Research Proposal Assignment
Here are the guidelines to help you see what a research proposal is and looks like. The journal articles you are reading for some of the Assignments do what you are doing for the research proposal. They may use different headings, but study them very closely and you will notice that the structure of those articles parallels the structure that you will use in creating your research proposal.
The headings you will use in your research proposal are different from what you may find in the articles but they are similar. The difference is that the research articles you are reading carry out the research. You won't be executing your research. You will only be setting it up; hence, it is called a proposal. It's like a marriage proposal even though you're not quite married yet.
The length of the research proposal is between 7 and 9 pages, NOT including the title and reference pages. Hence, your proposal will be about 9 to 11 pages in total. It should be noted that your paper must have a cover page that includes the course title, my name, the due date of the paper, the title, and your name.
You're required to write a research proposal that MUST include each of the following sections:
(1) Introduction;
(2) Literature Review;
(3) Methodology;
(4) Implications for Criminal Justice Policy;
(5) Limitations; and (6) References.
(1) Introduction
• What is the issue or problem and why is the issue important?
• Is there any criminal justice policy regarding the issue?
• What are the purpose and importance of your proposal?
(2) Literature Review
• How have other researchers in criminal justice and criminology approached the issue?
• What kind of research methods did they use and what did they find?
• What does the existing literature suggest to you in shaping your question?
(3) Methodology
• Based on what you found in the literature, what is your hypothesis? What is your independent and dependent variable? How are they defined conceptually and operationally?
• What is your population? How will you sample? What is your unit of analysis? If you are conducting research with human subjects what about IRB approval?
• What method will you use (experiment, survey, field, agency records?) Explain in detail.
(4) Implications for Criminal Justice Policy
• Thinking about your expected results, if criminal justice agencies decided to take your research and implement it, what implications would there be? What might happen to crime, criminals, victims, communities, for example. What economic or legal consequences might occur? Might the program result in something that is less expensive that current policy? Think BIG.
(5) Limitations
• All social science research - including criminal justice research - has error. What sources of error do you see in your research? Remember, translating you concepts from the conceptual to the operational is a source of error (see Ch 4). Are there issues related to sampling (see Ch. 5)?
If your research covers a long time period, is attrition an issue (Ch 6)? Are there issues related to research design? Do you see any ethical issues in your research? The point here is to be critical of oneself before others are of you. If you had the opportunity to do it all over again, what might you do differently?
(6) References
• Here make sure you list at least EIGHT references you use in your paper. At least FIVE of those references must be academically refereed journal articles. Make sure you list them in alphabetical order AND you format them in American Psychological Association (APA) style.
You MUST use Times New Roman, 12 font, 1" margins on all sides, and double space - no exceptions. If you do NOT follow all of these three requirements, it will result in the drop of FIVE points of your paper grade per requirement violation.
You MUST submit your proposal as a Word document (.doc or .docx) or rich text file (.rtf) if you use Word Perfect).
You MUST use at least EIGHT sources including FIVE academically refereed journal articles for your literature review. If you are unsure what constitutes an academically refereed journal article ask a librarian. An academically refereed journal can be succinctly defined in this way: A periodical that only includes articles that have been evaluated by experts in the field. These publications are usually issued two to four times a year; are published by a university or scholarly press; include footnotes, bibliographies, or references; and list author(s) and his/her/their credentials.
Magazines such as Police Chief, Corrections Today, and American Jails are NOT academically refereed journals. Most of the articles in the magazines are written by criminal justice practitioners (police officers, corrections staff who work in jails, prison, probation or parole).
The magazines are published by practitioner organizations (International Association of Chiefs of Police, American Correctional Association, and American Jail Association, respectively), not scholarly organizations and associations. Periodicals like TIME, NEWSWEEK,
PEOPLE, etc. are NOT academically refereed journals either. Nor are newspapers. Make sure you know and understand what IS and what IS NOT an academically refereed journal.
Use the Style Manual of the American Psychological Association to format your paper, cite your sources, cite direct quotes, and compose your reference page.
This assignment to help you get the ball rolling on the beginning stages of your research proposal. For this assignment, you are to address the following questions in 2-3 double-spaced pages with 1" margins (all sides) and 12 point font. Your heading should be no longer than one line, and should include the following: name, course, and assignment #. Please number each response, and submit your assignment in .doc, .docx, or .rtf format. Assignments submitted in Mac files or .pdf format will not be accepted. Make sure that you follow the directions carefully.
