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1. 1
Agency Records,
Content Analysis, and
Secondary Data

2. •Agency records, secondary data, and content
analysis do not require direct interaction with
research subjects
•Data from agency records – Agencies collect a
vast amount of crime and CJ data
•Secondary analysis – Analyzing data previously
collected
•Content analysis – Researchers examine a class
of social artifacts (typically written documents)
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3. •Most commonly used in descriptive or
exploratory
•Topics appropriate to research using content
analysis center on the important links between
communication, perceptions of crime problems,
individual behavior, and criminal justice policy
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4. •Published Statistics
•Nonpublic Agency Records
•New Data Collected by Agency Staff
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5. •Government organizations routinely collect and
publish compilations of data
•FBI, Census Bureau, BJS, Federal Bureau of
Prisons, Administrative Office of US Courts
•Often available in libraries and online
•Ted Robert Gurr (1989)
•Used published statistics on violent crime dating
back to thirteenth-century England to examine how
social and political events affected patterns of
homicide through 1984
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6. •Agencies produce data not routinely released
•Police departments, courthouses, correctional
facilities, BJS: Correctional Population in the US,
National Center for State Courts: Court Caseload
Statistics
•Child Abuse, Delinquency & Adult Arrests
•Crime Hot Spots: Geographic areas and times of
day that signal concentrations of various types of
crime
•Agency Records as Measures of Decision Making
•“Expect the Expected”
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7. •Collected for specific research purposes
•Less costly, more control
•“Hybrid" source: Combines the collection of new
data—through observation or interviews—with day-
to-day criminal justice agency activities
•Need to obtain the cooperation of organizations
and staff
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8. •If you use agency records, be attentive to
match or mismatch between units of analysis
appropriate for research question and units of
analysis represented in aggregate form
•You can go from individual to aggregate, but
not aggregate to individual
•Sampling: Taking subsets of agency records is
relatively simple and quite useful
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9. Criminal Activity
•Incidents
•Crimes violated
•Victims
•Offenders
Court Activity
•Defendants
•Filings
•Charges and Counts
•Cases
•Appearances
•Dispositions
•Sentences
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Apprehension
•Arrests
•Offenders
•Charges
•Counts
Corrections
•Offenders
•Admissions
•Returns
•Discharges

10. •Virtually all CJ record keeping is a social process
– “social production of data”
•Records reflect decisions made by CJ personnel as
well as actual behavior by juveniles and adults
•Discretion factors in to recordkeeping
•CJ organizations are more interested in keeping
track of individual cases than in examining
patterns
•Potential for clerical errors increases with the
volume of data
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11. •Systematic study of messages – can be applied
to virtually any form of communication
•Decide on operational definitions of key variables
•Decide what to watch, read, listen to & time frame
•Analyze collected data
•As a mode of observation, content analysis requires
a considered handling of the what, and the analysis
of data collected in this mode, as in others,
addresses the why and with what effect
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12. •First establish your universe, then your units of
analysis and sampling frame, then sample
•Communications need to be coded according to
some conceptual framework
•Choice between depth & specificity of
understanding:
•Manifest content: Visible, surface content – similar
to using closed-ended survey questions
•Latent content: Underlying meaning
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13. •Reminders:
•Remember operational definition of variables,
and their mutually exclusive & exhaustive
attributes
•Pretest coding scheme
•Assess coding reliability via intercoder reliability
method and test-retest method
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14. •Chermak (1998) sampled all crime stories from
every 5th day in first 6 months of 1990 – 1,557
•Sought to see how content determines
allotment of space and prominence of place
(inches of coverage in paper, where stories were
placed, size of headlines)
•Also coded offense type, # of crimes, weapon
usage, location, offender/victim characteristics
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15. •Thompson & Haninger (2001) sampled 55 of over
600 E-rated games
•Experienced undergrad gamer played for 90 minutes
or until game reached natural conclusion
•Experienced gamer/researcher and undergrad gamer
reviewed videotape of videogaming session
•Coded: # of violent incidents, # of deaths,
drugs/alcohol/tobacco, profanity and sexual behavior,
weapon use, explicit music
•Measured duration of violent acts and # of deaths to
length of game playing for standardized measures
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16. •Rosenfeld, Bray, and Egley (1999): how gang
membership might facilitate homicide in different
ways
•Content analysis of police case files for homicides in
St. Louis over a 10-year period
•Gang-motivated killings: Resulted from gang
behavior or relationships, such as an initiation ritual,
the ‘throwing' of gang signs, or a gang fight
•Gang-affiliated homicides: Involves a gang member
as victim or offender, but with no indication of
specific gang activity
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17. •Data collected by other researchers are often
used to address new research questions
•Sources: websites (BJS, NCVS, ICPSR, NACJD),
libraries
•Advantages – cheaper, faster, benefit from
work of skilled researchers
•Disadvantages – data may not be appropriate
to your research question; least useful for
evaluation studies (which are designed to answer
specific questions about specific programs),
validity
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