Research Methods for Criminal Justice and Criminology

Dr. Earl Babbie is the Campbell Professor Emeritus in Behavioral Sciences at Chapman University in Southern California. He taught sociology at the University of Hawaii from 1968 through 1979 and took time off from teaching and research to write full time for eight years. He then joined the Chapman University faculty in 1987. Credited with defining research methods for the social sciences, Dr. Babbie has written several texts, including THE PRACTICE OF SOCIAL RESEARCH, as well as numerous research articles and monographs. For 25 years he has been active in the American Sociological Association, where he served on the executive committee. He is also a past president of the Pacific Sociological Association and the California Sociological Association. Dr. Babbie received his A.B. from Harvard and his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. Michael G. Maxfield is Emeritus Professor of Criminal Justice at John Jay College, City University of New York. He is the author of numerous articles and books on a variety of topics, including victimization, policing, homicide, community corrections and long-term consequences of child abuse and neglect. Working with students and colleagues at the John Jay College Research and Evaluation Center, Professor Maxfield developed the evidence generation approach to applied justice research. He served as editor of the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency from 2008–2016. Amie M. Schuck is Professor in the Department of Criminology, Law, and Justice at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her scholarship focuses on analyzing how society defines good policing and great police officers. She is especially interested in understanding how the social construction of these attributes influences organizational structures and institutional practices, and community members’ experiences with the criminal justice system. She has completed studies on community and data-driven policing, officer socialization, the use of force by police, information sharing and advanced technologies, and the long-term consequences of victimization. Dr. Schuck has written more than 50 articles and received more than one million dollars in grant funding.

1. Crime, Criminal Justice, and Scientific Inquiry.
2. Foundations of Criminal Justice Research.
3. Ethics and Criminal Justice Research.
4. General Issues in Research Design.
5. Concepts, Operationalization, and Measurement.
6. Measuring Crime.
7. Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs.
8. Sampling.
9. Survey Research.
10. Qualitative Interviewing.
11. Field Research.
12. Agency Records, Content Analysis, and Secondary Data.
13. Evaluation Research and Problem Analysis.
14. Interpreting Data.