1. What social science topic are you interested in designing a research project on? Why this topic?
2. Develop four questions that you might investigate about the topic you selected. Each question should reflect a different research motive: Descriptive, exploratory, explanatory, and evaluative.
3. Of the four research questions, which one interests you the most? Would you prefer to attempt to answer that question using quantitative or qualitative methods? Why?
Please, choose one of these narrow topics (Does Incarceration Reduce Crime) or (Incapacitation effect) rather than (Criminal Justice).
Research Methods in Criminal Justice
1. The topic of my interest is criminal justice. It deals with government institution which is built to ensure good social control as well as correct those that violate laws set to abide by. The study of criminal justice is to help in ensuring effectiveness in the department of criminal justice in any country. It focusses on the correctional centers and studies their effectiveness in ensuring social control. A study of this discipline also helps in giving practical ideas to the department of criminal justice which will ensure effective achievement of its roles and responsibilities.
The reason for choosing these research topic is to do further research on how criminal justice can be of help to any society or nation. There are topics that still require more research so as to offer effective correction and social control by the criminal justice. A concern is that most of the prisoners that are released from jail continue with their law breaking habits. These questions the effectiveness of these correctional centers and the criminal justice department. This pushes for more research to be done in this area so as to prove better ideas and come with effective methods of achieving the roles issued to the criminal justice department.
2. The research is based on four questions which will cover the four research motives namely; Descriptive, exploratory, explanatory, and evaluative. The descriptive question of the research will be on the effectiveness of correctional centers. These are a question that seeks to find out how effective the correctional centers are. It will aid in providing better results to correctional centers on how to offer a correction to inmates. Our second question on this topic of criminal justice will be the exploratory question on how many deaths occur in most prisons. The question is aimed at looking on how inmates die and the result of their death.
Our third question will be an explanatory question. The question why do most inmates get back to their law breaking habits after they are released. This question will provide us with an explanation on why these is so. Research on this topic will give us insight into how effective are correctional centers. Then lastly the final question will be an evaluative question. Should prisons be privatized or allowed to be owned by the government? These question will offer an evaluation of the benefit of either privatizing prisons or not. It will prove and give an evaluation on the two decisions to be made and which decision will offer better results.
3. The best of the question among the four is on whether prisons should be privatized or not. These are a question that has had many opinions yet without research done to prove the better decision between the two. Most people argue on this topic but lack to give reasons or facts that will support their arguments. However for us to offer an effective correction to law breakers, such questions require research to be done and the decision to be applied chosen out of knowledge. This will help our correctional centers, and the criminal justice department offers quality services.
Looking at our question, the type of answer given should be done qualitatively rather than quantitative. These are because the aim of these question is to help the criminal justice department provide quality and effective correction to law breakers. This calls for a more qualitative analysis of our question basing our argument on the two sides of the question. Do prisons offer better correctional services when under private control or when under the control of the government? This analysis will require a more qualitative approach rather than using a quantitative method.
Feedback:
(2) Descriptive questions ask: Who? What? When? Where? How? Examples: How many correctional institutions are there in the United States? How many prisons are in the U.S.? How many jails are there in the U.S.?
Exploratory questions ask: What is going on here? (see page 9). Example: How are correctional institutions viewed by the American public?
Evaluative questions determine the effects of a social program, policy, or intervention. Example: Do prison-operated GED programs reduce recidivism? Do private prison GED programs reduce recidivism?
(3) If you are interested in the benefits, limitations, and consequences of privatization of prison services, that would be a more exploratory question, which would require qualitative research methods.
Please, choose one of these narrow topics (Does Incarceration Reduce Crime) or (Incapacitation effect) rather than (Criminal Justice).
Assignment 2 is to solidify your research topic, research question(s) and hypotheses. Like Assignment 1. Basically, this assignment is the start of you building a draft of your research proposal.
For this assignment, you are to address the following questions in 2-3 double-spaced pages with 1" margins (all sides) and 12 point font. Your heading should be no longer than one line, and should include the following: name, course, and assignment #. Please number each response, and submit your assignment in .doc, .docx, or .rtf format. Make sure that you follow the directions carefully.
1. State a problem for research. In other words, state the research question(s) you have decided upon for your research proposal.
