Question

5. Daniel Mears, Xia Wang, and William Bales (2014) argued that employment and labor market conditions influence reentry experiences and the likelihood of recidivism. Let's say you were interested in this notion and studied the post-release behavior of random samples of three groups of formerly incarcerated offenders: those who had a stable and satisfying job, those who had intermittent or sporadic employment, and those who were unable to find a job. For each group, you were able to determine how many had been rearrested within 3 years of their release from prison. Here is what you found: Number or Arrests Within 3 Years Stable Sporadic Employment Employment Unemployed Total None 30 14 10 54 15 16 30 61 One or more Total 45 30 40 115 a. What is the independent variable, and what is the dependent variable? b. How many observations or cases are there? C. What are the column marginals? d. What are the row marginals? e. What is the size of this contingency table? f. How many persons with sporadic employment had one or more arrests within 3 years?

Answer 1

4)

a)

We want to test whether employment condition influences recidivism.

So, employment state is the independent variable and number of arrests within 3 years is the dependent variable.

b)

There are 6 cases:

1. No arrests within 3 years and stable unemployment

2. No arrests within 3 years and sporadic unemployment

3. No arrests within 3 years and unemployed

4. One or more arrests within 3 years and stable unemployment

5. One or more arrests within 3 years and sporadic unemployment

6. One or more arrests within 3 years and unemployed

c)

The column marginals are the totals for the respective columns.

So, column marginal for Stable employment = 45

column marginal for Sporadic employment = 30

column marginal for umemployed = 40

d)

The row marginals are the totals for the respective rows.

So, row marginal for No arrests within 3 years = 54

and, row marginal for One or more arrests within 3 years = 61