Gun Violence: Qualitative and Quantitative Studies - Essay Example

? Gun Violence: Qualitative and Quantitative Studies Recent gun shootings have escalated public demands for employing diverse, often conflicting, measures of curbing gun violence. Some call for stricter gun control laws, while others espouse social changes, such as changes in how the media covers these events, where they tend to focus on the perpetrators of these shootings, and how people generally interact with and treat one another. The criminal topic for this paper is gun violence and its potential antecedents and causes. It compares and contrasts quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, using two quantitative and two qualitative research scholarly articles on gun violence. In the article, “Reassessing the Association between Gun Availability and Homicide at the Cross-National Level,” Altheimer and Boswell (2012) used quantitative cross-national research to elucidate the nature of the relationship between gun availability, gun homicide, and homicide. They conducted a series cross-sectional comparative research study, where they tried to understand gun violence from a qualitative perspective too, by analyzing the role of historical and cultural context in gun violence. Altheimer and Boswell (2012) chose three groups of countries that are historically and culturally different: West, Latin American, and Eastern European nations. Authors used random sampling but they considered the availability of data in choosing countries. Sampling included 43 nations. The independent variable was gun availability, while the dependent variables were gun homicide and homicide, where the timeframe of the data ranged the year 2000 to 2005. The control variables were “economic inequality, GDP/capita, male population between the ages of 15 to 34 (young males), social support, urbanization, sex ratio” (Altheimer & Boswell, 2012, p.690). Findings showed that countries did not show homogeneous results, when it came to the nature of relationship between gun availability, gun homicide, and homicide, and instead, cultural and social-historical factors at regional levels affected the strength of relationships among the studied variables. This article discussed research design issues such as the potential reciprocal effects of gun availability and gun homicide and not being able to determine differences between availability of long and short guns. Altheimer and Boswell (2012) were not able to reduce the possible reciprocal impacts of gun availability and gun homicide because they could not access an available instrumental valuable. Furthermore, they could not find out the availability of long and short guns, which may have an impact on gun homicide and homicide. After reading the article, the authors made significant measures to ensure the validity and reliability of their time-series and cross-sectional data, but they could have still improved their research design through including qualitative elements. Statistical analysis is not enough to explain why gun availability is associated with gun homicide and homicide. Phillips and Maume (2007) stressed the significance of aggressor’s violent tendencies and situation-specific elements as antecedents or causes of gun violence (p.275). Phillips, Matusko, and Tomasovic (2007) discovered the mediating effect of alcohol on male-to-male gun violence. These studies indicate that environmental and physiological factors also push people to use guns. Like Altheimer and Boswell (2012), Hoskin (2011) conducted a quantitative research to determine if gun availability affects three kinds of violent crimes: homicide, robbery, and aggravated assault. They tested this relationship between gun availability and gun violence using four different perspectives: 1) no effect, 2) instrumentality effect), 3) facilitation effect, and 4) deterrence effect. They used a county-based survey research design. To reduce the reciprocal effects of gun ownership and gun violence, authors studied these effects in their study too. Their dependent variables included gun ownership measure, eleven control variables, and three kinds of violent crimes. Hoskin (2011) used random sampling strategy, which resulted to a sample of 120 counties. To measure gun availability, they depended on survey-based household rates of gun ownership. Findings showed that household-level gun ownership affected homicide and aggravate assault rates, but not robbery. The results entirely supported the instrumentality theory, partially supported the facilitation thesis, and did not support the no-effect and deterrence theory. The weaknesses of the research design are the limitations of survey on gun ownership and exclusion of critical groups, who use guns for violent purposes. First, the telephone survey asked people if they owned a gun in the house. The answer may not always be reliable because the informant may not be knowledgeable of gun availability in the house or may be lying. Second, surveys depend on existing listed telephone numbers. Some gun owners may not have listed numbers, especially those with criminal lifestyles. Hoskin (2011) could have strengthened his research through finding alternative sources of gun ownership, such as surveys involving those who normally have guns but do not participate in surveys. Furthermore, like what has been suggested for Altheimer and Boswell (2012), Hoskin (2011) should have also examined the relationship between gun availability and intention to harm people, which can be based on aggressive tendencies or situation-specific factors. This paper proceeds to describing the research design of qualitative researches. In “Gang-Related Gun Violence: Socialization, Identity, and Self,” Stretesky and Pogrebin (2007) wanted to determine the effect of gang socialization on gun use for adolescent males in urban settings. They conducted in-depth interviews with twenty-two adolescent inmates. They were imprisoned because of convictions on gang-related gun violence. Their sample was taken from a larger study involving seventy-five inmates. Sampling strategy was random selection from this past larger sample. To ensure the validity of their sampling design, authors checked their file cases and confirmed that the participants were indeed gang members. Authors collected data in private rooms or empty visitation rooms/offices and assured the confidentiality and privacy of collected data. They stressed that they did not force their participants to answer questions and the latter had the decision to not answer questions that they were not comfortable with. Stretesky and Pogrebin (2007) used a semi-structured interview format to enable their participants to focus on important details regarding their gun use. Authors measured their data through finding general statements that could be characterized as gun use categories. Findings showed that gang membership led to social interaction that helped participants form masculinized identities, and that guns help them individually