Research Foundation
Purpose Statement: The purpose of this causal comparative study is to test the general theory of crime compares the independent variable of illegal immigration to the dependent variable of violent crime rates, controlling for the existing laws for Mexicans at the United States.1 The independent variable will be generally defined as the migration of people from their own country to the US without the legal right to do it. The dependent variable of interest will be generally defined as the number of illegal crime cases, and the control and intervening variables, the regulations existing to manage illegal migration, will be used as control ones in this study.
For the proposed study, it is possible to contact several immigration and police departments and ask them to provide information on the given topic of interest. In this case, the illegal immigrants would be the study participants, but data is to be provided by the officers. To ensure that information is collected properly, one may suggest using the method of interviews with open-ended questions. This would allow the respondents to speak about immigrants and crime rates more comprehensively. Several departments (3-4) located near the US-Mexican border should be contacted with the invitation to contribute to the proposed study.
It is expected to interview at least ten officers to make sure that data is objective and full. In terms of ethical considerations, all data obtained from the officers should be kept confidential to protect sensitive information. All the names and other identifiable data should be coded, and the results are to be presented without the disclosure as well. The informed consent forms should be disseminated to the interviewees and signed before the study.
Bibliography
Sohoni, Deenesh, and Tracy WP Sohoni. “Perceptions of Immigrant Criminality: Crime and Social Boundaries.” The Sociological Quarterly 55, no. 1 (2014): 49-71.
Footnotes
- Sohoni, Deenesh, and Tracy WP Sohoni, “Perceptions of Immigrant Criminality: Crime and Social Boundaries,” The Sociological Quarterly 55, no. 1 (2014): 52.