CRIMINAL JUSTICE RESEARCH

Criminal Justice Research

Criminal Justice Research

Introduction

Studies show that criminal behavior is motivated by a feeling of injustice that individuals experience when they become aware that other people are having advantaged in the justice system. Relative deprivation is thus a social-psychological construct that arises from a subjective perception of inequity in the justice system. The notion that social inequality is a key component in the genesis of unlawful motivation is also a subject of this research.

Many researchers have focused on exploring the impact of inequality on the enforcement of the criminal law. Investigation identified general view conflict, rather than consensus, as the fundamental structural feature of society (Maxfield, 2008). These researches show that crime relates to the competitive struggle between social groups with laws generally reflecting the norms, values, and interests of the predominant group.Research Objective

This paper intends to identify knowledge domains that are appropriate and suitable for research related to criminal justice. Main purpose of the research is to investigate how does inequality in criminal justice system leads to criminal behavior and how the criminal justice professional try balancing the equality in the justice system. 

Interview Structure

General interview guide approach is appropriate to use in qualitative researches when causal relation to the impact is not properly identified. Therefore, “in-depth interview” technique will be used in this research to investigate the impact of injustice in criminal justice system in criminal behavior, and level of effort being displayed by criminal justice professionals. A combination of structured and unstructured open-ended questions will be used in the research that will provide comparable responses and ancillary data (Bayens, 2010). Research interests are relatively clear and relatively well defined. 

The in-depth interview is highly suitable for the research because it will provide information about general concepts to investigate factors that impact the effectiveness of criminal justice system. This interview technique will enable to investigate factors that are important and meaningful to the respondents, and understand how respondent classify and interprets the causal factors (Bachman, 2010). Because the scope of research is not limited to one causal factor, therefore, this technique is very useful when trying to analyze issues that require considerable anonymity (Bachman, 2010). This will enable to gather rich information about issues related to criminal justice through open-ended questions.

In-depth interview will provide an opportunity to clarify issues in a more dynamic and unprompted way through semi-structured questions. This technique is highly valid in exploratory researches. The depth interview answers directly attribute to a participant, which can be defined by their characteristics and attitudes. This technique can give a free exchange of information without any social pressure to agree or disagree with the group (Miller, 2007).

Interview Questions

Some of the interview questions that will be asked from criminal justice professionals include:

To what extent do you feel inequality exist at any stage in criminal justice system of our country?

Do all people have strong faith in our criminal justice system?

Do accused people feel safe in police custody? Do some criminal feel like they have to protect themselves?

What factors affect the perception of people about criminal justice system?

What is the most important issue law enforcement departments are facing today?

How should the system be improved?

What ...