FUNDAMENTALS OF STATISTICS

Fundamentals of Statistics

Fundamentals of Statistics

Introduction

Imprisonment can be considered the final stage of criminal proceedings, starting point of which is a crime and that includes the investigation, detention of suspects, trial and sentencing. Treatment of offenders in the criminal justice system determined the number of prisoners, which in turn has a significant impact on methods of prison management. On the other hand, the criminal justice system is under the influence of public policy and the current political climate, which is largely determined by the society in democratic countries electing government through elections.

Discussion

The data set for the study has been collected from a sample of survey conducted on the population of American Inmate Union (AIU); American Inmates Union (AIU) has assembled a team of researchers in the United States and around the world to study inmates' satisfaction with the criminal justice system. This survey consists of two sections; first one is the qualitative section that includes variables of Gender, Age, Types of Offense, Facility and Length of sentence, while the second section includes variables that are CJ System, Legal Services, Sentence Satisfaction and Incarceration Services. The sample consists of 25 respondents that were interviewed through the survey, survey questionnaire is designed in such a way that we could find out the satisfaction level of the inmates with criminal justice system.

For categorical variables such as age or the gender, we want to know the number of cases in each of the categories, usually reflecting the percentage they represent of the total, and expressing it in a frequency table. We have applied descriptive statistics on the data set, it is a big part of the statistic that is dedicated to analyze and represent data. Although there is a tendency to generalize the entire population, the first conclusions reached after a descriptive analysis is a study by calculating a series of measures of central tendency, to see to what extent the data is grouped or scattered around a central value. The tables below represent the frequencies of the qualitative variables included in our study, it can be seen that the female respondents that were covered in the survey were 5 while all the remaining participants i.e. 20 were male.

Gender

Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Valid

Female

5

20.0

20.0

20.0

Male

20

80.0

80.0

100.0

Total

25

100.0

100.0

The table below shows that 9 of the total respondents belong to the first age group that covers the age limit from 16-21 while 9 other respondents belongs to the second age that covers the age limit from 22-49 which is the adult group. Last group that covers the age limit from 50-65 consist of 7 only respondents.

Age

Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Valid

16 - 21

9

36.0

36.0

36.0

22 - 49

9

36.0

36.0

72.0

50 - 65

7

28.0

28.0

100.0

Total

25

100.0

100.0

Similarly, the tables in the appendix show that nine respondents have committed homicide; nine were involved in robbery whereas 7 find out guilty for burglary offenses. The data set shows that 52% (i.e. 13) of the prisoners are in federal prison while the remaining 48% (i.e. 12) of the respondents are in State prison. The sample shows that 40% of the respondents that comprises of ...