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Studying Deviance Adler & Adler

Studying Deviance Adler & Adler. Part III. A. Official Statistics & t he Career of a Crime. What are official statistics? Statistics: numerical data Official: gathered by government officials or people receiving government money in the course of doing performing normal jobs

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Studying Deviance Adler & Adler

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  1. Studying Deviance Adler & Adler Part III

  2. A. Official Statistics & the Career of a Crime • What are official statistics? • Statistics: numerical data • Official: gathered by government officials or people receiving government money in the course of doing performing normal jobs • Uniform Crime Reports (UCRs)

  3. B. Official StatisticsThree Sociological Categories of Crime • Property Crimes • Burglary, vandalism, arson, larceny/theft • Crimes Against the Person • Robbery, rape, murder, assault • Victimless Crimes • Drugs, sex, gambling

  4. C. Career of a Crime • Unrecognized • Unreported • Unrecorded

  5. D. Official StatisticsStrengths and Weaknesses • Strengths • Fast: Pre-collected • Cheap • Longitudinal: over history • Breadth: no sampling • Weaknesses • Validity • Change/Absent categories • Data gathering • Self interpretation

  6. D. Survey & Field Research Methods • Survey Research – one of the most popular • Participant-Observation Field Research

  7. Survey Research: Four Steps • Questionnaire • Sampling • Probability • Convenience • Snowball • Mode of Administration • Coding and Analysis

  8. Participant/Observation Field Methods: Four Features • Choose a Topic/Personal Biography • Gaining Entrée • Forging Trust and Relationships • Developing Analysis

  9. Strengths & Weaknesses

  10. Child Abuse ReportingBesharov w/Laumann-Billings Part III Chapter 12

  11. I. Reporting Laws Part 3: Ch. 12

  12. Reporting Laws • All states have passed laws that require designated professionals to report specified types of child maltreatment • Over the years, both the range of designated professionals and the scope of reportable conditions have steadily expanded Part 3: Ch. 12

  13. Reporting Laws • Today most states have laws that require most professionals who serve children to report of all forms of suspected child maltreatment: • Physical abuse • Sexual abuse • Physical neglect • Exploitation • Emotional maltreatment Part 3: Ch. 12

  14. Reporting Laws • These reporting laws have been very successful: • In 1993 about 3 million reports of child abuse or neglect reported compared to only 150,000 in early 1960s • Earlier reporting statistics not reliable so cannot provide a baseline study against which to make comparisons Part 3: Ch. 12

  15. Reporting Laws • Increase in reporting accompanied by a substantial expansion of prevention and treatment programs • Increase in reporting accompanied by a substantial expansion of prevention and treatment programs • Estimated that as a result, child abuse and neglect deaths have fallen from 3000-5000 per year to about 1000 annually Part 3: Ch. 12

  16. II. Unreported Cases Part 3: Ch. 12

  17. A. Unreported Cases • 56% or about 500,000 abused & neglected cases unreported (1986) • 2,000 with observable signs (bruises, scrapes) that required hospitalization • 100,000 with moderate signs of abuse • 30,000 of those sexually abused Part 3: Ch. 12

  18. B. Two studies for National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect conducted • A stratified sample of counties, a broadly representative sample of professionals who serve children were surveyed • Asked if they had seen children who appeared to have been abused or neglected • Results were compared against pending cases in local child protective agency Part 3: Ch. 12

  19. III. Unsubstantiated Reports Part 3: Ch. 12

  20. Unsubstantiated Reports • Nationwide 60 to 65 percent of all reports closed after finding of unfounded • Each year about 700,000 families are needlessly put through investigations of unfounded reports, a massive violation of parental rights • So many unfounded reports waste valuable resources of child protection agencies • This explains why 25 to 50 percent of child abuse deaths involve children previously known to authorities since caseworkers are overwhelmed and desensitized Part 3: Ch. 12

  21. Review Questions • What reporting laws govern those who work or serve children in most, if not all, states? • What is the difference between substantiated and unsubstantiated case of child abuse? Part 3: Ch. 12

  22. Survey of Sexual Behavior of AmericansLaumann, Gagnon, Michael & Michaels Part III Chapter 13

  23. I. Skepticism About a National Survey of Sex Behavior Part 3: Ch. 13

  24. Skepticism About a National Survey of Sex Behavior • Nobody will agree to participate, and if they do, they won’t answer honestly • Until recently, scientific research on sexuality has been taboo and marginalized • Little prior research exists on sexuality in the general population • Exceptions are adolescence, premarital sex, and sexual deviance Part 3: Ch. 13

  25. II. National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS): Sample Design Part 3: Ch. 13

  26. National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS): Sample Design • Probability sampling used: every member of a population has a known probability of selection • No other scientifically acceptable way to construct a representative sample and to be able to generalize from the actual sample on which data are collected Part 3: Ch. 13

