The Effects of Social Bonds on the Propensity to Commit a Crime - Literature review Example

Two articles illustrating quantitative and qualitative research One of the ways to categorize research is to categorize them in terms of quantitative versus qualitative research. Quantitative research typically use inferential statistics or descriptive statistics employing concepts related to mean, median, mode, and standard deviations. The inferential statistics usually involve statistics pertaining to statistical significance associated with null and alternate hypotheses. Typically, the null and alternate hypotheses follow the protocol for the statistics itself. For example, there are definite protocols on what null and alternate hypotheses to adopt for ANOVA versus those that are applicable to correlation statistics. Meanwhile, qualitative research refers to research that “produces findings not arrived at by statistical procedures or other means of quantification” (Strauss and Corbin 1998, p. 10-11). It is appropriate for “persons’ lives, lived experiences, behaviours, emotions, and feelings as well as about organizational functioning, social movements, cultural phenomena, and interactions between nations” (Strauss and Corbin 1998, p. 11). It is interpretative (Strauss and Corbin 1998, p. 11). For making the distinction and discuss the difference between the two, we discuss two articles: one on quantitative research and the other on qualitative research to understand better the two types of research. We point out however that there are mixed research methods. 1.0. Lo and Zhong (2006) The work of Lo and Zhong (2006) explored how the variable gender intervenes on the effects of “structural factors” on crime rates. In particular, Lo and Zhong argued that while people face the same “structural factors”, the effects of these factors can be modified by gender (2006, p. 318). Following up the work of earlier scholars, Lo and Zhong study pointed out that macro-level social ties can have effects on crime that exceed those of the “traditional structural-disadvantage factors” (p. 318). The authors argue that theory provides a basis to believe that structural disadvantages can explain crime (p. 319). The authors argue that social control rooted in strong relationships developed from marriage and employment can strongly influence the crime rates (p. 319). Lo and Zhong argued that strong social ties are built from relationships like marital relationships such that when the likelihood of family disruption increase, the likelihood of deviance also increase (p. 319). Thus, they hypothesized that when married people largely populate a locality, the demographics will likely indicate mutual obligations and will therefore discourage deviance (p. 319). Interpersonal relationships therefore discourage or reduce deviance while weak or absence of personal relationship encourages deviance. In the same manner, Lo and Zhong argued that employment “institutes a relationship between individuals and economic organizations" relationships among workers as well and discourage deviance (p. 319). Thus, Lo and Zhong believe that areas with a high rate of unemployment imply weak social ties and will therefore imply high criminality rates. Similarly, areas with high divorce ratio will also imply high criminality rates because of the weaker social ties (Lo and Zhong, 2006, p. 319). At the same time, Lo and Zhong argued that unlike men, women are able to derive strong relationships not only from workplaces (p. 320). Men, on the other hand, Lo and Zhong argued, derive relationships from their workplaces more strongly than women do. Further, unlike women, men are more dependent on their wives for emotion support than women are on their husbands (Lo and Zhong, 2006, p. 320). Thus, Lo and Zhong argued that in the event of divorce, men lose more social support than women (p. 320). For instance, Lo and Zhong argued, women tend to assume more responsibility for their children in the event of a divorce. Thus, consistent with the foregoing, Lo and Zhong formulated the following hypotheses that apply to the effect of gender on the role of social ties on criminality (p. 319 and 320): 1. Gender unemployment promotes higher arrest rate for the gender. 2. High married-to-divorced rate promotes high arrest rate for the gender. 3. The relationship between the divorce ratio and arrest rate differ for the two genders. 4. The relationship between unemployment rate and arrest rate are different for the two genders. To test hypotheses, Lo and Zhong examined the crime rate data of the adult population of Ohio, United States, but limited the coverage of their study to jurisdictions that reported arrest numbers for various crimes in 1989 to 1991 that Lo and Zhong believe to correspond to the 1990 US census. The 1989 to 1991 arrest records were obtained from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The other demographic variables were derived from the US population or census figures as well as from the Ohio Board of Elections for data on voting participation. Transformation or interpolation/extrapolation of data, however, was necessary. For instance, some of the data for the male and female population were inferred through logarithmic transformations (Lo and Zhong, 2006, p. 321). Lo and Zhong employed negative binomial regressions for the test of hypotheses and invoked the results from the regressions for the following conclusions (p. 324-327: The link between unemployment among women and rate of arrest for violent crimes are strongly