benefits of the
research. Now do the same for one of the articles reviewed in this chapter.

The Manhattan Bail Project randomly assigned some defendants
with strong community ties to be recommended for release without bail and some
not to be recommended. There was a very high (99%) rate of appearance at trial
for those released without bail, but of course, the researchers did not know
that this would be the case before they conducted the study. Would you consider
this study design ethical? What if one of the persons in the 1% who did not
come to trial murdered someone when he should have been at court? Are there any
conditions when randomization should not be permitted when evaluating criminal
justice programs?

The NCVS has been conducted for many years using roughly
the same measures. For this reason, it is an excellent tool for tracking trends
over time. To begin with, let’s look at this theory: Some criminologists have
suggested that as women enter the workforce and adopt more traditionally
masculine roles, they also engage in other traditionally masculine behaviors—in
particular, they will be more likely to commit crimes!
1. To test this assertion, we’ll check whether assault
victims report a male or a female offender at different rates over time. To do
this select: graphs->legacy dialogues->line->simple. Then put the
variable year in the Category Axis box. In the “line represents” area, select
“other statistic” and insert the variable maleoff into the box that lights up.
Then select OK.
1. What is the general trend over time? The Y axis can be
multiplied by 100 to get the percentage of offenders who are male.
2. Do these results support the theory presented above?
3. Look carefully at the scale of your graph. How large are
these changes that have occurred over time?

Some research projects use an inverted pyramid
data-collection strategy, with broad, quantitative measures gathered from a
large population on top, narrowing to more intensive qualitative measures
(focus groups, individual interviews) with a smaller subset of the population
at the bottom. Design a research project that resembles such an inverted
pyramid, showing what measures and what sample size and research subjects you
would use at each level of the design.