“This is a very good statistics book; it is user-friendly, logically structured, and provides novel information that is not available in other comparable textbooks.” — Viviana Andreescu, University of Louisville Statistics for Criminology and Criminal Justice, Fourth Edition offers students a practical and comprehensive introduction to statistics and highlights the integral role research and statistics play in the study of criminology and criminal justice. Packed with real-world case studies and contemporary examples utilizing the most current crime data and empirical research available, students not only learn how to perform and understand statistical analyses, but also recognize the connection between statistical analyses use in everyday life and its importance to criminology and criminal justice. Written by two well-known experts in the field, Ronet D. Bachman and Raymond Paternoster continue to facilitate learning by presenting statistical formulas with step-by-step instructions for calculation. This “how to calculate and interpret statistics” approach avoids complicated proofs and discussions of statistical theory, without sacrificing statistical rigor. The Fourth Edition is replete with new examples exploring key issues in today’s world, motivating students to investigate research questions related to criminal justice and criminology with statistics and conduct research of their own along the way. Table Of Contents CHAPTER 1: THE PURPOSE OF STATISTICS IN THE CRIMINOLOGICAL SCIENCES SETTING THE STAGE FOR STATISTICAL INQUIRY THE ROLE OF STATISTICAL METHODS IN CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE POPULATIONS AND SAMPLES HOW DO WE OBTAIN A SAMPLE? PROBABILITY SAMPLING TECHNIQUES NONPROBABILITY SAMPLING TECHNIQUES DESCRIPTIVE AND INFERENTIAL STATISTICS VALIDITY IN CRIMINOLOGY RESEARCH PART 1: Univariate Analysis: Describing Variable Distributions CHAPTER 2: LEVELS OF MEASUREMENT AND AGGREGATION LEVELS OF MEASUREMENT WAYS OF PRESENTING VARIABLE UNITS OF ANALYSIS CHAPTER 3: UNDERSTANDING DATA DISTRIBUTIONS THE TABULAR AND GRAPHICAL DISPLAY OF QUALITATIVE DATA THE SHAPE OF A DISTRIBUTION TIME PLOTS CHAPTER 4: MEASURES OF CENTRAL TENDENCY THE MODE THE MEDIAN THE MEAN CHAPTER 5: MEASURES OF DISPERSION MEASURING DISPERSION FOR NOMINAL- AND ORDINAL-LEVEL VARIABLES MEASURING DISPERSION FOR INTERVAL- AND RATIO-LEVEL VARIABLES THE STANDARD DEVIATION AND VARIANCE COMPUTATIONAL FORMULAS FOR VARIANCE AND STANDARD DEVIATION GRAPHING DISPERSION WITH EXPLORATORY DATA ANALYSIS (EDA) PART 2: Making Inferences in Univariate Analysis: Generalizing From a Sample to the Population CHAPTER 6: PROBABILITY, PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTIONS, AND AN INTRODUCTION TO HYPOTHESIS TESTING PROBABILITY. WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING! THE RULES OF PROBABILITY PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTIONS A DISCRETE PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION-THE BINOMIAL DISTRIBUTION HYPOTHESIS TESTING WITH THE BINOMIAL DISTRIBUTION A CONTINUOUS PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION-THE STANDARD NORMAL DISTRIBUTION SAMPLES, POPULATIONS, SAMPLING DISTRIBUTIONS, AND THE CENTRAL LIMIT THEOREM CHAPTER 7: POINT ESTIMATION AND CONFIDENCE INTERVALS MAKING INFERENCES FROM POINT ESTIMATES: COFIDENCE INTERVALS PROPERTIES OF GOOD ESTIMATES ESTIMATING A