2. Search the literature/Internet for information about the research question you have identified. Copy down at least 10 citations to articles and five websites reporting research that seems highly relevant to your research question. Inspect the article reference sections and the links in the websites to identify other potential sources.
2a. After documenting your 10 citations, and looking through the articles and websites, discuss what additions or changes to your thoughts about the research questions are suggested by the sources?
3. Propose at least 2 hypotheses that pertain to your research question stated in question 1. Justify these hypotheses in terms of the literature you had read.
4. Discuss which standards for the protection of human subjects might pose the most difficulty for researchers on your proposed topic/to answer your research question(s). Make sure that you clearly explain your answers and suggest appropriate protection procedures for human subjects.
You should read Assignment 1 to get the idea about the topic to start in Assignment 2 (Assignment 1 is attached and the topic was changed from Criminal Justice to "Does Incarceration Reduce Crime?" or "Incapacitation effect" you can choose on of these two topics).
There are 7 articles in attachment so you must use them to copy down at least 10 citations, and five websites reporting research that must be from (.gov).
Research methods in criminal justice
Assessing the effectiveness of incarceration in reducing crime
Research question
1. Incarceration is a pertinent issue in the United States of America, among developed nations; America stands out for its high incarceration rates. Statistics reveal that for every one hundred thousand Americans, seven hundred are under incarceration.
The high incarceration rates in America reveal a flawed strategy to deal with increasing crime, the fact that a significant percentage of incarcerated individuals come from minority communities raises some serious issues about America's crime fighting strategy. This paper sets out to identify the correlation between incarceration rates and crime rates; it achieves this by asking the research question, does incarceration reduce crime rates?
The issue of incarceration and crime rates is a pertinent one as trends reveal that high incarceration rates have little impact. Looking into the correlation between crime rates and incarceration enables policy makers to draft the right policies that are more effective at fighting crime. Understanding the relationship between incarceration rates and crime rates also enables America to come to terms with its bias against minority communities.
Despite the fact that African Americans are a small portion of the total population, their percentage in the total prison population is significantly higher. Conducing a research on incarceration and crime rates is the first step in reforming the criminal justice system.
Sources
1. Aos, Miller, & Drake. (2006). Evidence-based public policy options to reduce future prison construction criminal justice costs, and crime rates. Fed. Sent. R, 19, 275.
2. Bhati. (2007). Estimating the number of crimes averted by incapacitation: an information theoretic approach. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 23(4), 355-375.
3. D'ALESSIO, & Stolzenberg. (1998). Crime, arrests, and pretrial jail incarceration: An examination of the deterrence thesis. Criminology, 36(4), 735-762.
4. Department of Justice. (2007, August). Evidence-Based Practice to Reduce Recidivism
5. Dhondt. (2012). The bluntness of incarceration: Crime and punishment in Tallahassee neighborhoods 1995 to 2002. Crime, law and social change, 57(5), 521-538.
6. Executive office of the president . (2016). ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES ON INCARCERTATION AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.
7. MacKenzie, D. L. (2017). CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND CRIME PREVENTION1. Retrieved from National Criminal Justice Reference Service.
8. Ministry of Justice and Home Office. (2016). Reoffending and rehabilitation.
9. National Instiute of Justice . (2016). Practice Profile Hot Spots Policing. Retrieved from National Instiute of Justice
10. Olson, Rozhon, & Powers. (2009). Enhancing prisoner reentry through access to prison-based and post-incarceration aftercare treatment: Experiences from the Illinois Sheridan Correctional Center therapeutic community. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 5(3), 299-321.
11. Piquero, & Blumstein. (2007). Does incapacitation reduce crime?. . Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 23(4), 267-285.
12. Stemen. (2006). Reconsidering incarceration: New directions for reducing crime. Fed. Sent. R, 19, 221.
13. Sweeten, & Apel. (2007). Incapacitation: Revisiting an old question with a new method and new data. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 23(4), 303-326.
14. Tollenaar, Laan, V. d., & Heijden, V. d. (2014). Effectiveness of a prolonged incarceration and rehabilitation measure for high-frequency offenders. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 10(1), 29-58.
15. Wermink, Apel, Nieuwbeerta, & Blokland. (2013). The incapacitation effect of first-time imprisonment: a matched samples comparison. Journal of Quantitative Criminology , 29(4), 579-600.
