Law question data bank

1. In Widom’s research on the relationship between early child abuse and later delinquency or adult criminal behavior which of the following were considered to be either validity or reliability problems?

a. using public school records and birth records from local hospitals to select the sample

b. by using law enforcement data to assess delinquent and criminal behavior, Windom only identified those who were caught for their behavior not those who were criminally active but were not caught

c. by using court data to identify those for the sample who were abused, Windom only knew about those cases where abuse came to the attention of the public officials, not all the cases that go unreported

d. all of the above

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2. In Sherman and colleagues’ research dealing with crime hot spots they chose to use ‘calls for service’ to local law enforcement as a means of measuring where different types of crimes happened with greatest frequency. They noted some problems with the use of calls for service. Which of the following represents those problems?

a. there is a potential for duplicate calls to local law enforcement for any one event

b. there may be false reports, in other words no crime happened

c. there can be misleading findings such as parking lots or hospitals may appear to be hot spots when in fact they are not

d. all of the above

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3. Which of the following is not a concern about the use of agency records?

a. since most agencies are computerized, there is little cause to be concerned about the quality of the data

b. expect the expected, it is the unexpected findings that are worrisome

c. changes in record-keeping practices can affect the measurement

d. data will be accurate because agency data has to be

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4. In the text, an example was given concerning the difficulty in trying to measure how much crime happened to victims who were not residents of South Florida. Since police only routinely kept records on where victims stayed locally (such as hotel addresses) researchers could have an additional question added to the incident recording form asking for the victim’s permanent address. All of the following would be benefits of that except:

a. it is much cheaper to add a question to a form than collecting the data oneself

b. it is much more expensive to add a question to a form because it requires all the forms to be reprinted

c. it allows for more control over the measurement process

d. it enhances the reliability of data collection

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5. Which of the following is accurate concerning having agencies collect original research data?

a. cooperation to add research questions is not as likely to be successful if you are asking for a major additional effort on the part of the agency staff

b. the cooperation of the staff and their organizations are directly proportional to the intrusiveness of the data collection

c. if the research project is likely to save the agency money or improve staff performance the chances of enlisting assistance is greater

d. all of the above are accurate

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6. Which of the following statements is most accurate?

a. once units of analysis are defined, sampling agency records is relatively simple

b. once units of analysis are defined, sampling agency records is quite complicated

c. there is no relationship between the units of analysis used in agency records and the sampling techniques used

d. you must use all agency records and cannot select a subset since that will lead to incomplete conclusions

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7. Which of the following represent reliability or validity concerns when a researcher uses agency records?

a. the number of general clerical staff since too few is not good

b. changes in the operational definitions the agencies use to specify key terms

c. maintaining consistent procedures the agency uses to collect the data over time

d. agency records are generalizable to similar agencies

Which of the following is not accurate concerning validity and reliability of agency records?

a. the shorter the time intervals under study the greater the concern about procedure changes

b. longitudinal researchers must be concerned about changes in operational definitions over time

c. longitudinal researchers must be concerned about changes in procedures over time

d. the longer the time interval under study the greater the concern about procedure changes

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8. Which of the following would not impact the validity and reliability of a study using agency records?

a. discretion of prosecutors in who to charge and what counts to add

b. decisions that are made by police officers to arrest verses give a warning

c. recognition on the part of the researcher that criminal justice data is a composite of criminal behavior, ability to detect that behavior and decisions about system response to that behavior

d. decisions made by probation officers to revoke on new crimes and not technical violations

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9. It is often said that agency data are not designed for research purposes. Which of the following support that statement?

a. some criminal justice agencies collect data because they are legally required to do so

b. often the data collected by criminal justice agencies is not covered under privacy regulations

c. because variable definitions are consistent from agency to agency

d. all of the above

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10. Which of the following situations would not have an impact upon error in agency records?

a. computers have the capacity to magnify clerical error

b. a single crime could be recorded by two agencies, thus making that event over-represented

c. having very little data to input

d. even rare events can be recorded improperly

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11. Which of the following is an example of content analysis in criminal justice research?

a. counting the number of stories devoted to the coverage of crime in your local newspaper

b. counting the number of robberies that happen in your city

c. measuring the average length of time from arrest to disposition in your city

d. determining the average number of inmates housed in your city’s jail on a daily basis

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12. Which of the following is an accurate statement concerning the use of content analysis?

a. content analysis involves a statistical study of messages

b. content analysis involves a systematic study of messages and the meaning that those messages convey

c. content analysis involves only the analysis of speeches given concerning criminal justice issues

d. content analysis methods can only be used with agency reports to determine their applicability

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13. Which of the following would not be an appropriate target of content analysis?

a. speeches

b. newscasts

c. constitutions

d. number of domestic violence arrests

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14. They underlying meaning of a communication is it’s:

a. latent content

b. manifest content

c. coding content

d. coding scheme

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15. A researcher is interested in using content analysis to determine how the United States Supreme Court has changed its interpretation of the 4^th Amendment’s “unreasonable” search and seizure prohibition over time. Which of the following are the units of analysis?

a. individual justices

b. court decisions in 4^th Amendment cases

c. the dissenting opinions

d. the concurring opinions

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16. Coding in content analysis involves the logic of conceptualization and:

a. application

b. operationalization

c. validity

d. generalization

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17. Secondary analysis encompasses which of the following sources of criminal justice data?

a. content analysis of agency records

b. UCR

c. self-reports

d. NCVS

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18. Which of the following is not an advantage of using secondary data?

a. reduction in validity threats

b. it is cheaper than collecting original data

c. it is faster than collecting original data

d. the researcher may benefit from the work of others established in their fields

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19. If you wanted to measure the number of date and acquaintance rapes that happen in this country and use UCR data as your source, what is likely to be your most significant problem?

a. generalizability

b. validity

c. reliability

d. applicability

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20. The use of secondary analysis of data has become very popular because:

a. it is cheaper but never as good as collecting your own data

b. it is faster because the data is readily available

c. scholarly journals are now publishing primarily data gathered from secondary analysis

d. because it is always considered valid

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