Criminological Research

Understanding Qualitative Methods

Emma Wincup

• Editorial: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Año: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781473965485
• Edición: 2
• Categoría: Social Sciences
• Categoría: Criminology

Good research starts with careful planning and a thorough understanding of the research process. The abilities to design a research study and to evaluate those conducted by others are core skills every student of criminology must learn.

With guidance from theoretical considerations through the steps of the research process, this book equips you with the necessary tools to carry out a successful, ethical study.

This is a completely updated new edition, and it features

• A new skills-focused chapter on how to evaluate existing qualitative studies and design new ones
• Rich examples from real research making the ideas and concepts concrete
• New in-depth case studies on fashion counterfeiting, electronic monitoring and youth justice to illustrate the realities of conducting qualitative research
• A full discussion of the politics of research, issues of access, ethics and managing risk in the field
• Thought-provoking exercises reinforce practical research skills

This book is the perfect guide to theory and practice for any student undertaking qualitative research on crime or criminal justice.

Part I Foundations of Qualitative Research in Criminology

1 Qualitative Approaches to Criminological Research

Qualitative research has a long and distinguished history in the social sciences, arising in part from dissatisfaction with quantitative approaches. The ethnographic studies conducted by the Chicago School in the 1920s and 1930s established the importance of qualitative research for the study of crime and deviance (see Chapter 7). In this chapter, a brief history is given of the origins of criminology and the development of the empirical research tradition within it. This provides a backdrop for considering the growth of qualitative approaches to criminological research, and for pinpointing the pragmatic utility and methodological desirability of qualitative approaches for researching crime and criminal justice. Before exploring the development of qualitative criminological research, we need to pause for a moment and consider first what we understand by qualitative approaches.

What do We Mean by Qualitative Approaches?

There is now a vast methodological literature on qualitative research but too often it obscures rather than clarifies what the term refers to. Curiously it often defines qualitative research with reference to what it is not, i.e. quantitative research, thus contributing to the polarisation of the two approaches (an issue we will return to later in this chapter) and underplaying both the strengths of qualitative research and the diversity of approaches which can produce qualitative data in many forms. The term ‘qualitative approaches’ is used consciously to recognise that whilst there are common features of qualitative research studies as we outline in Box 1.1, qualitative data are gathered by researchers from a range of disciplines and theoretical backgrounds using a multiplicity of methods. Traditionally this has included observation, interviews and documentary analysis but as we will explore later in the chapter, qualitative researchers are becoming more innovative. These methods can also be deployed, albeit in different ways, to gather quantitative data rendering the frequently deployed concept of qualitative methods a misnomer.

Box 1.1 What is a qualitative approach? Delineating key features

1. Qualitative approaches explore the social construction of reality
   Qualitative research recognises the role of individuals and groups in creating a social world. The task for qualitative researchers is to understand everyday life which comprises, for example, of customs and routines, norms and values, roles and responsibilities; all of which have meaning attached to them by social actors.
2. Qualitative approaches seek to understand the subject’s point of view
   Qualitative researchers are influenced by the work of Max Weber (1949) who developed the theoretical concept ‘verstehen’. This refers to the interpretative process in which an ‘outsider’ seeks to understand empathetically the social world of the research participant. In this way, qualitative researchers seek to give a ‘voice’ to those they are ‘studying’ which is seen as particularly important when conducting research with marginalised groups.
3. Qualitative researchers emphasise the need for reflexivity
   Reflexivity refers to the need to reflect upon the role of the researcher and recognise how they can influence the construction of knowledge at all stages of the research process. This is particularly important when gathering data via human interaction and requires the researcher to reflect upon how their characteristics (for example, in terms of gender, age and ethnic origin) might have influenced the data collection process.
4. Qualitative approaches emphasise the importance of depth of understanding
   Reflecting the emphasis placed on uncovering meaning, qualitative researchers prioritise the collection of rich and detailed data. Consequently, qualitative studies are often small-scale, and make use of case studies which might be an individual institution or a particular locality.
5. Qualitative research values context and aims to collect data in ‘natural’ settings
   Since qualitative research is typically associated with researching social life it follows that researchers should conduct research in settings familiar to the research participants.
6. Flexibility is integral to qualitative approaches
   This is an important feature of qualitative research and applies throughout the research process. It is particularly important at the data collection stage when researchers need to reflect upon the data gathered and use it to guide future data collection.

