Since statistics have two real-world uses, the term is frequently misconstrued. The first, which reflects the term’s history, defines a body of facts that is gathered, stored, and frequently expressed in summary form (Walker & Maddan, 2019). Demographic statistics and death rates statistics, which show the attributes of the living and the reasons for deaths, respectively, are good examples of this use. The second application relates to the procedures used to analyze the data gathered during the scientific investigation referred to as statistics. These techniques enable researchers to logically analyze the data, draw clear conclusions about the data, or identify features of big groups based on information about more minor elements (Vito et al., 2020). Hence, the first-way statistics is used in criminal justice is as follows. Criminal justice researchers may perform the comparisons and find new information that will help them better understand their subject thanks to the application of numbers in broad and statistical data in particular.
Next, statistics in criminal justice come in handy during the planning process. The overall planning process will consider several processes, such as analyzing the situation and pinpointing the issue, creating the standards for choosing the best strategy, and carrying out the predetermined course of action (Powell et al., 2018). These planning processes call for data that can only be obtained through reliable statistical analysis. Without reliable historical data and a sense of vision that research may provide to the planning process, all planning exercises would be fruitless. Thirdly, statistics is a potent tool for predicting when crimes will occur and preventing them from happening. Focusing on preventing crimes before they happen is becoming increasingly popular worldwide (Bulgakova et al., 2018). For instance, crowd control and avoiding traffic accidents can be combined with crime prevention techniques.
References
Bulgakova, E., Bulgakov, V., Trushchenkov, I., Vasilev, D., & Kravets, E. (2018). Big Data in investigating and preventing crimes. Big Data-Driven World: Legislation Issues and Control Technologies, 61–69.
Powell, A., Stratton, G., & Cameron, R. (2018). Digital criminology: Crime and justice in digital society. Routledge, 15-21.
Vito, G. F., Blankenship, M. B., Kunselman, J. C., & Suresh, G. (2020). Statistical analysis in criminal justice and criminology: A user’s guide. Waveland Press, 223-226.
Walker, J. T., & Maddan, S. (2019). Statistics in criminology and criminal justice. Jones & Bartlett Learning, 5.