Doing Research on Crime and Justice

This unique book brings together the accumulated wisdom of some of Britain's leading and best established criminologists each of them an expert in their field and of international standing together with the fresh experiences of a new and rising generation of scholars. The result is a criminologist's guide to the real problems and issues of conducting research and framing a research project in the field of criminology and criminal justice. It is a common place criticism of the criminological and criminal justice research literature along with other research literatures in the social sciences that published accounts of methodology conceal or gloss over issues which can be exceedingly problematic for researchers in the field. Moreover, few methodology textbooks give any serious attention to the problems which novice researchers will encounter when translating neat and tidy textbook methodologies into the always contingent and often compromising world of field work practice.
The contributors to this volume have attempted to bring their wide variety of experience across the main spectrum of criminological and criminal justice research to bear on these issues in ways that it is hoped will really connect with the problems faced by those embarking on research for the first time, but which will also be of interest to all those engaged in the research process in these fields. The book is organised in four sections which move from the general to the particular: the first section provides a practical guide to the research process, and overviews of the relationship between theory and research, and of the political context within which research is carried out. Sections two and three are intended to give a clear and authoritative guide to the main landmarks of accomplished research in criminology and criminal justice, as well as the methodological problems encountered, and the prospects for future research. The fourth and final section presents the research experiences of 'new researchers' attempting to put principles into practice.