Capital Punishment as a Social Psychological System - Research Proposal Example

Jackie McFadden NORTHCENTRAL Quantitative Methods RSH9102QNP Assignment Two Capital Punishment Part Proposed research problem Capital Punishment has been a controversial subject in the United States for many years. While assessing this subject, it becomes apparent that there is a need to determine whether race plays an important part in this. This analysis will consider whether or not that is true, through the collection of data and research. To determine this, a quantitative study will need to be set up in such a way as to study the scientific connection between the types of crimes that are committed, the issues that receive capital punishment, and whether race played a role in those. The hypothesis considered for this subject is: There is a scientific connection between whether a crime receives capital punishment and the race of the perpetrator of that crime. This leaves us with the research question of: Does the race of the perpetrator of the crime influence the judgment of capital punishment? This will require a study of trials for a specific set of crimes, relating the crime to capital punishment and then determining the race of the individual convicted. Craig Haney in ,Death by Design: Capital Punishment as Social Psychological System, discusses some of these issues in the role of capital punishment. The author compares the role of the overall population in the United States and the connection of the population as well as the number of convictions and sentencing to capital punishment. He then breaks down the different racial groups and looks at the connections to the different races in comparison to the rate of conviction and sentencing. His research could be used in this type of scientific method as looking at the different issues (Haney, 2005). The thought would be that this type of research would be useful in recognizing scientific ideas that are associated with the scientific connection to conviction ratings and the sentencing issues with different races. Purpose The Death Penalty had been imposed by the American Government with hopes of instilling fear and serving as a deterrent among criminals who have plans of committing a crime. In deed, some crimes in the annuls of American history are deserving of such a punishment, especially those concerning mass murders, be it against adults, but more especially on children; on rapes perpetuated on minors that leave the victim emotionally scarred for life; and on acts of terrorism resulting in the many losses of innocent civilian lives. However, in the three decades that the death penalty has been imposed in some States, certain prejudices and partialities have been officially documented, mostly involving predispositions on the convict’s racial background and socio-economic standing. This paper will make clear to the readers such claims. Questions To what extent does race effect the conviction of capital punishment for a crime? Hypothesis H1 Minorities and the poor receive the death penalty more often due to the fact that they are less likely to be able to afford appropriate legal defense. H2 Those defendants that are less educated are more likely to receive the death penalty. H3 Black defendants are more likely to receive the death penalty than white defendants for the same crime. Part 2 Access to court records will be important and will need to be obtained as soon as possible. This study will include court records from the State of Texas as there is statistical significance in the State of Texas. The access will need to include all death penalty cases over the last five years. The researcher will analyze each of the cases based on the type of crime, the race of the perpetrator sentenced and the total percentage as related to the state statistical values. The researcher would then need to compare the total crimes against the ones studied. An example would be the number of murders that were convicted, the number of murders that received the death penalty and the number of black perpetrators in each group. Having obtained the said data, the researcher then performs the triangulation method in order to analyze the information gathered. Through this then, the researcher will be able to come up with the answers to the research questions earlier enumerated. In order to facilitate the data collection for this study, the researcher develops a tool for the said documentary analysis. This guide for the documentary analysis has been created in order to ensure that pertinent information will be obtained from looking into the state documents in order to determine the relationship between the crime, race, and capital punishment. In order to discover the said relationship, the guide for the documentary analysis will be developed in such a way that it would help the researcher determine the number of convictions or executions through capital punishment among blacks and compared to the general population. This may lead to the recommendation of further study for other races. The guide would also be developed in such a way that it would also help the researcher in determining the victims of those who had been subjected to capital punishment. Previous studies have shown that the perpetrators of white victims by black perpetrators are more likely to receive the death penalty. In the analysis, the researcher will document the race of the victim which will give a percentage to relate this too, again which may need to include recommendation for further future study. Part 3 The primary data that is collected for this study will be from document analysis. This analysis will be of the last five years documents provided by the State of Texas on cases that received the death penalty. Denzin and Lincoln (2005) define this method as the examination of documents in the form of printed or manuscript sources, whether qualitative or quantitative. The information gained from this will be developed in a spreadsheet and in narrative. This will allow for narrative information for the paper to be developed as well as statistical data for the supporting structure. The analysis of documents generally contains two sources. Those are the primary, which came into existence during the period of the research, and the secondary which is the interpretation of events of a period based on the primary sources. In this study, the documentary analysis as a method of data collection is considered to be important for it would help the researcher look into the convictions in the State of Texas. As previously noted, the researcher will review executions performed by the State of Texas, the races of those perpetrators sentenced and the crime for which they were sentenced. A secondary piece of data that will be collected for statistical reasons will be the race of the victims involved. There are research concerns throughout this process as there are privacy policies, procedures and laws that affect the ability to review these documents. References Creswell, J.W. (2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approach (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc. Denzin, N.K., & Lincoln, Y.S. (2005). The Sage handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Haney, C. (2005). Death by design: Capital punishment as a social psychological system. NY: Oxford University Press. Read More