  27. National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS): Sample Design • Every sample produces a slightly different estimate: • the larger the sample size, the closer the sample size results will be to each other and to actual population • Subpopulations also become important determinant of sample size: • One wants to know intersections between various categories such as young black women Part 3: Ch. 13

  28. III. Gaining Cooperation: The Response Rate Part 3: Ch. 13

  29. Gaining Cooperation • No survey is able to get every sampling-designated respondent to complete an interview: • Even the better, face-to-face surveys average only about 75% of target • The missing 25% pose a serious issue for reliability and validity of survey: • Is there a nonrandom process at work that distinguishes respondents from nonrespondents? Part 3: Ch. 13

  30. Gaining Cooperation • Experience teaches us that moderately high response rates as 75% do not lead to biased results; • Response rates of 90% seem to represent an upper limit • NHSLS study achieved response rate of near 80% but was expensive: • $450 per interview due to training and mobile field staff Part 3: Ch. 13

  31. IV. Mode of Administration: Face-to-Face, Telephone or Self-Administered Part 3: Ch. 13

  32. Mode of Administration • NHSLS used face-to-face interviews, the most costly; • Other methods considered but rejected • Phone interviews, though cheaper, ruled out: • Needed about 90 minutes to complete questionnaire, about twice the length shown to be an upper limit for phone interviews • Self-administered as main method ruled out: • Questions must be simpler in form and language than an interviewer can ask Part 3: Ch. 13

  33. V. The Questionnaire Part 3: Ch. 13

  34. The Questionnaire • Most important element of the study design: • Determines content and quality of information gathered for analysis • B. Over a 6-month period 220 interviewers contacted 7,800 households and completed 3,432 interviews • Included demographic attributes: • Gender, age, race/ethnicity, frequency of certain practices, sexual experience measures, etc Part 3: Ch. 13

  35. The Questionnaire • Had to decide where to draw boundaries in defining sexual behavior: • Intercourse for example because defined by penis insertion would exclude sex acts between women • How much if any slang should be used to refer to sex acts? Or limit it to clinical terms people may or may not understand? Part 3: Ch. 13

  36. VI. Privacy, Confidentiality, Security Part 3: Ch. 13

  37. Privacy, Confidentiality, Security • Respondent confidentiality goes to very heart of survey research since willingness of subjects to fully & honestly respond depends on assurance of confidentiality Part 3: Ch. 13

  38. Review Questions • What issues arise with sexual behavior research? • In the context of confidentiality, what issues affect the accuracy of responses by participants? Part 3: Ch. 13

  39. Researching Dealers & SmugglersAdler Part III Chapter 14

  40. I. Fieldwork Study: Getting In Part 3: Ch. 14

  41. A. The Study • Adlers’ backgrounds & interests well-suited for drug study • They had previous experience with fieldwork techniques as undergraduates • They had open view toward soft drug use (marijuana and cocaine) • As young graduate students in mid-20s they fit in with people being observed Part 3: Ch. 14

  42. A. The Study • Research study about drug dealers began as a fortunate accident of moving next door to and socializing with a neighbor who, as it turned out, was a dealer-smuggler • Drug dealing identity of their neighbor, Dave, accidentally divulged one day by his friends and from this point on Adlers had “entered” this drug world of smugglers Part 3: Ch. 14

  43. A. The Study • Dave was a member of a smuggling crew that imported a ton of marijuana and 40Ks of cocaine every few months; • Over time admitted into this “inner circle” of dealers • Dave and others became key informants; life histories, taping open-ended interviews, etc. Part 3: Ch. 14

  44. II. The Covert Role • Illegal nature of illicit drug dealing made adoption of overt research role problematic • Adlers’ agreed with informants to be very discreet about research for everyone’s safety • As non-participants in drug business, it was at times hard to be fully accepted as peers Part 3: Ch. 14

  45. III. Developing Trust • Building trust was slow and difficult process • Given informal drug dealing subculture, one has to earn trust of new people all the time • Cultivated trust by offering favors: use of cell phone, offer use of car, etc. • Trust difficult to maintain: not given once and for all but constantly being negotiated Part 3: Ch. 14

  46. IV. The Overt Role • After initial covert phase, and as some persons trusted Adlers, would attempt to approach them and go to overt role as researchers Part 3: Ch. 14

  47. A. Two Methods • Indirect: Use key informants to approach their friends and acquaintances • Direct: Adlers approached directly asking for help with project Part 3: Ch. 14

  48. B. Moving from Covert to Overt Research Roles & Challenges • Coming on too fast: some persons may be frightened or threatened • Juggling overt and covert roles: danger that cover could be blown with some who did not know about their research with others who did in same situation Part 3: Ch. 14

  49. Review Questions • What was problematic about the research undertaken by Adler? • How did the participants of the study react to nonparticipation on the part of the researcher? Part 3: Ch. 14

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