linked. Falling unemployment appears to move both men and women away from criminality although the results for this are not statistically significant. Marriage is a powerful condition that constrain both men and women from involvement in both violent and property crimes. Relationships are strong predictors of arrest rates. Employment provides both men and women, especially women, strong control over violent behavior. Based on the information provided by the negative binomial regression model, a 1% rise in the unemployment rate is associated with a 7% increase in burglary arrest rate among males. In contrast, 1% increase in the unemployment rate among females is associated with a 20% increase in motor vehicle theft arrest rate. The link between employment and burglary, however, is not significant among women. A 5-point increase in the value of the married-to-divorce ratio is associated with a 62% fewer arrest for assault among men. Gendered variables for unemployment and married-to-divorced ratios are generally better for women’s arrest for violent crimes than for men. 2.0. Leverentz (2006) Meanwhile, in Leverentz (2006), the author studied the effects of romantic relationships on the efforts of female ex-offenders to turn a new leaf. Leverentz began from an assumption that both male and female offenders draw romantic partners from different groups and employed qualitative interviews with 49 female ex-offenders and their partners. She articulated her belief that her study found that women ex-offenders most often have relationships with recovering drug users and/or ex-offenders (p. 459). Related to this and drawing from the work of several scholars, Leverentz asserted that women play a significant role in understanding how males abandon a life of crime as wives stabilize the male ex-offenders’ lives (p. 460). Unlike the women ex-offenders, however, the relationships that men develop are usually with prosocial women or with women without current or former involvements in crime (p. 460). Nevertheless, Leverentz argued that there is ample reason to suspect that men play an important role in female desistance (p. 460). Leverentz has proposed that the women ex-offenders’ relationships with their partners who are recovering drug users and/or ex-offenders are better seen as both “destructive” and “conventionalizing” for the women at various points in their lives. However, Leverentz was also quick to point out that women ex-offenders have a phase wherein they consciously but temporarily avoided romantic relationships. Leverentz observed that researchers typically define a prosocial partner in a relationship as someone who has no history of law offense or incarceration and, at the same time, committed to abide to the laws. Following the logic of the said researchers, this readily implies that male recovering drug-users and ex-offenders with whom the women ex-offenders have related can easily be classified as antisocial partners for the female ex-offenders. The study of Leverentz focused on this concern. Only 8.1% of the 49 women interviewed by the Leverentz study were married and about two-thirds were never married. Leverentz say that her data are consistent with the figures of the Illinois Department of Correction population in which 11% were married and 67.7% were never married (p. 462). Following up from other works, however, Leverentz did not consider her data set to be a liability as strong relationships can take place even outside of marriage. Leverentz did not explicitly say that strong relationships can exist outside of marriage and, thus, this sentence may be contestable. Nevertheless, this is what seems to be a fair interpretation of the Leverentz material. Of course, the Leverentz material covered a lot more topics than this topic. Leverentz pointed out that in order for marriage to be a barrier against living a life of crime, the bond embodied in marriage must be strong enough to deter the commission of an offense (p. 462). Leverentz pointed out that cohabitation is one possible relationship for the non-married respondents (p. 462). At the same time, Leverentz recognized that marriage can bring about a strong relationship and can lead to a decrease in the time spent with peers who may be offenders or with a propensity to be offenders (p. 461). Leverentz also recognized that the decrease in time spent with offenders or those with a propensity to be offenders may contribute to a lower rate of offending (p. 461). Most importantly, citing the study of Sampson and Lamb (1993, p. 190-191), Leverentz pointed out the most marriages originate from chance contacts and, therefore, what seems to be weak bond can become a strong bond (p. 461-462). Citing Laub and Simpson (2003), Leverentz pointed out that men marry up while women marry down when exposed to a life of violence and crime (p. 462). Leverentz pointed out however that we must look at the effect of unmarried relationships with women ex-offenders in terms of continuum or as that which can eventually lead to marriage. Although Leverentz described her study as a one that involves qualitative interviews, Leverentz made use of univariate descriptive statistics such as count, percentage assessment, and mean. This is clear in Table 1 of her article (p. 463). Further, the method used in her research in not really limited to the analysis of qualitative interviews but included the analysis of earlier research or the method of literature review. Leverentz study actually combined qualitative interviews and the consolidation, integration, and