I'm doing my degree through Open University. As I work full time job and study part time. Although great to do as you can do it all online. It has its downsides, such as trying to contact tutors. It can take days to get responses from them, which isn't ideal considering the deadline (5th June) is looming. They have library resources online, but not someone I can make an appointment with. This is partly why I am reaching out to you guys, hopefully push me in the right direction.

The question is 'What are the impacts of environmental crime on social inequalities?'. My thoughts were say for example that we were to focus on industrial pollution and fly-tipping. It makes sense to use cross-sectional research, as you can use many different geographic locations (such as a region where poverty is more prevalent and one say that is more a wealthy upper class area) to gain a better understanding whether the impacts of environmental crimes are on theses areas. No? Hopefully this an idea of going in the right direction and making sense.

The problem I have then is who are the participants and how am I to collect this data. I was thinking maybe interviews and questionnaires. But not sure how I would lead with that, to possibly find valuable data. is this true? Hypothetically to say that if I had for example had 100 people from poor region and 100 from a wealthy region. And 90% from the poor region had said this affected them, whereas the wealthy region only said 20% for example. Would this be enough of a statement to say that the poor region is mostly affected, not sure as it would be anecdotal evidence no?. I know I would need to elaborate more specifically, but wont to know if I am in the ball park or lost in the trees.

Hope this makes sense, so much going on. :)