Methods of Criminological Research (Social Research Today)

Methods of Criminological Research by Victor R. Jupp, , available at Book Paperback; Social Research Today · English and analyzed for research on crime and criminal justice, this book deals with social surveys.
Table of contents

According to Campbell and Stanley, a number of internal threats need to be considered, including: In determining whether a particular design rules out threats to internal validity, Cook and Campbell suggest that "estimating the internal validity of a relationship is a deductive process in which the investigator has to systematically think through how each of the internal validity threats can be ruled out" p. Campbell and Stanley also identify several threats to external validity, including: These threats are greater for experiments conducted under more carefully controlled conditions Maxfield and Babbie.

Perhaps one of the best methods for assessing threats to external validity is replication, or the repetition of experiments or studies utilizing the same methodology. By replication of key findings, researchers can gain confidence that the results observed in one study may not be due to external validity threats.

One of the key examples of replication occurred in the late s when the Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment was replicated in six cities throughout the United States Sherman. Importantly, these replications yielded both similar and contradictory conclusions to those observed in the initial experiment.

Unlike quantitative research methods, qualitative approaches are designed to capture life as participants experience it, rather than in categories predetermined by the researcher. These methods typically involve exploratory research questions, inductive reasoning, an orientation to social context and human subjectivity, and the meanings attached by participants to events and to their lives Schutt. There are a number of distinctive research designs under this paradigm: Each of these will be discussed in turn.

At its most basic level, participant observation involves a variety of strategies in data gathering in which the researcher observes a group by participating, to varying degrees, in the activities of the group Hagan. Gold discusses four different positions on a continuum of roles that field researchers may play in this regard: Complete participation takes place when the researcher joins in and actually begins to manipulate the direction of group activity.

In the participant-as-observer strategy, the researcher usually makes himself known and tries to objectively observe the activities of the group.

Quantitative methods in criminology

The observer-as-participant strategy is very much like a one-visit interview, where the interviewees are also short-term participant observers. Typically, these interviews are conducted with individuals who are known to participate in a designated activity. For example, Jacobs interviewed known active drug dealers in order to gain a better understanding of how the crack business actually operates on the streets. Finally, the complete observer strategy relies on sole observation absent participation from the researcher. Although several issues must be confronted when engaging in this sort of research, two are of vital importance: The latter deals with a situation in which the researcher identifies with and becomes a member of the study group, and in the process abandons his or her role as an objective researcher Hagan.

Even with these cautions, a number of important participant observation studies have been undertaken in criminology and criminal justice including Polsky's study of pool hustlers and con artists, as well as Marquart's study of prison life. Intensive interviewing consists of open-ended, relatively unstructured questioning in which the interviewer seeks in-depth information on the interviewee's feelings, experiences, or perceptions Schutt, Unlike the participant observation strategy, intensive interviewing does not require systematic observation of respondents in their natural setting.

Typically, interviewing sample members, and identification and interviewing of more sample members, continues until the saturation point is reached, the point when new interviews seems to yield little additional information Schutt.

Criminology and Criminal Justice Research: Methods

A prominent example of the intensive interviewing technique can be found in a series of studies with active residential burglars Wright and Decker, and robbers Wright and Decker, in St. These authors have conducted in-depth interviews with active criminals in their natural environment. Some of these interviews have yielded important theoretical insights that perhaps may not have been garnered via traditional survey methods.

Other prominent examples may be found in Fagan and Wilkinson's study of gun-related violence in New York and Jacobs's study of crack addicts in St. Focus groups are groups of unrelated individuals that are formed by a researcher and then led in group discussions of a topic Schutt. Typically, the researcher asks specific questions and guides the discussion to ensure that group members address these questions, but the resulting information is qualitative and relatively unstructured Schutt.

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Although generalizations from focus groups to target populations cannot be precise Maxfield and Babbie , research suggests that focus group information, combined with survey information, can be quite consistent under certain conditions Ward et al. One such criminal justice example is provided by Schneider and her colleagues.

Their use of focus group was able to provide a context for a more complete understanding of the survey results from the probation officers interviewed. Case studies and life histories. In general, case studies and life histories are in-depth, qualitative studies of one or a few illustrative cases Hagan. Several criminological examples using this approach exist, and a few in particular have produced some of the most important, baseline information in the discipline today.

The classic example is Sutherland's The Professional Thief In this case study, Sutherland's informant, Chic Conwell, described the world of the professional thief. Other examples include Shaw's The Jack-Roller , which tells the autobiographical story of a delinquent's own experiences, influences, attitudes, and values. Finally, Horatio Alger 's tale of street life in New York tells the story of Young Dick, a street boy who is involved in a delinquent life but who is also honest and hardworking. Life-history methods generally involve the analysis of diaries, letters, biographies, and autobiographies to obtain a detailed view of either a unique or representative individual Hagan.

