London Riots

When conducting research data is gathered from a sample. The data can prove or disprove the hypothesis. When reviewing the data, a person can become bias and only use the data that they feel is beneficial to their study. Rubin and Babbie (2014) write about the two types of sampling bias: Conscious and Unconscious. The authors state “When we speak of bias in connection with sampling, this simply means those selected are not typical or representative of the larger populations from which they have been chosen” (Rubin & Babbie, 2014).

The neighborhood I have chosen is Watts, California. Before it was known as Watts it was a part of Rancho La Tajuata specializing in livestock grazing and beef production. In the 1870's there was a population boom of White Americans in Southern California. La Tajuata was divided and sold into smaller farms and homes. By the 1900's the development of the railroads brought good things. The town became a city and built it's first station known as Watts Station. In 1926 the city annexed itself to Los Angeles. The railroads brought Mexican and Mexican American workers known as "traqueros" into the community.

Between the 6th and 11th of August 2011 thousands of people rioted in cities across England participating in looting, arson and vandalism. The rioting occurred after a peaceful demonstration on the 4th of August in Tottenham over the death of local 29-year-old father of four Mark Duggan who was a victim of a still-unresolved shooting by the police.

Questionnaires are “a series of questions asked to individuals to obtain statistically useful information about a given topic” (Bryant, L, 2014). There are different types of questionnaires that include face to face, phone, post and online.

Criminology is focused on the attempt to understand the meanings involved in social interaction. Theorists have tried to explain sociological behaviour by looking at the patterns created by individuals that commit crime. The August 2011 riots are pivotal in explaining criminological behaviour since official statistics show that 865 individuals were put in prison by the 9th September 2011 for offences related to the disorder between 6th and 9th August 2011. This is not to say that others were not involved, but that they have simply not been identified to date and may never be identified, however the evidence we do have about the recent riots gives us plenty to talk about. This essay will

The philosophical justification for survey research is cost containment with a large volume of research. It is also one of the most efficient and quick methods to gather large amounts of information. Data analysis can be completed in a short period of time and generalization is better, particularly when the representative sample is of a population. It also helps elimination of bias in result interpretation as subjects have the ability to remain anonymous.

A questionnaire is a list of a research or survey questions asked to respondents, and designed to extract quantitative date. Questionnaires are easily distributed to the community and can be completed and collected on the spot or be emailed or posted back to the researcher. Self completed questionnaires are the most common survey as they are cheap and can be passed to a lot of people. Some sociologists tend not to use questionnaires because of their low response rate and lack of validity. Also, some people may give false information so some researchers like to stick to interviews and experiments for increased accuracy. I will explore why sociologists shy away from using questionnaires.

The Los Angeles Riots goes down in history as one of the most famous and destructive riots in US history. The L.A. Riots started as an outcry to the acquittal of the four police officers who senselessly beat Rodney King which was caught on camera. To understand the core issues of the L.A. Riots, we have to go back to what started it all, the injustice of Rodney King.

A questionnaire is research which involves a number of different questions to gather information from the people who are filling it in. Questionnaires are designed as a way to find out what people are thinking. An advantage of questionnaires is that it is very practical because it is quick to collect information from the people filling out the questionnaire. Another advantage of questionnaires is that the same questions is asked to everyone filling the questionnaire out so easy to sum up. The final advantage to questionnaires is that large information can be collected. There are also some disadvantages to questionnaires which is that there is no way of telling how much though someone who is filling the questionnaire out has put it. Another disadvantage is that the person filling it out may forget what has happened to fill it out so it won’t be reliable. The final disadvantage to questionnaires is that there is no way to tell how truthful a respondent is being.

The history of the United States has been characterized by brutality of violence based on race. Many historians have neglected most of the episodes of this important national history as it helps people to learn where they have come from and where they are headed to. Race riots are characterized by violence between two or more racial groups and the end result in most cases is death. For a protest to be called a riot, there must be a group of people with a common agenda and may occur between police and the public or between two or more racial groups.

On August 6th 2011, riots started in Tottenham, London, over the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan by the police. Protesters attacked the police station and its officers. Over the next 3 days the rioting, looting, arson, criminal damage and assault rapidly spread throughout London and England. The speed at which the riots spread caught those in charge off guard so they didn’t call for reinforcements fast enough. This meant there were insufficient numbers of police officers on the streets to stop the rioters. The police emergency plans already in place to deal with such a situation were not adapted quickly enough to bring the disorder under control. It took three days before 16,000 police officers brought an end to the violence.

The strength of questionnaires is it can give an insight into respondent’s thoughts and opinions and also cost efficient as it is inexpensive.

The fourth possibility is to administer questionnaires by e-mail. According to (Geoff Payne and Judy Payne, 2004), this may be a useful way of conducting dispersed groups of people, or those who might not wish to be questioned face-to-face. For example, it has been used in a study of people who committed self-harm. Although this method has its advantages, it also has its disadvantages. A problem of this is that genuine anonymity is difficult to assure since it is possible to track the source of an emailed response. Another big problem may be that the sample is restricted to those with access to computers and may therefore be unrepresentative, although the significance of this will diminish as the number of people without email and internet fails. This therefore would be a problem to the researcher because he or she may not be able to interpret the behaviour of the respondent towards the questionnaire and also the respondent may not take on the research seriously. These things hinder the researcher from collecting data towards his or her research.

The online survey is easy to use for respondents when compare to other method like interview as people can access internet to answer survey, complete the survey in a short time. Increase in internet use communication can benefit the research, online survey research was a time-consuming task, different participants can do the survey at the same time and it is convenience and easy to reach people.

In survey method research, participants answer questions administered through interviews or questionnaires. After participants answer the questions, researchers describe the responses given. In order for the survey to be both reliable and valid it is important that the questions are constructed properly. Questions should be written so they are clear and easy to comprehend.