Understanding Mentally Disordered Offenders by Anthony Columbo

Author:Anthony Columbo [Columbo, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General
ISBN: 9780429781858
Google: 07uZDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-05-20T04:54:33+00:00

The nature of the sample populations

The sample populations’ distribution

It can be seen from Table A1, that in total 961 subjects responded to our questionnaire on beliefs about the mentally ill. As expected, these respondents were unevenly distributed amongst the six survey populations that go to make up our overall multi-agency sample. The smallest number of responses came from the social work subsample (N=81) which accounted for only 8.4% of our total sample, while the largest proportion of responses came from the student population accounting for just over one third (34.9%) of the total sample size. Around forty-five per cent (45.6%) of the questionnaires returned were evenly distributed amongst the second lay sample - political members - and two of the professional groups - police and mental health practitioners - while the remaining 11.1% were accounted for by respondents from the probation service.

Table A2, shows how the demographic variable gender is represented across the whole sample. By looking at the Row Totals, it can be seen that overall, a little under two-thirds of the respondents (61.8%) are male. A cursory look at the Column Percentage cell differences within Table A2, clearly shows that there are considerably more males in both lay groups, the police and probation samples, while the remaining two professions display a higher proportion of females, with social workers showing a female/male ratio at around 2.5:1 (71.6% and 28.4% respectively).

The descriptive statistics provided by Table A3a, inform us that the age range for the whole sample is between 18 and 80 with an overall mean of 34.5 and a standard deviation of 11.4. It can also be seen that respondents from the student population were the youngest overall with a mean age of 26.4 years, and that the political members sample were the eldest with a mean of 44.2 years.

Table A3b, which is a cross-tabulation of age with group surveyed, offers a more detailed picture on how the age variable is distributed throughout each of our sample populations. In this table, the quality of the age variable has been reduced from ratio to nominal level data by dividing the individual ages into two manageable categories. The dividing point between the two categories is, in fact, roughly in line with the total sample’s mean age of 34.5. This data reduction exercise is justifiable for a number of reasons. Firstly, using the age cut-off point of 35 years will enable us to measure whether or not their exists a difference in beliefs between those in the lower age category, who we might expect to have been brought up during an era of community mental health care since the 1960s, and those older respondents who were socialised at a time when a more restrictive and demeaning ideology dominated (Nunnally, 1961). Secondly, for statistical reasons, it is essential that we reduce the data levels so as to ensure a reasonable sample size within the categories of each variable.

Judging from Table A3b, some noticeable differences in the distribution of ages between each of the subsamples may be observed.

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