Analysis Of Juvenile Gun Violence Statistics Research Paper

To achieve the purposes of quantitative research, it is necessary to collect the research data, to describe it using appropriate methods of descriptive statistics and to analyze the data using approaches that allow establishing relationship between variables. In the current research devoted to analyzing juvenile gun violence statistics, it is optimal to report the central tendency measures for all variables and to consider the types of guns used by male and female juvenile offenders.

There are the following variables in the study: gender (male and female), race (white, black or other), age (in years), the variable noting whether the gun was stolen (1 – yes, 0 – no), type of gun (handgun, rifle and shotgun), the variable showing whether youth used drugs or alcohol at the time of crime (1 – yes, 0 – no), and the number of prior violent crimes. To determine the measures of central tendency for these variables, it is necessary to determine variable types and to select the optimal central tendency measure for each of them.

Gender variable is a dummy variable which only has two values, 0 and 1. For such variables, a typical central tendency measure is the percentage of answers corresponding to value 1 (Salkind, 2010). The same approach to measuring central tendency should be used for variables “Was the gun stolen?” and “Was youth using drugs or alcohol at time?”. Race variable is a categorical variable which has three different values that cannot be compared to each other. For such variables, the only available measure of central tendency is the mode (the most frequently occurring variable value). It is notable that there might be several modes in the dataset. The same approach should be used for the variable denoting the type of gun, since it also has non-comparable categorical values (although they are coded as 1, 2 and 3).

Age variable (indicated in years) is a numeric variable which can take up values above zero. For this variable, the most appropriate central tendency measure is the mean which is determined as the sum of all values divided by their count (Utts & Heckard, 2014). Finally, the variable denoting the number of prior violent crimes is also numeric, but it would be best to measure central tendency for this variable using median because the distribution of values is highly skewed (most values for this variable are 0) (Utts & Heckard, 2014).

Table 1 shows the results of calculating the central tendency for all variables.

Gender Race Age Was the gun stolen? Type of gun Was youth using drugs or alcohol at time? Number of prior violent crimes
80% males White (40%), Black (40%) 15.5 70% yes Handgun (70%) 60% yes 0

Table 1. Central tendency measures for juvenile gun violence data set

It is possible to see that the majority of juvenile offenders were male (80%). It should be noted that there were two modes for Race variable – White and Black (40% each). Mean age of juvenile offenders constitutes 15.5. The majority of offenders used a stolen gun (70%) and were using drugs or alcohol at time (60%). The most frequently used type of gun was handgun (70%). Finally, the median number of prior crimes is 0.

The use of different types of guns by males and females is shown on Fig. 1. It is notable that men did not use shotguns, and women did not use rifles. However, such difference might be conditioned by the small size of the dataset.

Figure 1. Distribution of gun type use according to gender

Basing on the analysis, it is possible to develop the following policy recommendations. Preventive measures and trainings should be targeted at males in the first place, and should not be race-specific (as Whites and Blacks were equally represented in the dataset). Although it is reasonable to prevent repeated offences, the data illustrate that the majority of crimes are committed by juvenile offenders with no previous history of violent crimes. It is important to educate youth about the use of drugs and alcohol, and reduce the rates of substance use among young people. In addition, it is important to establish more thorough control over guns.

 

References

Salkind, N.J. (2010). Encyclopedia of Research Design. SAGE.

Utts, J. & Heckard, R. (2014). Mind on Statistics. Cengage Learning.

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

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"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016.

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

freeessays.club (2016) The terms offer and acceptance [Online].
Available at:

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]
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