Although the preceding discussion has portrayed the two main research paradigms, quantitative and qualitative research methods, as two ends of the research continuum, it was not meant to imply that the two are mutually exclusive. On the contrary, the future of research methods in criminology and criminal justice lies in the combination of quantitative and qualitative research approaches.

Illustrated below are two successful integrations. The first, by Eric Hirsch, used a combination of methods, including participant observation, intensive interviewing, and a standardized survey, to study the student movement that attempted to make Columbia University divest its stock in companies dealing with South Africa. Hirsch believed that the combination of research methodologies provided a more comprehensive picture of student's motivations. The second example is from John Laub and Robert Sampson.

For quite some time, these two scholars have been working on the reanalysis of one of the classic data sets in criminology, the Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency UJD study that was initiated by Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck in The data contain the original case records of all one thousand sample members as well as detailed archival life records that included information from the "home investigation," which consisted of an interview with family members and offered an opportunity for the investigators to observe the home and family life of sample members.

Furthermore, the UJD study included interviews with key informants such as social workers, settlement house workers, clergymen, schoolteachers, neighbors, employers, and criminal justice and social welfare officials. When this detailed information is combined with the statistical information on criminal behavior and other life events, one can begin to appreciate the richness with which Laub and Sampson have been able to document these one thousand lives and contribute much needed information regarding crime over the life course.

The future of criminological and criminal justice research will likely come full circle. Early studies of crime and criminality began with qualitative observations almost to the exclusion of quantitative research. New research topics were observed and highlighted by scholars who wished to forge ahead in the understanding of crime and criminality. Once these topics were brought to the forefront of the field, quantitative research became the choice method of analysis.

The future of criminological research must focus on the blending of the two. As John Clausen notes, both case history and statistical data are required "if we are to understand the influences on the lives of persons who have lived through a particular slice of American history" p. A Randomized Controlled Experiment. Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research.

Looking Back at the Children of the Great Depression. Design and Analysis Issues for Field Settings.

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Fagan, Jeffrey, and Wilkinson, Deanna L. An Annual Review of Research, Volume Edited by Michael Tonry and Mark H. University of Chicago Press, Pages — Research Methods in Criminal Justice and Criminology. University of California Press. The Social World of Streetcorner Selling. Northeastern University Press, Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. In criminology qualitative methods were pushed into the background additionally by the fact that, at least in Germany, criminology is dominated by jurisprudence.


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This began to change when, in the sixties in US and in the seventies in Germany, the labeling approach tried to launch a new paradigm in social research on deviance. Labeling approach was and is strongly tied to symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology. A main point of the critique the labeling approach directed toward criminological research was that this research usually defined crime and deviance in the same way as the criminal law and the legal system does, further that criminology simply adopts the ascriptions and labels from the legal system, and finally that these definitions formed the basis not only of legal but also of sociological research on how specific types of crime are distributed among the population and on the etiology of crime.

Labeling approach deconstructed this alleged secure resource of criminological research and made it the topic of research.

Methods of research for criminology

By empirically reconstructing crime as a societal and legal construct, qualitative methods were brought into play. The labeling approach added to criminological research two subjects that were widely neglected or forgotten: For both subjects a qualitative design was appropriate if not compelling. If crime is seen as accomplished by the activities of the institutions of social control the question what crime is must be answered by analyzing how crime is produced 3. These definitions determine if an incident is noticed, if it is registered as a case, and if the case is classified as 'criminal' on its way through the criminal justice institutions.


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Files, data and statistics of officially registered offences do not represent the 'reality of deviance'. These aspects of 'crime' are therefore adequately inquired only with the implementation of qualitative methods. The labeling approach focuses on how crime is produced by reconstructing the routine prac tices of the institutions of social control, and by reconstructing the implicit principles which generate those practices.

This perspective on crime especially characterizes the ethnomethodological research on deviance. This research focuses on the typifications, background expectancies, and everyday theories of the agents of social control and asks how these agents "come to recognize [ Such implicit knowledge is part of that type of knowledge GIDDENS calls "practical consciousness," in contrast to "discursive consciousness.

Many of the ethnographic studies posed the question: Much of the sixties' and the seventies' research concerning the practice of social control did not reach the methodical standards which have developed in qualitative research since that time. These studies did not become important by developing an advanced methodology, but by launching a new subject they opened up a new research perspective.

This question is posed in ethnographic research on deviant subcultures and in biographical case studies. These studies, most of them done in the perspective of symbolic interactionism, revitalize to a certain extent the tradition of the Chicago School. A qualitative design is preferred in order to grasp how people react to processes of labeling. This research interest is frequently accompanied by a political-emancipatory attitude: It is not only due to the subject of inquiry that qualitative methods are chosen.

