Statistical Analysis in Criminal Justice

Statistical Analysis in Criminal Justice
Name:
Institution:
Statistical Analysis in Criminal Justice
Over the past one decade, the Criminology field has seen a widespread use of sophisticated statistical analyses. Policymakers, philanthropists and other parties involved in the reformation of criminal justice policies and practice make use of statistical analyses to help them accomplish that mandate (Walker & Maddan, 2012). Statistical analysis is a component of data analytics that involves collecting and scrutinizing collected data with the goal of identifying trends (Vito & Latessa, 1989). In the Criminal Justice or Security Management Research statistical analysis focuses on inference which is the process of coming up with a conclusion based on data that is already known by the researcher.
Traditional methods that ranges from data sampling to results interpretation have been in use for many years in the security management research. However, statistics has been made more valuable and powerful by the existence of data volumes in today’s world (Miethe, 2006). Affordable storage such as powerful computers has led to an increase in the use of computational statistics. Some of the popular statistical computing practices available in Criminal Justice system include; Statistical programming, Operations research and Statistical visualization (Miethe, 2006).
In Criminal Justice, the basic statistical techniques used in criminal justice research are helpful in examining how the examined information can be used to interpret the nature of crime and theories of crime causation. It is important to note that statistical analysis is that science used to examine the data that has been collected. Statistical analysis involves the empirical techniques that will be applied in the data analysis process. After data has been collected, they are then examined to determine their correctness and completeness. Statistical computing practices are applied such as keying and coding data into SPSS to perform an analysis
(Clough & Jenny, 2000).
The examined data is essential to guide and inform the state and local policymaking agencies, and the administration of justice on the nature of crime and theories of crime causation so as to improve the quality of and access information used for decision making. In order to understand trends and emerging crime patterns in criminal justice at the local, state, national and global, the basic statistical techniques are used (Clough & Jenny, 2000). The advanced Criminal Justice Statistics are used by professionals to analyze and report on criminal justice data through the use of advanced statistical formulas and computations. In the Criminal Justice there has been a need to focus on innovative programs that contributes to the Agency’s strategies that emphasizes on issues such as violent crime, drug control and the overall improvement of the criminal justice system. Statistical analysis utilized by various statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Justice are helpful in identifying what works and what does not work (Walker & Maddan, 2012).
Research in U.S. Department of Justice is critical to facilitate in the development of sound criminal justice policies. I...