Using Statistics in Criminal Justice

Book excerpt: Using Statistics in Criminal Justice is designed to be an accessible, readable introduction to statistics, written with the criminal justice student in mind. The text teaches students not only how to engage in basic statistical analysis, but, more importantly, how they might use statistics in real and helpful ways. The book is designed for students to understand that statistics is a mechanism by which we take a picture of the world around us. Murray starts by taking students through the steps of creating a rough outline with basic descriptive statistics, then moves to providing more detail and clarity with sampling and inferential statistics. Finally, the author explains using multivariate techniques to fill in the details of the picture, making it more and more indicative of reality. Features: Carefully structured text provides an overview of concepts for each chapter, and explains how concepts in the book interrelate. Multiple examples for each analysis Practice questions at the end of each chapter Clearly ties in theory, methods and statistics , linking concepts from other courses Gives numerous step-by-step examples of analyses Information on how to use in a variety of software: STATA, SPSS and Excel to better accommodate various approaches Conversational tone with real world examples Application to professionals in criminal justice, not just undergraduate students Chapter on Evaluation Research gives students more marketable skills Workbook will be available on line with additional practice problems to use with statistical software