Testing Causation in Criminological Research
Criminology is interested in looking at crime and its relation to society. To do this criminologists often research causes of crime and factors for its occurrence. One way in which this is accomplished is through causation studies. Causation is a type of research method that examines and tries to interpret trends. Examining these methods helps criminologists look at ways to prevent crime and help determine underlying causes of crime. Causality is defined as a directional relationship between one event and another event, which is the result of the first. To look at causality in regards to criminology we can look at factors that effect why crime rates are higher in some areas as opposed to others. Studies have been conducted that show poverty, graduation rates, unemployment rates, police and corrections funding, and income inequality. Below are different theories that mechanisms that are believed to have a relation to crime, and specific case studies where these are applied.
Read more about this topic: Quantitative Methods In Criminology
Famous quotes containing the words testing, causation and/or research:
“Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best 20-20 hindsight. It’s good for seeing where you’ve been. It’s good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can’t tell you where you ought to go.”
—Robert M. Pirsig (b. 1928)
“The very hope of experimental philosophy, its expectation of constructing the sciences into a true philosophy of nature, is based on induction, or, if you please, the a priori presumption, that physical causation is universal; that the constitution of nature is written in its actual manifestations, and needs only to be deciphered by experimental and inductive research; that it is not a latent invisible writing, to be brought out by the magic of mental anticipation or metaphysical mediation.”
—Chauncey Wright (1830–1875)
“Our science has become terrible, our research dangerous, our findings deadly. We physicists have to make peace with reality. Reality is not as strong as we are. We will ruin reality.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)