Introduction
Criminology as a subject of study is diverse, wide-ranging, international and fragmented. It is carried out by a variety of researchers (for example, students, academics, policy analysts and practitioners) who study and work within a variety of institutions (for example, universities, central and local government, criminal justice agencies, voluntary and third-sector bodies), working with a variety of different discipline bases (for example, sociology, politics, psychology, geography, economics, history, law and business). Criminologists are likely to ask questions about the following: the nature of crime and its extent; the perpetrators of crime; victims of crime; institutions of the criminal justice system and their workings; and how each of these interacts with wider social structural dimensions such as power, inequality, age, social class, gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity. Typical research questions might include ‘How much crime is there and how is it geographically and socially distributed?’; ‘What kinds of people commit crimes?’; ‘Are there any patterns to victimization in society?’; ‘In what ways does the criminal justice system discriminate against categories of people?’. Such research questions are broad but are an essential element in decisions about what to study and what to research.
Your criminological imagination can be stimulated in all manner of ways and yet, for some of us, turning ideas into research projects can be quite daunting, and difficult. Starting to do criminological research may be individualized, but, more likely than not, it often starts as a collaborative effort, whether working alongside a supervisor, with co-investigators as part of a wider research team, or with research partners, sometimes stretching across geographical boundaries and sometimes across strategic corporate organizations and businesses. Doing criminological research is something we can all do, but it does require particular disciplinary knowledge, abilities and skills, and we all need to engage in critical reflection and continue to grow and develop our own thinking and approach to doing it. Often, that can be done by learning from the mistakes and errors that we make in doing research – it does not always go as planned. We can also learn from what our peers – supervisors, colleagues, reviewers, markers, etc. – say about it. You may find yourself taking risks that pay off or that lead to disappointing results. Your criminological imagination may sometimes need to be reined in and tempered as you realize the practical considerations, and ethical and professional standards that are demanded and expected by your supervisors, peers and professional bodies.
In putting together this book, we have been keen to address the needs of those of you who are fairly new to doing criminological research, but whose criminological imagination is flourishing. You may well be an undergraduate criminology student or a postgraduate researcher. However, you may also be an academic lecturer who is teaching doing criminological research or supervising masters or postgraduate researchers. And we have also been keen to acknowledge that much criminological research is now conducted within organizations, third-sector bodies and public and private institutions. We have therefore attempted to acknowledge that there are a variety of researchers who would find a book on doing criminological research helpful and useful. With that in mind, we have not only tried to bring together the end-to-end cycle of doing criminological research within a single volume, we have also been keen to build on the real strengths of earlier editions of this book – that is, bringing together some of the best researchers doing criminology and letting them tell it like it is – warts and all. For us, this is the best way to learn – from the best there are, and from honest and reflective accounts of doing criminological research in the field. There is no better way – apart from doing it yourself. In delivering our vision for the book, we kept in mind a number of golden threads – or cross-cutting themes – that we wanted the book and its contributors to address. These are discussed below.
Golden threads and cross-cutting themes
The first golden thread that runs throughout the book and its chapters is that doing research involves engaging in a process of decision making. Doing Criminological Research commences by stressing the importance of: preparing and planning your research; designing your research project such that it will shed a light on your research questions; reflective thinking about decisions you have made and are making; and forward thinking about how you will undertake the research and analyse, write up and present it. Focusing on decision making at the preparation and planning stage encourages you to take decisions to rule out, as far as possible, potential risks and threats to the validity of your conclusions (see more below). One key initial decision concerns the choice of subject matter of research, or what is sometimes referred to as the research problem. This decision is pivotal because the research subject or problem provides the main focus for your research project and is a major influence on subsequent decisions about the ways in which your project is to be accomplished.
Another key decision that the book is concerned with is the kinds of methods to use and the sorts of data to collect. Crucially, each decision must be properly reasoned and justified to ensure that the research is as valid, reliable and robust as it can be. All of the chapters explore the many ways in which criminological research is entered into and carried out. They consider the exciting and innovative ways in which criminological researchers execute their research. This book assembles a collection of chapters that illustrate the importance of planning, preparing, doing and presenting criminological research, with each of the contributors giving some thought to these various stages. Importantly, they do this by drawing on their own experiences of doing criminology in the field, and by describing and reflecting on the decisions they made throughout that process.
The second golden thread that runs throughout the book and its chapters is that of the excitement, fun and reward of doing high-quality criminological research. Despite the need for good decision making, in what is often an uncertain and messy environment of working, doing criminological research is really exciting. Whether you are a third-year undergraduate student embarking on your dissertation; a postdoctoral researcher undertaking a funding council fellowship; an associate professor or a professor of criminology leading a collaborative research project, outlining the topic and the reasons for the research, developing your thinking and ideas as the evidence unfolds against a research question that you have formulated in light of an identified problem, can be hugely rewarding. Why wouldn’t it be – after all, it involves doing what you want to do, in an area that you are interested in, with the intention of generating new and original research outputs and outcomes. Done well, it can stoke the criminological imagination; certainly it can ensure curiosity, challenge and criticality remain central to your thinking and practice – essential for being a good researcher. With this in mind, central to this book is the importance of the criminological imagination to doing criminological research. Indeed, each contributor focuses on how criminological research is accomplished. Each chapter does so through illustrations and exemplifications from those who have experienced doing criminological research in the field – even when their field is an office, library, archive and desk!
A third golden thread that runs throughout the book and its chapters is that despite the best-laid plans, the practice and experience of doing criminological research can be, and often is, different to that envisaged. That is, whilst decision making is key, sometimes those decisions may turn out to be wrong, or sometimes you may well need to make additional decisions that run counter to those you first made, to address errors in previous thinking or issues that have arisen in practice. Research is a social activity often influenced by factors external to and outside the control of the investigator. It is not possible to escape the reality that even the best-laid plans and designs have to be actualized in social, institutional, economic, cultural and political contexts. Many of these factors, often in different combinations, can be constraints and can have a profound effect on the outcome of research. Feminist scholars have long argued that ‘methodology matters’ (Stanley, 1993), yet it remains usual for the messiness of research to be sanitized, de-emotionalized and glossed over in published reports. Following Stanley and Wise (1993), Letherby (2003: 79) reminds us of the ‘“dirtiness” of so-called “hygienic” research’. The untold hours of personal, ethical and reflexive pondering that goes on in...
