Chapter 11Agency Records, Content Analysis, and Secondary Data

We'll examine three sources of existing data: agency records, content analysis, and data collected by other researchers. Data from these sources have many applications in criminal justice research.

Main Points

  • Data and records produced by formal organizations may be the most common source of data in criminal justice research.
  • Many public organizations produce statistics and data for the public record, and these data are often useful for criminal justice researchers.
  • All organizations keep nonpublic records for internal operational purposes, and these records are valuable sources of data for criminal justice research.
  • Public organizations can sometimes be enlisted to collect new data--through observation or interviews--for use by researchers.
  • The units of analysis represented by agency data may not always be obvious, because agencies typically use different, and often unclear, units of count to record information about people and cases.
  • Although agency records have many potential research uses, because they are produced for purposes other than research they may be unsuitable for a specific study.
  • Researchers must be especially attentive to possible reliability and validity problems when they use data from agency records.
  • "Follow the paper trail" and "Expect the expected" are two general maxims for researchers to keep in mind when using agency records in their research.
  • Content analysis is a research method appropriate for studying human communications. Because communication takes many forms, content analysis can be many other aspects of behavior.
  • Types of communication, such as words, paragraphs, and books, are the usual units of analysis in content analysis.
  • Coding is the process of transforming raw data--either manifest or latent content--into a standardized, quantitative form.
  • Secondary analysis refers to the analysis of data collected earlier by another researcher for some purpose other than the topic of the current study.
  • Archives of criminal justice and other social data are maintained by the ICPSR and the NACJD for use by other researchers.
  • The advantages and disadvantages of using secondary data are similar to those for agency records--data previously collected by some researcher may not match our own needs.