Reconciling questions about dichotomizing variables in criminal justice research

AbstractPurpose e accumulating evidence against the practice of artificial dichotomization, its continued use among criminal justice researchers indicates that there are still unresolved questions about its appropriateness. Farrington and Loeber (2000) provided a discussion of how these issues impact research on delinquency, and many researchers have cited their article as a justification for dichotomization within the field of criminal justice. In the current study, we examine the reasons why researchers have cited Farrington and Loeber as a mechanism for answering some unresolved questions about whether and when dichotomization may be justified. s d a forward citation search in PsycInfo to locate all articles citing Farrington and Loeber (2000) in support of dichotomization. s earch identified 126 articles which provided a total of 191 reasons supporting dichotomization. We explore these reasons, discussing whether they are consistent with evidence from simulation-based analyses and whether they are supported by existing statistical and methodological theory. sions e the large number of reasons for dichotomization provided by authors, we found very few that had empirical or theoretical support.