and collectively gain reputation and respect. Authors realized the weaknesses of the interview approach, particularly the impact of memory and impression management on the accuracy of the accounts. In addition, participants may have a different perception of their gun use, which can lead to use conflicting or ambiguous vocabulary. Nevertheless, Stretesky and Pogrebin (2007) expressed confidence that their participants were being honest and that for some case details, they confirmed them through studying the participants’ case files. They admitted that they did not establish a long-term relationship with the inmates, which was critical to ethnographic studies, because a stronger relationship can increase trust, thereby improving the reliability and validity of the participants’ accounts. Stretesky and Pogrebin (2007) could have improved their research by examining the accounts of the inmates more closely, differentiating excuses from justifications. These differences may have an impact on actual gun use and level of damage of gun use. Pogrebin, Stretesky, Prabha Unnithan, and Venor (2006) studied the retrospective accounts of inmates who were jailed for using guns in conducting their crimes. The sampling of Pogrebin et al. (2006) gave accounts of their gun use, where authors examined their employment of justification and excuses. Justifications pertain to accepting acceptability for actions, but not the negative judgments put on it, while excuses are used to reduce the responsibility for the action being questioned (Pogrebin et al., 2006, p.483). Findings showed that most explanations for gun use were divided into making justifications (saying the victim deserved the violence) and excuses (lack of knowledge and free will). These “reasons” can be connected on how inmates rationalize their use/non-use of guns in different situations. Black and Hausman (2008), nevertheless, confirmed that social identity affects gun use attitudes and behaviors among the youth. In another qualitative study, Wilkinson, McBryde, Williams, Bloom, and Bell (2009) studied the effect of peer context on gun use in “Peers and Gun Use among Urban Adolescent Males: An Examination of Social Embeddedness.” They interviewed 416 male offenders with gun-related cases. Inmates were selected through snow-balling techniques. Wilkinson et al. (2009) employed peer interviewers to conduct intensive interviews, which lasted one to two hours. These interviewers matched the participants in “proximate age, race/ethnicity, gender, and life experiences” (Wilkinson et al., 2009, p.27). Authors examined these independent variables “peer network composition, peer behavior (alcohol/drug use, peer gun carrying/use, and criminal behavior), and peer involvement in violent events” (Wilkinson et al., 2009, p.29). For data analysis, authors looked for themes and used these data analysis stages: “open coding, sifting and sorting, categorizing, checking for consistency, and examining interactions between and across categories and cases” (Wilkinson et al., 2009, p.307). Findings showed that social embeddedness affected gun possession, gun carrying, and gun use among participants, where gang members involved in these gun practices affected their own gun behaviors. Co-offending was also salient for participants. Potential weaknesses of the study, but which Wilkinson et al. (2009) did not discuss, are peer interview bias and problems of memory. Peer interviewers might not have developed the expertise needed to ensure that they conducted the interview to get the most accurate and valid results possible. Wilkinson et al. (2009) did not mention any tests they conducted to measure the effectiveness of their peer interviewers too. Furthermore, interviews can have memory issues. Lapses in memory or problems in expressing what fully happened can reduce the validity and reliability of the data. The qualitative and quantitative researches differ in research design, limitations, measurement and sampling techniques, and recommendations on enhancing validity, generalizability, and accuracy. Qualitative research designs are more flexible and more open to certain design changes, so that researchers can gather more data, which is evident in the intensive semi-structured interviews conducted. Qualitative study researchers also gather textual versus numerical data. Quantitative research designs are stable and employ numerical measures to assess relationships (Hagan, 2010). The advantages of qualitative research are that they can evoke responses that are meaningful and dominant to the participants, not expected by researchers, and rich and explanatory data. Data collection for quantitative research involves surveys, while for qualitative, they are done by peer interviewers or researchers themselves. Qualitative research can enhance validity of data collection measures, since they cannot use large sampling (i.e. Altheimer, 2008), while quantitative data need to enrich the exploratory nature of their data and analysis. This paper shows that qualitative and quantitative research tend to have differences in general framework, research design, measurement and sampling techniques, and limitations, and so recommendations to enhance their research usually aspire to respond to their common design weaknesses and limitations. References Altheimer, I., & Boswell, M. (2012). Reassessing the association between gun availability and homicide at the cross-national level. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 37(4), 682-704. Altheimer, I. (2008). Do guns matter? A multi-level cross-national examination of gun availability on assault and robbery victimization. Western Criminology Review, 9(2), 9-32. Black, S., & Hausman, A. (2008). Adolescents' views of guns in a high-violence community. Journal of Adolescent Research, 23(5), 592-610. Hagan, F. E. (2010). Research methods in criminal justice and criminology (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Hoskin, A. (2011). Household gun prevalence and rates of violent crime: A test of competing gun theories. Criminal Justice Studies, 24(1), 125-136. Phillips, S., & Maume, O.M. (2007). Have gun will shoot? Weapon instrumentality, intent, and the violent escalation of conflict. Homicide Studies, 11(4), 272-294. Phillips, S., Matusko, J., & Tomasovic, E. (2007). Reconsidering the relationship between alcohol and lethal violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 22(1), 66-84. Pogrebin, M., Stretesky, P., Prabha Unnithan, N., & Venor, G. (2006). Retrospective accounts of violent events by gun offenders. Deviant Behavior, 27(4), 479-501. Stretesky, P.B., & Pogrebin, M.R. (2007). Gang-related gun violence: Socialization, identity, and self. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 36(1), 85-114. Wilkinson, D.L., McBryde, M.S., Williams, B., Bloom, S., & Bell, K. (2009). Peers and gun use among urban adolescent males: An examination of social embeddedness. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 25(1), 20-44. Read More