2. Numerous sources dwell on the subject of incarceration and crime rates in America, nearly all the research conducted on this subject indicates that incarceration has little to no impact on the reduction in crime. Better policing and community programs that offer job training have far better outcomes at reducing recidivism rates.
One unique line of thinking present in the research articles about the relationship between crime and incarceration is that long sentences actually lead to an increase in crime. Prisons offer an environment sheltered from the society with a completely new set of challenges and rules that inmates have to abide by.
Because of the stark differences between prison life and life in the real world, long sentences contribute to high recidivism rates because they rob inmates of the ability to survive in the society. Inmates released from long prison terms have a hard time reintegrating in the society, because of this, they are more likely to fall in with bad company and reoffend.
The articles also suggest that another reason why high incarceration rates contribute to high crime rates is that prisons destroy the earning potential of inmates. A large percentage of job agencies in the United States of America conduct background searches and immediately disqualify a job candidate if they find out that the job candidate was a convicted felon.
Research indicates that the odds of an individual finding employment reduce by twenty-four percent if the individual was once a convicted felon. The inability of inmates to find gainful employment after prison is one reason why high incarceration rates negatively influence crime rates. The harsh conditions that society and the government imposes on released convicts makes crime and incarceration a vicious cycle where incarceration makes it impossible to get a job leaving crime a as a very viable option.
The research on incarceration rates and crime rates also theorizes on the impact of diverting funding intended to support incarceration to other rehabilitation strategies such as expanding parole eligibility, mental illness programs, and drug rehabilitation among other measures. Alterative crime rehabilitation programs may fare better at preventing recidivism than incarceration.
Hypotheses
3. The first hypothesis regarding the issue of incarceration rates and crime rates is that high incarceration rates lead to an increase in crime rates. The bulk of research on incarceration suggests that a high prison population has a counterintuitive effect on reducing crime rates. Despite the fact that "tough on crime" policies led to an increase in incarceration in the twentieth century, crime also increased in the same period; this suggests that incarceration fails at deterring crime(Tollenaar, Laan, & Heijden, 2014).
The second hypothesis regarding incarceration and crime rates is that alternative rehabilitation strategies have a better outcome at reducing crime than incarceration. The counterintuitive effect of incarceration is well documented by the sources. Incarceration leads to stigmatization, which makes it hard to find a living and leaves crime as a viable alternative(Wermink, Apel, Nieuwbeerta, & Blokland, 2013). Hypothesizing about the impact of alternative rehabilitation strategies on reducing crime rates helps shed light on the effectiveness of incarceration.
Protection of human subjects
4. The research on the correlation of incarceration rates and crime rates would likely involve human subjects. One consideration towards the protection of these subjects is confidentiality, revealing the names and histories of these subjects may have a negative impact on their lives. It is very important that the researchers prioritize confidentiality in a way that does not jeopardize the research results.
References
Aos, Miller, & Drake. (2006). Evidence-based public policy options to reduce future prison construction criminal justice costs, and crime rates. Fed. Sent. R, 19, 275.
Bhati. (2007). Estimating the number of crimes averted by incapacitation: an information theoretic approach. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 23(4), 355-375.
D'ALESSIO, & Stolzenberg. (1998). Crime, arrests, and pretrial jail incarceration: An examination of the deterrence thesis. Criminology, 36(4), 735-762.
Department of Justice. (2007, August). Evidence-Based Practice to Reduce Recidivism:.
Dhondt. (2012). The bluntness of incarceration: Crime and punishment in Tallahassee neighborhoods 1995 to 2002. Crime, law and social change, 57(5), 521-538.
Executive office of the president . (2016). ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES ON INCARCERTATION AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.
MacKenzie, D. L. (2017). CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND CRIME PREVENTION1. Retrieved from National Criminal Justice Reference Service.
Ministry of Justice and Home Office. (2016). Reoffending and rehabilitation.
National Instiute of Justice . (2016). Practice Profile Hot Spots Policing. Retrieved from National Instiute of Justice
Olson, Rozhon, & Powers. (2009). Enhancing prisoner reentry through access to prison-based and post-incarceration aftercare treatment: Experiences from the Illinois Sheridan Correctional Center therapeutic community. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 5(3), 299-321.
