The 3-year recidivism rate in Texas is about 30%, which means that 30% of released Texas prisoners return to prison within 3 years of release. There have been many attempts to reduce the recidivism rate. Suppose you want to deter mine whether electronic monitoring bracelets that track the location of the released prisoner reduce recidivism. Suppose that offenders released from prison are observed for three years to see whether they go back to prison and that the ones who wear electronic monitoring bracelets wear them for the first year only.
a. Describe a study based on a sample of released offenders that would allow the legal system to conclude that monitoring causes a reduction in recidivism but would not allow it to generalize this result to all released prisoners.
b. Describe a study based on a sample of released offenders that does not allow the legal system to conclude that monitoring causes a reduction in recidivism but does allow it to generalize to all released offenders.
c. Describe a study based on a sample of released prisoners that allows the legal system to conclude that monitoring causes a reduction in recidivism and also allows it to generalize to all released offenders.