Given these unique characteristics, it follows that studies which make use of qualitative approaches should not be judged on the typical evaluative criteria for assessing the quality of qualitative research but instead more meaningful criteria should be used. The features listed above, which represent the strengths of qualitative approaches, have often been used to argue (using evaluative criteria which should be reserved for studies which adopt a purely quantitative approach) that qualitative research is too subjective, difficult to replicate, produces findings which are limited in scope and lacks transparency. These issues are explored in more detail in the final chapter.

The Origins of Criminology and Criminological Research

There is considerable debate about how best to define criminology. For Garland (2002: 7), criminology is ‘a specific genre of discourse and inquiry about crime that has developed in the modern period and that can be distinguished from other ways of talking and thinking about criminal conduct’. Criminologists will no doubt be aware that virtually everyone has ‘commonsense’ knowledge about crime, and correspondingly many ideas about the causes of crime and the best ways to tackle it. However, what characterises criminologists is that they subject these ideas to rigorous enquiry using either quantitative or qualitative research conducted by themselves or other researchers. Defining criminology as a discipline with an emphasis on empirically grounded, scientific study, Garland proposes that criminology grew out of a convergence between a governmental project and a Lombrosian project. The former were a series of empirical studies beginning in the nineteenth century that have sought to map patterns of crime and monitor the workings of the criminal justice system. Such work aims to ensure that justice is delivered effectively, efficiently and fairly. The latter was a contrasting project based on the notion that it is possible to ‘spot the difference’ (Coleman and Norris, 2000: 26) between those who offend and those who do not by using scientific means. This paved the way for a tradition of inquiry seeking to identify the causes of crime through empirical research, beginning with the use of quantitative methods but later supplemented by qualitative ones.

The legacy of this historical development can still be felt and produces continued tension within the discipline between policy-oriented criminological research, with its emphasis on the management and control of crime, and a theoretically oriented search for the causes of crime. For Garland (2002) the combination of the two projects is sufficient if criminology is to continue to claim to be a useful and scientific state-sponsored academic discipline. Whilst this aspect of his view is not widely challenged, the implication that classicism ‘becomes the criminology that never was’ (Coleman and Norris, 2000: 16), in the sense that it does fit Garland’s definition of criminology, has been disputed. Others, for instance Hughes (1998), would argue that with the benefit of hindsight the Classical School is the first clearly identifiable school of criminology, distinctive because it marks a shift away from explaining crime in terms of religion or superstition. Even a cursory glance through the main texts available on criminological theory – both established ‘classics’ and contemporary – indicate at least implicit support for this view (see for example, Lilly et al., 2014; Taylor et al., 1973).

The Classical School, a term used retrospectively to describe the work of philosophers such as Beccaria and Bentham, refers to late eighteenth century theorising about crime which grew out of the Enlightenment project with its focus on reason. The Classical approach to the study of crime was underpinned by the notion of rational action and free will. These notions were neither subjected to empirical testing nor had they been developed from exploratory research. Hence, they do not meet Garland’s definition of criminology. The debate presented here relates to the question ‘Is criminology a science?’ – a question that has also plagued closely related disciplines such as sociology. In relation to criminology, Coleman and Norris (2000: 176) argue this is a ‘difficult question that has taken up a lot of energy over the years, often to little effect’. We can certainly say with confidence that the empirical criminological research tradition dates back over 300 years, although those conducting it may not have identified themselves as criminologists.

The debate outlined above is one of many that criminologists continue to have on fundamental issues. This is unsurprising in many respects. Criminology, as an academic discipline, is held together by a substantive concern: crime (Walklate, 2007). Consequently, it is multi-disciplinary in character rather than being dominated by one discipline. For this reason, it is helpful to view criminology as a ‘meeting place’ for a wide range of disciplines including sociology, social policy, psychology and law amongst others. Individual criminologists frequently adhere more closely to one social science discipline than others. Hence, to understand fully what they are attempting to articulate, it is important to note the conceptual apparatus they are utilising (Walklate, 2007). For instance, my own research – broadly defined in terms of links between crime and social problems – draws heavily upon sociology, social policy and political science. As a consequence of the diverse theoretical frameworks upon which ‘criminologists’ (defined broadly as researchers with an interest in crime and its control rather than those who identify themselves in this way) can draw, they frequently disagree with one another. Walklate (2007) argues that despite such disagreements there is some consensus (and we would argue that it is tenuous) in that criminologists aspire to influence crime control policy. However, there is much less consensus around features of what constitutes the crime problem.

