Juvenile Delinquency: A Qualitative Study

The researcher created twenty surveys, which were provided to students that study criminal justice at a university. The survey was completely anonymous to secure the confidentiality of the participants. The researcher’s first concern was to find out if the participants had ever experienced juvenile delinquency, meaning themselves or with someone else. The first step when analyzing the data was to read through each of the answers quickly to become familiar with the answers referred to as open coding. Notes were then made regarding the researcher’s overall thoughts about the answers. The researcher noted who had experience juvenile delinquency and many concepts and categories such as parental substance abuse, socioeconomics, and intervention. …show more content…
Once the participants were numbered a chart was created to tally up the answers of each participant. Each survey was read through multiple times and then they received a tally where they answered on the chart. The chart was created to establish the consistency of the participants and to better understand the views of each of them individually. It was critical that the researcher understand each person rather than all together. Once the chart was tallied with each answer of the participants, it was then examined further. The chart was examined further to help answer the research question of how juvenile delinquency relates to family life with factors such as parental substance abuse, socioeconomic status, and intervention. Each survey was highlighted in different colors to represent the participants who answered similarly. The highlighting method worked extremely well to group participants when looking at the data as a whole. Specific categories that stood out during the survey process were the parents using both drug and alcohol, wealthier people being less likely to be criminal, and that children should have programs set up to aid them when they are in trouble and to keep them out of