Qualitative research to Criminology

Qualitative research to Criminology



Qualitative research to Criminology

Introduction

Within criminology as well as in most fields of social research, the usage of qualitative methods is a second choice. An significant reason why quantitative methods override criminological research may be the expectations which are addressed in this kind of research. Societal and political discussions in relative to misdeed demand first of all "brute facts" and statistics that show how specific types of misdeed are distributed amidst the distinct segments of the population.(Barberet,2006,88)

Social changes in the late 20th and early 21st centuries involving a proliferation of information production and sharing, greater mobility of people and ideas, and new access to once isolated countries and regions, particularly China, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, have allowed for more and better quality cross-national crime research than ever before. Cross-national criminology at the beginning of the 21st century is an exciting endeavor.(Zimring, 2006,615) New insights about the frequencies, distributions, trends, and causes of conventional crimes in a variety of national settings and the expansion of research on non-conventional crimes have been both the impetus for and products of new methodological and theoretical developments to understand cross-national crime variations.

Discussion

Since the 1970s qualitative methods have obviously become more and more significant not only in social research but also in criminology. In alignment to understand the function qualitative methods play in criminological research it is useful to sum up how qualitative methods came into latest empirical criminology and which perspective on misdeed was evolved inside this research tradition. Moreover it is significant to mention that numerous "classical" sociological studies on deviance which sharp the way to the future of a specific social science perspective on misdeed and deviance had a qualitative research design.(Alvazzi,2004,137) But observe that this period was not well renowned in the first third of the 20th 100 years and a clear distinction between a qualitative and a quantitative methodology did not exist at this time. (Zimring, 2006,615) It is worthwhile citing some of the well renowned ethnographic studies (most of them belonging to the so called "Chicago School of Sociology") in relative to distinct deviant subcultures and the relations of these subcultures with institutions of social control; for instance: ANDERSON's (1923) "The Hobo," discovering the world of casual laborers, marginalized persons dwelling just inside the regulation, TRASHER's (1927) "The Gang," one of the most significant pioneer work in sociological research on youth gangs, SHAW's (1930) "The Jack Roller," a case study of a delinquent vocation, LANDESCO's (1929) "Organized misdeed in Chicago" or THOMAS' (1923) "The Unadjusted Girl".

The labeling approach supplemented to criminological research two subjects that were broadly neglected or forgotten: the analysis of those interaction processes, by which the institutions of social command (police, courts, social work, psychiatry and others) make the social truth of deviance and misdeed as it is documented in authorized statistics, and the analysis of deviant careers, i.e. the analysis of the trajectories which were started or increased by the labeling.(Yacoubian,2003,223)

For both subjects a qualitative design was befitting if ...