The labeling approach developed exactly at the same time as the so called "interpretive paradigm" challenged the functionalist mainstream in social science research and theory. But there is not only a temporal coincidence; labeling approach shares the basic theoretical orientations with the interpretive paradigm. Some prominent researchers made important contributions to the sociology of deviance as well as to the general discussions in sociological theory and methodology. His book "Method and Measurement in Sociology" CICOUREL , in which he "deconstructs" the fiction of objectivity of quantitative methods, is a often cited starting point for the development of a genuine qualitative methodology, and his contributions to ethnomethodology CICOUREL , gave decisive impulses to interpretive sociology.

Similar "personal unions" can be observed in Germany too. The research on deviant subcultures and deviant careers is guided by the approach of "Verstehen. By not taking over the ascriptions of guilt which are inherent in the process of labeling, this approach avoids judging the deviant's behavior in moral terms. In this respect, this research seems to follow the postulate of "moral indifference" which plays an important role in the recent methodological discussion in qualitative research cf. In taking a closer look one can see that at least parts of the research on deviant subcultures and careers make judgments, even if these are not the judgments of the institutions of social control.

And it turns out that the methodological principle of "moral indifference" has no undivided validity. BECKER argues that by not adopting the usual ascription of guilt, it inevitably leads to taking the side of the people who are labeled as deviant. The consequence would be to "whitewash" these people. Rather taking sides would be inevitable, and therefore one must ask: BECKER continues on to state that it happens naturally in the course of research that we develop a deep sympathy for the people we study so that we believe in the conviction—against the rest of the society—that the deviants are at least as good as all the other people, "more sinned against than sinning" BECKER , p.

This attitude which is quite common in the early labeling approach as it is in critical criminology realizes only half the postulate of bracketing moral judgments. The judgments of the majority of society, as represented by the institutions of control, are replaced by the judgments of the outsiders. With that it is not possible to reconstruct social worlds in a way which is not guided by pre-assumptions, as it is postulated in recent qualitative methodology. On the contrary there is a danger that what should be avoided determines unnoticed, in a modified form, the research: Furthermore, taking the perspective of the other is not practiced in the same way toward the agents of social control as it is toward the labeled persons.

This applies in particular to the early critical criminology. This approach, based on a specific connection of scientific analysis and political engagement and being critical against the institutions of social control, is interested in the activities of these institutions only with respect to the role these institutions play in producing criminal careers. This is the subject of numerous interaction studies.

To such an extent that the labeled persons are "whitewashed" the agents of social control reversely find themselves accused 4. This happens partly explicitly, but more often implicitly—the latter being more important in methodological concerns—due to the fact that, in the case of the agents of control, the principle of understanding "Verstehen" the motivations and relevance of the actors directs the research not with the same stringency as it does if "the other side" is the subject of inquiry.

This results in looking for the systematic distribution of crime as "a negative good" and for imbalance of power. The search for patterns of the production of crime focuses on those being responsible of selective labeling cf. While for deviant behavior "objective" causes are denied—it is conceived as genuinely socially constituted—the analysis of objective conditions of the behavior of the agents of control is regarded as possible and as necessary.

Without this analysis one would not understand the content and the regularities of definition processes cf. Moreover the interactions between representatives of control police, judges, social workers etc. Without such a broadened perspective, understanding of the interactions between the agents of control and those who are controlled remains curiously limited. Interactions between police and male juveniles of a so called "street-corner gang" are not only determined by the public assignment to control, but just as much by a culture of masculinity that is as evident within the police force as among the young men of the "street corner gang.

If one fails to consider gender aspects, i. BEHR shows that police action very often does not only have a controlling aspect, but can actually be described as "doing masculinity"—at the very least the two are closely intertwined. Lynda Rose Bruce Edd Phd. Home Contact Us Help Free delivery worldwide. Description Examining the different ways in which data can be collected and analyzed for research on crime and criminal justice, this book deals with social surveys, experimental methods, official statistics, observation and detailed interviews.

This practical text includes sections on: Throughout, it emphasizes the necessity of examining forms of data collection and analysis within the context of the criminological problems being investigated, the theoretical approaches used to address these problems, and the political and institutional contexts within which research takes place. Product details Format Paperback pages Dimensions x x 18mm Analyzing Social Networks Jeffrey C. Decolonizing Methodologies Linda Tuhiwai Smith.

The Perils of Perception Bobby Duffy. Reflexive Methodology Mats Alvesson. Social Science Concepts Gary Goertz. Pocket World in Figures The Economist.