POPULATION MEAN FROM LARGE SAMPLES ESTIMATING CONFIDENCE INTERVALS FOR A MEAN FROM SMALL SAMPLES ESTIMATING CONFIDENCE INTERVALS FOR PROPORTIONS AND PERCENTS WITH A LARGE SAMPLE CHAPTER 8: FROM ESTIMATION TO STATISTICAL TESTS: HYPOTHESIS TESTING FOR ONE POPULATION MEAN AND PROPORTION HYPOTHESIS TESTING FOR POPULATION MEANS USING A LARGE SAMPLE: THE z TEST DIRECTIONAL AND NONDIRECTIONAL HYPOTHESIS TESTS HYPOTHESIS TESTING FOR POPULATION MEANS USING SMALL SAMPLES: THE t TEST HYPOTHESIS TESTING FOR POPULATION PROPORTIONS AND PERCENTS USING LARGE SAMPLES PART 3: Bivariate Analysis: Relationships Between Two Variables CHAPTER 9: TESTING HYPOTHESIS WITH CATEGORICAL DATA CONTINGENCY TABLES AND THE TWO VARIABLE CHI-SQUARE TEST OF INDEPENDENCE THE CHI-SQUARE TEST OF INDEPENDENCE A SIMPLE-TO-USE COMPUTATIONAL FORMULA FOR THE CHI-SQUARE TEST OF INDEPENDENCE MEASURES OF ASSOCIATION: DETERMINING THE STRENGTH OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TWO CATEGORICAL VARIABLES CHAPTER 10: HYPOTHESIS TESTS INVOLVING TWO POPULATION MEANS OR PROPORTIONS EXPLAINING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TWO SAMPLE MEANS SAMPLING DISTRIBUTION OF MEAN DIFFERENCES TESTING A HYPOTHESIS ABOUT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TWO MEANS: INDEPENDENT SAMPLES MATCHED-GROUPS OR DEPENDENT SAMPLES t TEST HYPOTHESIS TESTS FOR THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TWO PROPORTIONS: LARGE SAMPLES CHAPTER 11: HYPOTHESIS TESTING INVOLVING THREE OR MORE POPULATION MEANS: ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE THE LOGIC OF ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE TYPES OF VARIANCE: TOTAL, BETWEEN-GROUPS, AND WITHIN-GROUP CONDUCTING A HYPOTHESIS TEST WITH ANOVA AFTER THE F TEST: TESTING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PAIRS OF MEANS A MEASURE OF ASSOCIATION WITH ANOVA A SECOND ANOVA EXAMPLE: CASELOAD SIZE AND SUCCESS ON PROBATION A THIRD ANOVA EXAMPLE: REGION OF THE COUNTRY AND HOMICIDE CHAPTER 12: BIVARIATE CORRELATION AND REGRESSION GRAPHING THE BIVARIATE DISTRIBUTION BETWEEN TWO QUANTITATIVE VARIABLES: SCATTERPLOTS THE PEARSON CORRELATION COEFFICIENT A MORE PRECISE WAY TO INTERPRET A CORRELATION: THE COEFFICIENT OF DETERMINATION THE LEAST-SQUARES REGRESSION LINE AND SLOPE COEFFICIENT COMPARISON OF b AND r TESTING FOR THE SIGNIFICANCE OF b AND r THE PROBLEMS OF LIMITED VARIATION, NONLINEAR RELATIONSHIPS, AND OUTLIERS IN THE DATA PART 4: Multivariate Analysis: Relationships Between More Than Two Variables CHAPTER 13: CONTROLLING FOR A THIRD VARIABLE: MULTIPLE OLS REGRESSION WHAT DO WE MEAN BY CONTROLLING FOR OTHER IMPORTANT VARIABLES? THE MULTIPLE REGRESSION EQUATION COMPARING THE STRENGTH OF A RELATIONSHIP USING BETA WEIGHTS PARTIAL CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS HYPOTHESIS TESTING IN MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANOTHER EXAMPLE: PRISON DENSITY, MEAN AGE, AND RATE OF INMATE VIOLENCE CHAPTER 14: REGRESSION WITH A DICHOTOMOUS DEPENDENT VARIABLE: LOGIT MODELS ESTIMATING AN OLS REGRESSION MODEL WITH A DICHOTOMOUS DEPENDENT VARIABLE-THE LINEAR PROBABILITY MODEL THE LOGIT REGRESSION MODEL WITH ONE INDEPENDENT VARIABLE MULTIPLE LOGISTIC REGRESSION: MODELS WITH TWO INDEPENDENT VARIABLES APPENDIX A: Review of Basic Mathematical Operations APPENDIX B: Statistical Tables APPENDIX C: Solutions for Odd-Numbered Practice Problems