Criminal Justice

Discuss why reliability and validity are important in research and how they may differ depending on the type of research you are performing.

Additionally, create an example of problem criminology and criminal justice as a field would face if validity and reliability were not considered when using research to create policy.

ANSWER

Reliability and Validity

The concepts of reliability and validity are used to evaluate the quality of research. They gauge how well a research method or technique measures a variable. The consistency of the measure determines reliability while the accuracy of the measure reveals the validity of the research (Mohajan, 2017). Validity provides a research project with authority by enabling the results to be generalizable. Since most researchers do not want to conduct research that cannot be quoted in other contexts, clearly defining the research facts and making them valid and can go a long way in widening the scope of the research. Reliability enables researchers to produce stable results, that are also precise and reproducible. Reliability is important in standardizing the conditions of the research to reduce any external influences that might lead to a variation of results.

Reliability denotes the consistency of the measure and whether the results realized can be reproduced under similar conditions. On the other hand, validity is ascribed to the accuracy of the measure and whether the results represent what they should measure according to research instructions. While a research process can never be valid without reliability, other research projects can be reliable without necessarily being valid at the same time. Validity is influenced by theory, purpose, process, and logic while reliability fall under the influence of test length, heterogeneity, among other factors in a research project (Rose & Johnson, 2020).

If validity is not applied in criminology and criminal justice research policy, then wrong policies could be adopted because of incorrect applicability of invalid research processes (Hagan et al., 2020). If reliability is not considered, inconsistent policies can be adopted leading to unwanted and unfair outcomes. Isolated events can be generalized and stereotyped on certain demographics leading to unfair targeting by law enforcement such as the relations between police and black men.

References

Hagan, J., McCarthy, B., & Herda, D. (2020). What the study of legal cynicism and crime can     tell us about reliability, validity, and versatility in law and social science research. Annual         Review of Law and Social Science, 16, 1-20.

Mohajan, H. K. (2017). Two criteria for good measurements in research: Validity and       reliability. Annals of Spiru Haret University. Economic Series, 17(4), 59-82.

Rose, J., & Johnson, C. W. (2020). Contextualizing reliability and validity in qualitative   research: toward more rigorous and trustworthy qualitative social science in leisure research. Journal of Leisure Research, 51(4), 432-451.