Surveys and The National Crime Victimization Survey - Assignment Example

Surveys are primary data sources of crime/ victimization measurements. Here individuals are interrogated about their attitudes, values, beliefs, characteristics, and experience with crime and victimization. They are used for descriptive, explanatory, exploratory, and applied research. They are suited for studies that have individuals, households or organizations as the units of analysis. Sampling is done during surveying whereby a limited number of subjects are picked to represent a whole population with similar characteristics during a study.

For example, in a survey carried out to understand the social forces that lead to crime, a criminologist may sample 3,000 inmates from a population of 2 million inmates in a region. The responses of the 3000 inmates represent the whole population allowing generalization (Vito et al., 2006). There are several types of surveys. For example, there are self-report surveys, cross-sectional surveys and counting crime surveys. A self-report survey is designed to describe, in detail, participants’ recent and lifetime participation in criminal activity.

These are given anonymously in groups; so that people being surveyed are assured that their responses are confidential. Secrecy and anonymity are essential to maintain the honesty and validity of responses (Siegel 2011). Counting crime is a type of survey where victim surveys are carried out. People are asked about victimization to provide a measure of crime that adjusts for some of the limitations of data collected by the police. Its purpose is to provide important data about the volume of crime is a region.

A cross-sectional survey is representative of all members of the community. For instance, a survey on all students attending university is cross-sectional as all community members are represented. This type of survey is useful as a cost-effective way of measuring the characteristics of a large population of people (Vito et al., 2006). Respondents of a survey need assurance that the information they give will be kept private and confidential and that it will not be used against them. To ensure privacy, the researcher should keep confidential information about the respondent apart from the survey results both electronically and physically.

The information should only be accessed by authorized persons and protected by codes and passwords. Using ranges rather than exact figures for potentially identifying details in research prevents recognition. Permanent destruction of information that is no longer needed in the study also ensures privacy (Siegel, 2011). Bias refers to any property of a question that encourages the respondent to answer in a particular way and not the other. To avoid bias, researchers should imagine how they would feel giving each of the answers they give to the respondents.

If they would feel embarrassed, perverted, inhumane or stupid, then they should reconsider whether the respondents will answer those questions. They should also be wary of social desirability that makes people give answers that will make them look good in the face of others. In a survey, the questions and methods are standardized for all subjects and thus uniformity is unaffected by the perceptions or bias of the surveyor. Carefully drawn samples from a survey enable researchers to generalize their findings from small groups to large populations.

Although most surveys measure subjects at a single point in their lifespan, questions can elicit information on subjects’ past behavior as well as their expectations of future behaviors.