We will now explore the development of both quantitative and qualitative traditions within criminology, and to locate their emergence and development within their social and political context. We include the former because it provides a backdrop to understanding the emergence of qualitative techniques which have been used by researchers who adopt a wide range of theoretical perspectives. Whilst we will demonstrate linkages between different theoretical traditions and the use of qualitative and quantitative approaches, we wish to emphasise that the relationship between theory and research is not a straightforward one.

Before moving on it is important to note that not all criminological research is empirical but that some takes a theoretical form. Both forms require different skills and training but it is not appropriate for a ‘pragmatic division of labour’ (Bottoms, 2008: 79) to be fully adopted. All empirical researchers need to acknowledge that theory is an essential element of the data collection and analysis process (see Chapter 8). Similarly, theorists need to draw upon, and understand, empirical research as one means of testing the ability of their theoretical ideas to explain the social world.

The Quantitative Tradition

The quantitative tradition is closely allied to a theoretical perspective known as positivism, which has been adopted to study a wide range of social phenomenon. Researchers who adhere to this approach aim to explain crime and predict future patterns of criminal behaviour. Emulating the analysis by natural scientists of causal relationships, positivists are concerned with developing objective knowledge about how criminal behaviour was determined by either individual or social pathology. As Muncie (2013) notes, identifying the exact moment when positivist criminology became apparent is difficult but it is typically associated with the work of French and Belgian ‘moral’ statisticians in the 1820s. The publication of national crime statistics, beginning in France in 1827, provided these scholars with a dataset to be analysed. Quetelet’s (1842) work is well-known. He was concerned with the propensity to commit crime, which he used to refer to the greater or lesser probability of committing a crime. The potential causes of crime he concerned himself with were the influence of season, climate, sex and age. Based on his analysis of these variables, he concluded that crime patterns are regular and predictable, reaffirming his view that the methods of the natural sciences are wholly appropriate for understanding the causes of crime. For positivists such as Quetelet, the search for the causes of crime emphasised the role of social contexts external to the individual, thus the role of social, economic and environmental factors. Other important sociological positivist work includes Durkheim’s (1895) analysis of crime rates and the Chicago School studies of crime patterns within the city of Chicago (Shaw and McKay, 1942). All these studies made use of official crime data in the form of police statistics or court records.

Both positivism and the quantitative tradition have been subjected to fierce criticism, particularly since the 1960s. Critics have argued that it is highly dubious to translate statistical association into causality. Quantitative work in criminology continues to be conducted but no longer adheres to a narrow positivist research tradition. Instead, quantitative work seeks to understand the complexity of social behaviour through examining a wide range of factors. For example, Jennings et al. (2015) combined a number of large datasets to situate explanations of crime in the changing social, economic and political contexts of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. In addition, quantitative research techniques have also been used to explore the workings of the criminal justice system, often evaluating new interventions. A recent example is an outcome evaluation of two domestic violence interventions delivered by the National Probation Service (Bloomfield and Dixon, 2015). Quantitative data were collected to examine whether the interventions were successful in reducing reoffending over a two year follow up period.

The Qualitative Tradition

The qualitative tradition in criminology developed in the United States. It owes a great deal to the work of the Chicago School. This school made important contributions to criminological theory, namely through developing ‘social disorganisation’ theory and their ‘ecological model’ of the development of cities and patterns of crime within them (see Downes et al., 2016). Whilst many aspects of their work, particularly the ‘ecological model’, have been discredited, they left behind a tradition of linking urban social problems to crime and provided the inspiration for the development of environmental criminology. Some of this work was based on quantitative research but the Chicago School also bequeathed a tradition of conducting criminological research which was distinctive in that they used ethnographic techniques to explore groups on the margins of urban industrial society in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. They focused, in particular, on the ‘dispossessed, marginal and the strange’ (Brewer, 2000: 12) and included in the long list of Chicago School ethnographies (see Deegan, 2007) are studies of gangs, prostitution and homelessness.

Drawing their inspiration from developments within sociological theory, Chicago School researchers pursued innovative qualitative work making use of participant observation, life histories and documents. This work began to influence British criminologists in the 1960s (see Chapter 7 for a more detailed discussion). The qualitative tradition is now firmly established in criminology. Part of the explanation for this is the growth of new theoretical perspectives, which are broadly compatible with qualitative approaches to criminological research. Positivism has been subjected to fierce criticism by advocates of symbolic interactionism. As a result, they turned their attention away from the causes of crime to explore the process by which crimes are created and s...