Aim of Study The increase of women involved with the criminal justice system (CJS) is become a concern for government, advocacy groups, communities, and society as a whole. This increase has had direct observable consequences on the CJS (e.g., prison overcrowding, substandard services for women), and as a result, there has been growing media attention on the problem. This course and the final research project can be seen as a simulation of a job assignment/contract as follows: With the increasing media attention to women in the CJS, there is mounting pressure for the government to respond effectively to the issue. A new Commissioner has been appointed for NSW Corrections. They want to know what the empirical literature says about women offenders. Your job is to provide a systematic and critical review of the existing literature, analyse the findings from empirical studies on the topic, and formulate recommendations for NSW Corrections. Research Question: 1.What is the impact of parental monitoring on female juvenile delinquency? 2.Is the impact of abuse(sex&physical) a predictor of the female juvenile delinquency? Structure: 1. TITLE 2. INTRODUCTION Provide a brief background of the relevant literature to contextualize your paper. Use what you wrote in your proposal, but you will most likely need to elaborate. What is your rationale for conducting this research? Why is this research important? Make sure that this brief literature review is linked to your research questions and leads to the aim of study. 3. AIM OF STUDY Your aim of study section should be brief and specific. It should flow from your introduction. For example: “The current study aims to examine women’s experiences with …”; “The goal of this study is to understand how women involved with the criminal justice system…”; “In order to improve criminal justice policy for women, the current study will assess…”. First, you should present your general aim of study. Second, you should provide explicit research questions. a. Research question 1: This is where you have to be specific. What you are going to do should be clear from this question. This should be directly linked to your results and tables. For example: “What is the prevalence, frequency, proportion of women offenders who have experienced x…?”; “What is the impact of x on women’s recidivism?; What is the strength of the relationship between x predictor and girls’ involvement in delinquency?: “Is there evidence that x outcome is a result of mothers’ offending?” b. Research question 2: Some of you might have two research questions, but it is unlikely that any will have more than two because the project will be too substantial for this class. If you have a second research question it should be very closely linked to the first one. For example, you may look at a different predictor or outcome measure, but the question will be the same. Or, you might look at prevalence in you first research question and strength of the predictor in the other. 4. METHODOLOGY a. Analytical Strategy: Describe the analytical strategy (i.e., systematic review) selected to conduct this research and answer you research questions. Justify your choice in this strategy using references. “The analytical strategy used in the current study is a systematic review. This strategy was selected because…”. b. Search Strategy: Databases searched, other ways of identifying studies (e.g., bibliographies, keywords used to search electronic databases. Could be helpful to use tables here. c. Selection criteria: Inclusion and exclusion criteria for studies in the review. For example, countries, time periods, languages, types of study (peer-reviewed, reports, theses) sample types (clinical, qualitative, quantitative, epidemiological, longitudinal), sample size. d. Screening: How many studies were identified? How many were screened? Why did you eliminate? How did you get to your final number of studies? Could be useful to make a flowchart for this. For an example, see Murray J, Farrington D, Sekol I, Olsen RF. Effects of parental imprisonment on child antisocial behaviour and mental health: a systematic review. Campbell Systematic Reviews 2009:4 5. RESULTS a. Description of Studies: Describe the characteristics of the studies included in the review. What is included in this section will depend on your research questions. Here are some examples: How many studies did you find? How many quantitative vs. qualitative studies? How many women/girls does this include? What is the range of sample sizes in the studies? How many studies for each outcome/predictor you’re examining? Overall, what is the quality of the studies you found? What measures were used for offending, recidivism, your predictors or risk factors? Are they comparable? How old were the women/children? You could use a table to describes the studies you included in the review. b. Analysis of Studies: Describe and analyse the findings from the studies included in the review. Include at least one table in this section. This is where you should answer your specific research questions. Compare, contrast, and summarize what the studies found regarding your research question. Are there any patterns in the findings based on sample size,type, date of study, age of women/girls, ethnicity, country, methods used? In this section you are only discussing what the findings are, what the different studies indicate. 6. DISCUSSION a. Summary of findings: Provide a one-paragraph summary of the research project. Remind the reader of your aims, what you did, and what you found. For example: “The current study aimed to examine the role of the mother in the intergenerational transmission of offending. Using a systematic review, several important predictors were identified that…” b. Implications & Recommendations: Based on what you found, what are the policy implications of your study? What are your recommendations for NSW Corrections? Are there types of programs you would recommend? Are there certain risk factors or predictors of offending that are more important than others? What specific post-release needs should be targeted to help reduce recidivism? You can refer to your findings briefly here, but don’t repeat the results section. This section should be about what to do next. c. Limitations: Every study has limitations. What are some of the limitations of your study? Think of the analytical strategy, selection criteria, samples in the review, methods used in the studies, findings, and quality of studies in the review. Are your findings generalizable to Australia and NSW? What about bias? 7. CONCLUSION Provide a very brief conclusion for your study. Did you find anything new, surprising, different from the existing literature? What should future studies do? Do we need additional systematic reviews on a different topic or with different research questions? Should more qualitative or quantitative research be conducted with specific populations of women? Is there an area that is very under-researched that you noticed? Are there any gaps in the existing literature? Essentially, what should be done next to further this research area? 8. REFERENCES
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