Criminology is not an abstract discipline. It is designed to have real world, real-life implications and thus must be undertaken with care. However, human beings' behavior cannot be perfectly controlled, and no experiment conducted in the field can be isolated from variables that may potentially affect the results, even with the inclusion of a control group. A faulty experiment could have far-reaching effects.
Beyond the ethics of studying crime, there are also methodological questions. What branch of the social sciences does criminology encompass? Psychology? The natural sciences? Sociology? History? This question influences the assumptions, patterns, and standards of evidence to which research is held. It has been said that the "paradigm for criminology should not be tied to any particular discipline" because of its multidisciplinary nature (Laub 2006: 240). However, this means that creating a universally agreed-upon body of ethical standards can be extremely difficult. The standards of falsifiability and rigorous scientific evidence may be different in the eyes of a qualitative researcher with a background in sociology vs. A scientist studying the neurology of the
This lack of a universal code of ethics may make criminology even more apt to fall into the dangers of theoreticism (the desire of researchers to confirm existing theory) and territorialism (or the desire to protect their discipline as superior) even though its multidisciplinary nature should theoretically make it less vulnerable to these problems.
There are no easy answers to these questions. At minimum, every researcher must weigh the potential costs of doing the research in terms of the impact to the population vs. The positive benefits of doing research, including the dissemination of knowledge. Additional scrutiny must be applied to research on juveniles and when conflicting ethical paradigms arise regarding the methodology of different types of research in the field, researchers should always err on the side of caution.
References
Laub, J. (2006). Edwin H. Sutherland and the Michael-Adler report: Searching for the soul of criminology. Criminology, 44(2), 235 -- 257. Retrieved from http://www.ccjs.umd.edu/faculty/userfiles/27/laub2006.pdf
Criminal Behavior Approaches to Understand Criminal Behavior Psychological Approaches Sociological Approaches Biological Approaches Psychosurgery Chemical Methods of Control Imagine yourself having a walk in the premises of your house and a stone come flying through the boundary wall and hits you. As a layman, one might face difficulty in defining this incident. It can be termed as an assault, an act of violence or a criminal offence. This is a layman's term to define this act but
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Leaders in society understand the need to resist putting unfair labels on people; this has been a positive trend over the recent past. Feminist Theory: Feminist theories suggest, "…criminal justice decisions reflect male dominance and functioning to support patriarchy"; in short, the system is bias against women (Akers, 1999). This has changed society because women's liberation, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, have made it illegal to discriminate based
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