Piquero, & Blumstein. (2007). Does incapacitation reduce crime?. . Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 23(4), 267-285.
Stemen. (2006). Reconsidering incarceration: New directions for reducing crime. Fed. Sent. R, 19, 221.
Sweeten, & Apel. (2007). Incapacitation: Revisiting an old question with a new method and new data. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 23(4), 303-326.
Tollenaar, Laan, V. d., & Heijden, V. d. (2014). Effectiveness of a prolonged incarceration and rehabilitation measure for high-frequency offenders. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 10(1), 29-58.
Wermink, Apel, Nieuwbeerta, & Blokland. (2013). The incapacitation effect of first-time imprisonment: a matched samples comparison. Journal of Quantitative Criminology , 29(4), 579-600.
Assignment 3 is to help you flush out more of the details of your research proposal. For this assignment, you are to address the following questions in 2-3 double-spaced pages with 1" margins (all sides) and 12 point font. Your heading should be no longer than one line, and should include the following: name, course, and assignment #. Please number each response, and submit your assignment in .doc, .docx, or .rtf format. Make sure that you follow the directions carefully.
1. List at least 7 variables that will be measured in your research. No more than 3 of these variables should be demographic variables (i.e., race/ethnicity, age, sex/gender, socioeconomic status, etc.). The inclusion of each variable should be justified in terms of theory or prior research that suggests it would be an appropriate independent (IV) or dependent variable (DV) or will have some relation to either of these. Please indicate whether each variable is an independent or dependent variable, and write a conceptual definition for each. Whenever possible, the definition should come from existing literature that you have been reviewing.
2. Discuss whether you are planning on conducting an experimental or non-experimental design to test your research question(s) and hypotheses. Given the general design that you choose, provide more detail as to the specific research design chosen and why. For example, true experiments or randomized experimental designs, quasi experiment designs (nonequivalent control group designs or before-and-after designs/pre-test posttest), and nonexperimental designs (cross-sectional designs and longitudinal). Please note that if you choose a longitudinal design, please specify the type - Repeated cross-sectional design, fixed-sample panel design, or event-based design.
Assessing the effectiveness of incarceration in reducing crime
1. Independent variables affect crime are age, education, and race. Age is one variable that affects the recidivism. Study show that lawbreaking rate increases as one grows up and reduces as one gets old.
The prisons have high number of minors that older people. Education also another factor that affects recidivism. Literacy affects one's behavior and the chances of securing job. Race and ethnicity affects crime. Study shows that African American are holding the highest number in the prisons. Dependent variables include family, poverty, religion and location of residence.
Family is one of the main factors that form an individual and his personality. A child values his parents and violent behavior of their parents affects the child's way of life. A person's income and ability to secure a job can have an effect of repetition of crime. Religion is another variable whereby Muslims are on a higher edge of committing crime than Christians. The location of residence affects if a person gets back to crime or not.
2. True Experimental design
An experimental design will be used in testing the researchquestions. The true experimental design is my choice of design. True experimental design helps a researcher to manipulate the independent variable to observe the effects on the dependent variable. It uses random assignment of the participants to groups to prevent any external factors from having any effect on the results. The variables to be used will suit better with this experimental design as the use of random values will make work easier and bring about.
3. Potential threats to internal and external validity
Internal validity refers if the experiment treatment or condition makes a difference to the outcome or not and if there is enough evidence to substantiate the claim while external validity refers to the generalizability of the treatment or the conditions outcomes across various settings.
True experimental design provides greater internal validity that external validity. Using the true experimental deign does not offer complete protection against the external validity. It may, in some cases increase the some threats. True experimental design aims at providing the cause connection between the treatment and outcome, in this case the how the variables affects recidivism. The experiment is set to control variables. Representativeness is a potential threat of true design.
True experiments require strict control over the experimental conditions, the resource effects are major. The sample size is always too small to be representative of the participants under study.
Ecological validity is another potential threat. Usually the experimental setting is under manipulation and is artificial. The surrounding factors under the experiment may interact with the intervention to bring about unrealistic effects. Internal validity is affected by events that occur besides the treatment. Other factors are testing, instrumentation statistical regression and mortality. Selection is another threat as it is brought about by randomization. The physical and the psychological changes of the participants is another factor affecting internal validity.
Feedback:
(1) -"Dependent variables include family, poverty, religion and location of residence." These are not dependent variables - They are independent variables. Your main dependent variables should be crime rates (property and/or violent).
