Advancing Qualitative Methods in Criminology and Criminal Justice


Book Description

For several decades qualitative research has been under-represented in criminological and criminal justice research. This book is designed to promote the understanding of qualitative research designs and to encourage their use among those seeking answers to questions about crime and justice. To this end a number of top qualitative scholars have been assembled to provide their insights on the topic. The chapters that appear delve into the state of qualitative methods in the discipline, the potential ethical and physical hazards of engaging in ethnographic research, how to make sense of and interpret participants’ stories, innovative ways to collect data, the value of using mixed methods to understand crime and justice issues, effective strategies for teaching fieldwork, and the inherent rewards of a career spent speaking with others. This book will be an ideal introduction for students and scholars of Criminal Justice, Criminology, and Sociology, regardless of whether their primary methodology is qualitative or quantitative. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Criminal Justice Education.




The Routledge Handbook of Qualitative Criminology


Book Description

Despite illustrious origins dating to the 1920s, qualitative crime research has long been overshadowed by quantitative inquiry. After decades of limited use, there has been a notable resurgence in crime ethnography, naturalistic inquiry, and related forms of fieldwork addressing crime and related social control efforts. The Routledge Handbook of Qualitative Criminology signals this momentum as the first major reference work dedicated to crime ethnography and related fieldwork orientations. Synthesizing the foremost topics and issues in qualitative criminology into a single definitive work, the Handbook provides a "first-look" reference source for scholars and students alike. The collection features twenty original chapters on leading qualitative crime research strategies, the complexities of collecting and analyzing qualitative data, and the ethical propriety of researching active criminals and incarcerated offenders. Contributions from both established luminaries and talented emerging scholars highlight the traditions and emerging trends in qualitative criminology through authoritative overviews and "lived experience" examples. Comprehensive and current, The Routledge Handbook of Qualitative Criminology promises to be a sound reference source for academics, students and practitioners as ethnography and fieldwork realize continued growth throughout the 21st Century.




Qualitative Research in Criminology


Book Description

"This volume investigates the significant role qualitative research plays in expanding and refining our understandings of crime and justice. It features seventeen original essays that discuss the relationship between methodology and theory. The result is a theoretically engaged volume that explores the approaches of qualitative scholars in the collection and treatment of data in criminological scholarship.Among the key issues addressed in the volume are methodological rigor in qualitative research; movement between method, theory building, theoretical refinement and expansion; diversity of qualitative methodologies, from classic field research to contemporary innovations; and considerations of the future of qualitative criminological research.Qualitative research use has expanded rapidly in the last twenty years. This latest volume of Advances in Criminological Theory presents a cogent appraisal of qualitative criminology and the ways in which rigorous qualitative research contributes to theorizing about crime and justice."




The Routledge Handbook of Qualitative Criminology


Book Description

Despite illustrious origins dating to the 1920s, qualitative crime research has long been overshadowed by quantitative inquiry. After decades of limited use, there has been a notable resurgence in crime ethnography, naturalistic inquiry, and related forms of fieldwork addressing crime and related social control efforts. The Routledge Handbook of Qualitative Criminology signals this momentum as the first major reference work dedicated to crime ethnography and related fieldwork orientations. Synthesizing the foremost topics and issues in qualitative criminology into a single definitive work, the Handbook provides a "first-look" reference source for scholars and students alike. The collection features twenty original chapters on leading qualitative crime research strategies, the complexities of collecting and analyzing qualitative data, and the ethical propriety of researching active criminals and incarcerated offenders. Contributions from both established luminaries and talented emerging scholars highlight the traditions and emerging trends in qualitative criminology through authoritative overviews and "lived experience" examples. Comprehensive and current, The Routledge Handbook of Qualitative Criminology promises to be a sound reference source for academics, students and practitioners as ethnography and fieldwork realize continued growth throughout the 21st Century.




Qualitative Criminology


Book Description

Brings to life the stories behind the research of both emerging and established scholars in Australian criminology. The book's contributors provided honest, reflective, and decidedly unsanitised accounts of their qualitative research journeys.




