The Foundations of Statistics in Criminology and Criminal Justice underscores the purpose and role of statistics in criminal justice practice, emphasizes major analytical techniques, and covers two key types of statistics--descriptive and inferential. The text helps students build a fundamental background in analytical methods within the context of criminal justice. Part I demonstrates the importance of statistics and its practical application within criminology and criminal justice. Part II introduces students to descriptive statistics. They learn about measures of central tendency and measures of variability within empirical research in the criminal justice system. In Part III, students examine the issues of probability and the normal curve, which explain how criminal justice data sources and research can be used for decision-making tools with an adequate degree of scientific validation. Part IV explores inferential statistics as a decision-making aid that plays a pivotal roles in criminal justice policy development and planning. The final section demonstrates practical applications within the discipline and summarizes analytical methods. Accessible and engaging, The Foundations of Statistics in Criminology and Criminal Justice is an exemplary resource for courses in statistics in criminology and criminal justice.

Statistics for Criminal Justice and Criminology in Practice and Research—by Jack Fitzgerald and Jerry Fitzgerald—is an engaging and comprehensive introduction to the study of basic statistics for students pursuing careers as practitioners or researchers in both Criminal Justice and Criminology programs. This student-friendly text shows how to calculate a variety of descriptive and inferential statistics, recognize which statistics are appropriate for particular data analysis situations, and perform hypothesis tests using inferential statistics. But it is much more than a "cook book." It encourages readers to think critically about the strengths and limitations of the statistics they are calculating, as well as how they may be misapplied and misleading. Examples of statistics and statistical analyses are drawn from the worlds of the practitioner as well as the policymaker and researcher. Students will also gain a clear understanding of major ethical issues in conducting statistical analyses and reporting results, as well as insight into the realities of the life of researchers and practitioners as they use statistics and statistical analyses in their day-to-day activities.

Statistics in Criminal Justice takes an approach that emphasizes the application and interpretation of statistics in research in crime and justice. This text is meant for both students and researchers who want to gain a basic understanding of common statistical methods used in this field. In general, the text relies on a building-block approach, meaning that each chapter helps to prepare the student for the chapters that follow. It also means that the level of sophistication of the text increases as the text progresses. Throughout the text there is an emphasis on comprehension and interpretation, rather than computation. However, as the statistical methods discussed become more complex and demanding to compute, there is increasing use and integration of statistical software. This approach is meant to provide the reader with an accessible, yet sophisticated understanding of statistics that can be used to examine real-life criminal justice problems with popular statistical software programs. The primary goal of the text is to give students and researchers a basic understanding of statistical concepts and methods that will leave them with the confidence and the tools for tackling more complex problems on their own. New to the 4th Edition · New chapter on experimental design and the analysis of experimental data. · New chapter on multi-level models, including growth-curve models. · New computer exercises throughout the text to illustrate the use of both SPSS and Stata. · Revision of exercises at the end of each chapter that places greater emphasis on using statistical software. · Additional resources on the text’s web site for instructors and students, including answers to selected problems, syntax for replicating text examples in SPSS and Stata, and other materials that can be used to supplement the use of the text.

Communicating the excitement and importance of criminal justice research, this practical and comprehensive book shows students how to perform and understand statistical analyses, while helping them recognize the connection between statistical analyses used in everyday life and their importance to criminology and criminal justice. This updated Fifth Edition is packed with real-world case studies and contemporary examples utilizing the most current crime data and empirical research available. Each chapter presents a particular statistical method in the context of a substantive research story.

Essentials of Statistics for Criminology and Criminal Justice helps students understand the vital role that research and statistics play in the study of criminology and criminal justice by showing them how to conduct and interpret statistics in real-world settings with a step-by-step approach to solving problems. This practical, applied approach offers students the fundamentals of descriptive and inferential statistics in a concise and easy-to-understand format—avoiding complicated proofs and discussions of statistical theory. The examples and case studies provide relevant examples for criminology and criminal justice students, and deal with contemporary issues related to crime, corrections, police, and the judicial system. Students will not only learn about the "how to" in statistics, but they will also recognize its importance in today’s criminal justice system.

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.