Problems in Ratio Correlation - The Case of Deterrence Research

• NCJ Number: 81802
• Journal: Social Forces Volume: 60 Issue: 3 Dated: (March 1982) Pages: 791-810
• Author(s): C H Logan
• Date Published: 1982
• Length: 20 pages
• Grant Number(s): MH 24574-01
• Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Health, Education, and Welfare; University of Connecticut Research Foundation
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Potential problems in ratio correlation cannot be resolved outside a particular substantive context. Within the context of deterrence research, several approaches are examined: the 'conceptual-meaning' resolution, the Pearsonian approximation formula and null comparison, simulation techniques, decomposition into component covariances, part correlation, and the use of residual scores.

Abstract

A simulation experiment shows that when the terms used in the measures of certainty of imprisonment and crime rate are randomly scrambled, the resulting ratios correlate in a manner comparable to what occurs with the data in their original form. These scrambled-data correlations, however, are due purely to artifactual effects of the common term. The most useful test for the existence of this common-term artifact appears to be the technique of part correlation. With empirical imprisonment data, the part correlations are lower than the zero-order correlations, supporting the possibility that the original correlations may have been at least partially artifactual. (Social Forces and author abstract)