analysis of works done on the subject. It seems that the principal role of qualitative interviews in the Leverentz study was not to articulate new findings but to assert the correctness of earlier findings, elaborate on the findings, and state the earlier findings more systematically and repackage the finding that were treated earlier as not-so-significant to become findings that have the status of “major findings”. Thus, the work of Leverentz provided narrative support to the Leverentz perspective from the life stories of 49 women ex-offenders. In describing the qualitative interview, Leverentz said that she employed an inductive approach, learning from respondent the issues that are important in their lives and adding questions on these in subsequent interviews. In other words, the interview questions are not fixed but can evolve as the interview progresses with the interviewer factoring in questions whose necessity became obvious as answers to the earlier questions are provided by the interviewee. Moreover, the qualitative interviews have been implemented in four sessions over a year unlike the “quantitative research interviews” that are usually implemented within a few minutes or hours. In addition to the interviews with the 49 women, the qualitative interviews included interviews with two boyfriends, a husband, and a fiancée. Further, two pairs of women became romantically involved with each other during the interviews and they were included in the interview sample (Leverentz, p. 468). Thus, in a qualitative research, unlike quantitative research, sample size decisions can be easily revised during the research process. 3.0. Comparison and Analysis Essentially both articles discuss the effects of social bonds on the propensity to commit a crime. The quantitative research of Lo and Zhong (2006) discusses the role of social bonds in general while the qualitative (or mixed between quantitative and qualitative) research of Leverentz discusses how social bonds can help women ex-offenders turn a new leaf and abandon a life of crime. Lo and Zhong (2006) used agency data and employed a statistical procedure known as negative binomial regression to derive inferences from their data while Leverentz (2006) employed qualitative interviews that used respondents’ narratives to check whether her hypotheses are supportive by the respondents’ narrative. One can say that Leverentz (2006) prior to the research does not have hypotheses at all but arrive at one during her research such that when the Leverentz research was written it appeared that the Leverentz research had a set of hypotheses. Recall that Leverentz began her write-up with an abstract such that it appeared that there was a hypotheses prior to the research. The validity of the Lo and Zhong (2006) inferences can only be adequately assessed if we are able to find out the details of the statistics but both the literature and references on the negative binomial regressions are not adequate to do this. However, we can point out that association does not automatically imply causation and, thus, the validity of the Lo and Zhong (2006) can be questioned on this ground. Meanwhile, the narratives in the Leverentz data are adequate to say that the Leverentz findings are valid for her cases because of the direct testimonial statements of the respondents on the role of their romantic relationships in the turning towards a new leaf of the female ex-offenders. Both the Lo and Zhong (2006) and Leverentz (2006) studies can be criticized for the limited reliability of their research. For one, the Lo and Zhong (2006) study can be argued to be applicable for their case while the Leverentz (2006) can be faulted for possible bias (but this cannot be proven) in the way questions were asked or whether Leverentz used leading questions among the respondents. The study of Lo and Zhong (2006) are relatively insulated from ethical issues as only documentary data were used and there was probably complete anonymity. However, in the case of the study of Leverentz, ethical issues can be raised but Leverentz did not provide data whether anonymity were assured among the respondents or whether authorities were used to force respondents to accommodate the researcher’s inquiries. In particular, there was no story from Leverentz whether there was informed consent from the respondents when Leverentz pried data from them. Bibliography Jupp, V. 2006. The Sage Dictionary of Social Research Methods. London: Sage Publications Ltd. Kalof, L., Dan, A., and Dietz, T. 2008. Essentials of social research. Berkshire: The McGraw-Hill Companies. Laub, J. and Sampson, R. 2003. Shared beginnings, divergent lives: Delinquent boys to age 70. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Leverentz, A. 2006. The love of a good man? Romantic relationships as a source of support or hindrance for female ex-offenders. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 43 (4), 459-488. Available from: http://jrc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/43/4/459 [June 2010]. Lo, C. and Zhong, H. 2006. Linking crime rates to relationship factors: The use of gender-specific data. Journal of Criminal Justice, 34, 317-329. Sampson, R. and Laub, J. 1993. Crime in the making: Pathways and turning points through life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Social Research Association. 2003. Ethical guidelines. United Kingdom: Social Science Research Association. Straus, A. and Corbin, J. 1998. Basics of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Read More