Elementary Statistics in Criminal Justice Research, 4th edition

For courses in Criminal Justice and Statistics for Criminal Justice.

An accessible introduction to statistics in the criminal justice field.

Elementary Statistics in Criminal Justice Research, Fourth Edition, provides an introduction to statistics for students in criminal justice and criminology. Created specifically for students who many not have strong backgrounds in mathematics, the text focuses primarily on the statistical theories and methods that criminal justice students need to understand. This text was adapted from the best-selling Elementary Statistics in Social Research, and provides broad and accessible coverage that will appeal to students and instructors alike.

Hallmark Features

Appeals to students with varying levels of comfort with math—Straightforward content is understandable to a broad range of students, particularly those without a strong background in mathematics.

• Detailed step-by-step illustrations of statistical procedures are located at important points throughout the text. 

Develops an understanding of the importance of statistics in criminal justice—Clear, logical explanations give the rationale and use of statistical methods in criminal justice applications.

• Numerous examples illustrate how and why particular statistical methods are used.
• The final chapter discusses how to select an appropriate statistical technique.

Provides step-by-step guidance—Abundant “Step-by-Step Illustrations” of statistical procedures, set off from the text, clearly show students how to use statistical methods.

• Chapters end with one or more “Step-by-Step Study Guides” that reinforce statistical methods.
• Numerous exercises help students practice and develop their skills. 

Helps students see the big picture—Students sometimes get lost in the trees of statistics without seeing the forest. To counter this tendency, each part of the text includes a section entitles “Looking at the Larger Picture,” which carries students through the entire research process based on hypothetical data.

The Fourth Edition has been updated to incorporate instructor and student feedback and to bring the text up to date with current trends and developments.

• meta-analysis (Chapter 1)
• coefficient of variation (Chapter 4)
• one sample test of means and effect size (Chapter 7)
• Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Walls test (Chapter 9)
• logistic regression (Chapter 11)
• elaboration (Chapter 12) 

• non-sampling error
• standard error
• partial correlation
• multicollinearity 

Updated! Examples and exercises have been updated throughout—to make the text as current and relevant as possible.

• Students will be interested and engaged by examples they can relate to.

Updated! Supplementary computer exercises—now utilize a subset of the 2010 General Social Survey, available on the text’s companion website.