Qualitative Research in Criminology


Book Description

This volume introduces innovative and inspired qualitative methods through topics on crime commission, victimisation and crime control. It highlights how qualitative methods offer significant insights that frame our understanding of the narratives, events, theoretical perspectives, and realities of the social world. This book includes chapters discussing cutting-edge methods, which demonstrate how qualitative research can expand beyond traditional approaches. It offers diversity in research, including gender, race, and geographic sensitivities. The volume addresses a multitude of approaches for using qualitative methodologies, including innovative uses of technology mediums—such as social media, participatory videos, Zoom interviewing, and photographic visual methods—as means of collecting and co-producing relevant data on meaning. Ultimately, this book illustrates how qualitative criminology allows for deeper and more nuanced understandings of local and regional specificities in a globalized world, and how social interactions are influenced by individual interpretations, social interactions, and collective decision making. This volume is an essential read for graduate students and researchers in criminology and other social science disciplines interested in qualitative empirical research and informed policy making.




Research Methods for Criminology and Criminal Justice


Book Description

Research Methods for Criminology and Criminal Justice: A Primer, Second Edition provides students of criminology and criminal justice with a clear and simple approach to understanding social science research. Completely updated and redesigned, this text is written to engage students and make the complex subject of research methods easy for the would-be criminal justice practitioner to comprehend. In addition to covering current topics such as community policing, alternative sentencing for nonviolent offenders, and gang violence, each chapter starts with a case study demonstrating how research methods are used in practical applications within the field. Later, these issues are also addressed in exercises and questions found at the end of the chapter. This indispensable resource is accessible, understandable, and user-friendly, and is a must-read for students in any research methods course.Each chapter of this text begins with a case study illustrating how research methods, requirements, and processes are used in real-life applications. Research Methods for Criminology and Criminal Justice: A Primer uses important contemporary issues such as gangs, drugs, teen alcohol abuse, and alternative sentencing options for non-violent offenders, to illustrate role of research in developing policies and procedures. These illustrations are also addressed at the end of each chapter in exercises and review questions. Research Methods for Criminology and Criminal Justice: A Primer makes learning research methods easy, understandable, and applicable to the criminal justice topics students are most interested in.Research Methods for Criminology and Criminal Justice: A Primer will be available with instructor's resources including an Instructor's Manual, including lecture outlines and review question solutions, Microsoft PowerPoint(tm) presentations, and a test bank.




Criminological Research


Book Description

Criminological Research offers a comprehensive guide to both the theory and practice of qualitative criminological research. Through a detailed yet concise explanation, the reader is shown how a variety of methods and approaches work and how their outcomes may be interpreted.




Handbook of Quantitative Criminology


Book Description

Quantitative criminology has certainly come a long way since I was ?rst introduced to a largely qualitative criminology some 40 years ago, when I was recruited to lead a task force on science and technology for the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice. At that time, criminology was a very limited activity, depending almost exclusively on the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) initiated by the FBI in 1929 for measurement of crime based on victim reports to the police and on police arrests. A ty- cal mode of analysis was simple bivariate correlation. Marvin Wolfgang and colleagues were makingan importantadvancebytrackinglongitudinaldata onarrestsin Philadelphia,an in- vation that was widely appreciated. And the ?eld was very small: I remember attending my ?rst meeting of the American Society of Criminology in about 1968 in an anteroom at New York University; there were about 25–30 people in attendance, mostly sociologists with a few lawyers thrown in. That Society today has over 3,000 members, mostly now drawn from criminology which has established its own clear identity, but augmented by a wide variety of disciplines that include statisticians, economists, demographers, and even a few engineers. This Handbook provides a remarkable testimony to the growth of that ?eld. Following the maxim that “if you can’t measure it, you can’t understand it,” we have seen the early dissatisfaction with the UCR replaced by a wide variety of new approaches to measuring crime victimization and offending.




Qualitative Approaches to Criminal Justice


Book Description

The growth in popularity of qualitative research in the social sciences over the last two decades has been nothing short of amazing. Qualitative Approaches to Criminal Justice: Perspectives from the Field reveals some of the reasons for the success and stature of this unique methodological approach. Exploring the real life experiences of criminal justice professionals, this anthology is the first book to focus solely on the use of qualitative research in various components of the criminal justice system. The collection is organized from two criminal justice perspectives: one qualitatively oriented and the other system oriented, including overviews of each qualitative method and commentaries that analyze the research techniques. Case studies illustrating actual fieldwork practices bring theory vividly to life. Qualitative Approaches to Criminal Justice: Perspectives from the Field is multi-faceted in both its content and application. Through its investigative techniques, which rely mainly on observations, participant observation, and open-ended interviews, qualitative research reveals parts of the social world that remain hidden to more traditional methodological techniques. Recommended as a companion to an administration of criminal justice course as well as courses in qualitative research in criminal justice. Also recommended as a supplemental text for any research methods course in a criminal justice degree program including sociology, political science, and legal studies.