You are missing your key independent variable, which is some measure of incarceration. Please defer to previous studies in how they have measured the impact of incarceration on crime rates.
(2) True experiment does not work for your research question. Please look at previous studies that have assessed the the impact of incarceration on crime rates. What research design did they use?
(3) See Q2. Once you determine the most appropriate research design, this will shape the potential threats to internal and external validity.
Topic (Assessing the effectiveness of incarceration in reducing crime)
Assignment 4 is to help you work on some of the later pieces of your research proposal. For this assignment, you are to address the following questions in 2-3 double-spaced pages with 1" margins (all sides) and 12 point font.
Your heading should be no longer than one line, and should include the following: name, course, and assignment #. Please number each response, and submit your assignment in .doc, .docx, or .rtf format. Make sure that you follow the directions carefully.
1. Discuss the sampling design that you will use to test your research question(s) and hypotheses. Define the population, identify the sampling frame(s), and specify the elements and any other units at different stages. Indicate the exact procedure for selecting people to be included in the sample.
2. Write 10 questions for a one-page questionnaire/survey that concerns your proposed research question. Your questions should operationalize at least three of your variables on which you have focused, including at least one independent variable and one dependent variable. Please note that you may have multiple questions to measure some variables.
Make all of your questions close-ended, unless you plan on conducting focus groups or one-on-one intense interviews (see qualitative research methods).
Research Methods in Criminal Justice
Name
Institution Affiliation
Course
Tutor
Date
Research question
Do incarceration reduce crime rates?
Hypothesis
High incarceration rates lead to an increase in crime rates
Alternative rehabilitation strategies have a better outcome at reducing crime than incarceration
Sampling Design
The sampling design to be used is stratified sampling. Here, the population will be divided into different groups based on employment rate, age, demographics, number of arrests, rate of drug abuse, and geographic variation. Then, within each group, a simple random sample will be selected. The population will be made up of men and women and at least a hundred and fifty will be selected to take part in the study.
The study expects that there will be a high representation of men in the study since men have been reported to committing more crimes than women. Also, in the criminal justice they are the majority and therefore the assumption is that men are also over-presented among ex-convicts.
The selection of the population will be taken on the basis of whether the participants are employed, they have a criminal record, the number of arrests and their locality. The individuals who have no criminal record and yet they are on drugs or live in regions where there are high crime rates will be excluded.
However, an individual who lives in a region that is known for having high crime rates, he/she is on drugs, has a criminal record and is not employed will be included. The study will exclude any participant who lacks a criminal record even when he or she qualifies in all the other elements.
The sampling approach will be useful in analyzing the relationship that exists between incarceration and crime. Since some studies have mentioned that other than incarceration there are other factors that affect crime rates such as general economic trends, employment rates, age, demographics, rate of drug abuse and geographic variation the study will consider them.
However, an emphasis will be given on choosing participants that have had a criminal record without considering what got them to jail in the first place. The aim of the paper is entirely on understanding whether the people that were incarcerated have adopted healthy and acceptable ways of living that cannot lead them to jail again.
Questionnaire
The independent variables in the study includes, age, rate of arrest, rate of imprisonment, average sentence length, income, and unemployment. The dependent variables includes; rate of poverty and crime rates. To obtain a favorable sample, the questions asked will be close ended.
That is, the questions will involves a simple answer of yes or a brief exact answer. The reason for using the close ended questionnaire is because it is easier and quicker for respondents to answer, the answers are easier to compare, and the answers are also easy to statistically analyze. Below is the question that will be used to operationalize the variables.
1. Have you ever been imprisoned/ do you have a criminal record?
2. If answer to the first question is YES, how old were you when you were arrested?
3. How long was your prison sentence?
4. How many times have you been arrested?
5. Are you employed? / do you have a stable source of income?
6. In your opinion, did the prison sentence help you in avoiding future imprisonment?
7. Do you engage in drugs or any other activity that involves breaking the law?
8. How much do you earn annually?
9. Would you classify yourself as a low, middle or high income earner?
10. Do you see yourself getting arrested in the near future?
FEEDBACK:
You have listed too many strata - Need to select one. Stratified random sampling does not make sense for your study. Need to revisit the literature to determine how previous researchers have examined your research questions.