For this Assessment, you will design a research proposal for a crime issue affecting your community or region. Though you do not need to carry out the research proposal, it should be an implementable plan. The goal of this exercise is to allow you to look at criminal justice issues from the point of view of a researcher, examining the different facets of an issue that need to be taken into account to conduct research. This competency should expand your awareness of theories, designs, and methods that can be used to conduct criminal justice research, should you continue your studies at the doctoral level or be required to conduct research in your career.

The Assessment:

Design a study to examine the effect of crime on your community from both a quantitative and qualitative approach. Your study proposal should be 3–5 pages long and must include the following:

1. Choose a particular crime that is present in your community. Identify what is not yet known about the relationship between that particular crime and its effect on the community.
2. Formulate a research question that you could explore in a research study. Your question should be an extension of current research.
3. Select a population and a sampling technique to use for the research proposal. Describe the target population (including size of the population and other demographic and socioeconomic conditions, if known) and how you plan to sample it or whether you plan to use existing data.
4. Define your research variables (independent and dependent). Provide conceptual definitions of the key variables you need to measure.
5. Explain/ how you would measure each variable.
6. Identify survey instrument (if used): a list of survey questions that you would need to ask (if you plan to conduct a survey). If you choose existing data, be sure to provide evidence of reliability and validity and a description of the sample, concepts, and measures used in the original study. Also identify any limitations of the existing data.
7. Provide a description of mixed-methods approach taken.