“Violent acts tend to be rapid and unexpected. It is very difficult, if not impossible, for a researcher to know when and where a violent crime is likely to be committed. Of course, it is possible to identify the type of subcultural groups whose activities involve violence. However, research with such groups or in high crime areas presents a higher level of physical danger to the researcher if they become too closely involved with the group. It can therefore be useful for the researcher to keep a distance between him and the group he is studying. Investigating the perpetrators and victims of violent crimes after the events raises issues of cooperation, memory and ethics. Victims may exaggerate aspects of the crime or have repressed unpleasant memories. Questionnaires help maintain distance from the research group. However, the highly structured nature of questionnaires may limit the responses that perpetrators and victims can give. »Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Using material from Element A and elsewhere, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of using questionnaires to investigate violent crime. Questionnaires are a set of printed or written documents. questions with choice of answers, created as part of a survey or statistical study. The type of questionnaire may vary in order to achieve greater validity regarding violent crimes, such as domestic violence. Closed questions can be used if the researcher wants a simple answer. For example, asking someone if they were the victim of a crime or if they committed a crime will elicit a closed response, more often used by positivists. Open-ended questions have the opposite effect, in that they allow for a broader, more open-ended response, e.g. "Tell me about your experience as a victim of gun crime" leading to an open-ended, detailed response, preferred by interpreters. Questionnaires are convenient because they are a quick and inexpensive way to collect large amounts of quantitative data on the number of times an assault has been committed, but this could pose a problem when collecting qualitative data. Discussion of violent crimes will often involve emotional or general responses, as there are usually reasons behind the crime. For example, giving a questionnaire to convicts and criminals would pose a problem as each of them might have an individual answer as to why they committed the crime. This qualitative data, once collected, will be difficult to generalize and lead to a final conclusion lacking validity. Prisoners who commit crimes and are prosecuted are often young men from the lower classes, illiterate and untrained men. This can be problematic because questionnaires involve a written response; unfortunately some might not understand the question and give an invalid answer. Furthermore, one criminal's individual definition of what a crime is may not be considered a crime for another. As the article states, “violent crimes tend to be rapid and unexpected,” so this means that it is extremely difficult to know when and where a violent crime will or has occurred. This means that the researcher will not have direct access to the crime scene, which constitutes a major practical problem which could potentially hamper the research, or even in.