Randomized Response: A Method for Sensitive Surveys, Vol. 58

Randomized Response describes an innovative survey technique designed to overcome the difficulties associated with sensitive or embarrassing questions. It shows how the randomized response method can protect survey respondents and minimize bias. It also shows how the technique can estimate parameters of both qualitative and quantitative measures, test subgroup differences, and perform bivariate and multivariate analyses.

Randomized Response is an approach to survey data collection specifically designed for sensitive inquiries. The logic underlying this approach is that the element of chance sufficiently clouds a response so as to protect the respondent when disclosing personal or sensitive data. This book is the first comprehensive introduction and practical guide to randomized response for researchers wishing to use this technique.

James Alan Fox is The Lipman Family Professor of Criminal Justice and former dean at Northeastern University in Boston. He has published fifteen books, including his two newest, The Will to Kill: Making Sense of Senseless Murder, and Dead Lines: Essays in Murder and Mayhem. He has also published dozens of journal and magazine articles and newspaper columns, primarily in the areas of multiple murder, juvenile crime, school violence, workplace violence, and capital punishment. As an authority on homicide, he appears regularly on national television and radio programs, including the Today Show, Dateline, 20/20, 48 Hours and Oprah, and is frequently interviewed by the press. He was also profiled in a two-part cover story in USA Today, which dubbed him "The Dean of Death," in a Scientific American feature story as well as in other media outlets. Fox often gives lectures and expert testimony, including over one hundred keynote or campus-wide addresses around the country, ten appearances before the United States Congress, White House meetings with President and Mrs. Clinton and Vice President Gore on youth violence, private briefings to Attorney General Reno on trends in violence, and a presentation for Princess Anne of Great Britain. He served on President Clinton's advisory committee on school shootings, and a Department of Education Expert Panel on Safe, Disciplined and Drug-Free Schools. Finally, Fox is a visiting fellow with the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice.