While few criminologists have written about or even taught research ethics, criminologists do swap stories about their dealings with various research ethics and research committees. These accounts tend to be dominated by horror stories or suggestions for ways of mollifying committees. As empirical researchers, criminologists face two distinct difficulties. First, they must develop ways of working that can be regarded as ethical. Second, they have to meet the demands of regulators of research ethics. These are not always the same thing. The formal process of ethics review offers both disadvantages and advantages: It can unreasonably restrict ethical responses but it can also offer a significant mechanism for stimulating ethical reflection.
Informed Consent
Most professional and institutional, national and international research guidelines and codes demand that, other than in exceptional circumstances, participants agree to research before it commences. That consent should be both informed and voluntary. In most circumstances, researchers must provide potential participants with information about the purpose, methods, demands, risks, inconveniences, discomforts, and possible outcomes of the research, including whether and how the research results might be disseminated.
In some cases, providing information to ensure informed consent may take considerable time and effort for both researchers and research participants. In other cases, it may be sufficient to offer potential participants a list of their entitlements and a range of information they can request. Researchers are usually expected to record participants’ agreement to take part.
Generally, researchers have to negotiate consent from all relevant parties, including organizations, groups, or community elders, for all relevant matters and, possibly, at all relevant times. Several researchers have argued that consent should be dynamic and continuous and not limited to the beginning of the research project. There are plenty of examples, of course, where this has not happened, including extensive nontherapeutic experimentation on prisoners in the United States and Philip Zimbardo’s creation of a mock prison at Stanford University in 1971.
Informed consent is an autonomous action, committed intentionally, with understanding and without controlling influences resulting either from coercion or manipulation by others or from psychiatric disorders. However, researchers may find it difficult to assess whether potential participants’ circumstances allow them such freedom. In consequence, special procedures are often adopted when attempting to obtain consent or assent from vulnerable and dependent groups. For example, it may be appropriate to obtain parental consent or assent when interviewing their children. On the other hand, telling parents that a researcher is interviewing their children because of their active membership in a gang or requiring young offenders to sign consent forms in the presence of adult witnesses may be wildly inappropriate.
The American Sociological Association requires its members to obtain consent from both children and their guardians except where the research imposes minimal risk on participants; the research could not be conducted if consent were to be required; and the consent of a parent is not a reasonable requirement to protect the child as in, for example, cases where the child has been abused or neglected.
Several criminologists undertaking research in prisons or with the police or private security agencies have pointed out how demanding it may be to ensure that they have obtained informed consent from all relevant parties. First, it can be difficult for researchers to assess whether potential participants have freedom of action—people held in detention may believe they will be punished if they refuse to take part in research, for example. Second, the information given to participants may be incomplete. This might be because the nature of the interview would make it challenging to predict what might be uncovered, but it might also be by design. It seems unlikely that researchers have always explained to offenders that the purpose of their research on, for example, burglars might be to make it more difficult for burglary to take place. In some cases, nevertheless, it may be possible and appropriate to develop methodologies that help promote autonomy and build capacity to make decisions.
The complexities of informed consent have proved particularly problematic for researchers engaged in covert research or deception. Deception could compromise both the informed and voluntary nature of consent, but some researchers have argued that consent need not be obtained when any harm caused by lack of consent might be outweighed by the public benefit obtained. Researchers, therefore, have not revealed their purpose when entering secure state facilities to investigate the illegal international trade in human organs, when interviewing police officers in Latin America about state torture, or examining gender-based violence in southern Africa.
Researchers have also had difficulty with the ethics review process when institutionally standardized consent processes have been imposed that mandate excessively formal information sheets, signed consent forms, or extend such processes to secondary use of interview data. This might jeopardize the safety and autonomy of research participants, the quality of the research, as well as the integrity of the consent process itself.
Confidentiality
When people allow researchers to investigate them, they often negotiate terms for the agreement. Participants may, for example, consent on the basis that the information obtained about them will be used only by the named researchers and only in particular ways. The information is private and is offered voluntarily and in confidence in exchange for possibly not very much direct benefit. While social science research participants might be hurt by insensitive data collection, it is important to be aware that more significant risks are typically posed by what happens to data after it has been collected.
In some research projects, negotiations around confidentiality may be fairly straightforward. Some criminologists operate in relatively predictable contexts in which standardized assurances about anonymity may be included in a covering letter with a questionnaire. However, other work takes place in informal and unpredictable environments, where agreements need to be negotiated and renegotiated with individuals and groups during the course of lengthy fieldwork as new issues emerge, ranging from the use of interpreters to the discovery of past or impending criminal activity. A further complication may arise if the participant has commercial interests to protect and the resources and expertise to ensure that these protections are stipulated in any agreement.
However, obligations of confidentiality cannot be considered absolute and in some situations— such as when gross injustice is uncovered— researchers have contemplated disclosing to a particular person or group information received under an implied or explicit assurance of confidentiality. Canadian criminologists John Lowman and Ted Palys argued that in such cases of “heinous discovery,” researchers should distinguish between the kinds of serious harm that they could anticipate discovering during a particular piece of research and those that they could not. In the first instance, researchers had two options: either be prepared to hear about such activities and keep quiet, or do not undertake the research.
While not every research participant may want to be offered or even warrant receiving assurances of anonymity or confidentiality, most do. Social researchers have developed a range of methodological precautions in relation to collecting, analyzing, and storing data as well as strategies to respond to challenges to the confidentiality of their data. These include: not recording names and other data at all, or removing names of people and places and identifying details of sources from confidential data at the earliest possible stage; disguising the name of the community where the research took place; masking or altering data; covertly sending files out of the jurisdiction; and avoiding using mail or telephone systems so that data cannot be intercepted or seized by police, intelligence agencies, or commercial rivals.
Some researchers may receive statutory protection for their data. However, other researchers and their institutions have faced pressure from justice agencies to hand over their data. For example, in
2011, the British government sought a U.S. federal court order requiring Boston College to surrender oral history interview data relating to the 1972 murder in Belfast of a suspected police informant by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). Recognizing that full confidentiality may not be assured, some regulators have required researchers to offer only limited assurances of confidentiality indicating to participants that they could be forced to hand over data to courts. This practice has been criticized as undermining the relationship of trust between researcher and participant. Nevertheless, several researchers have indicated that they would breach confidentiality to protect vulnerable groups such as children, or to protect the security of correctional institutions.
Harm and Benefit
Contemporary researchers are normally expected to minimize risks of harm or discomfort to participants in research projects (the principle of non-maleficence). Although harm is most often thought of in physical terms, it also includes psychological, social, environmental, and economic damage. Of course, most research involves some risk, generally at a level greater in magnitude than the minimal risk people tend to encounter in their everyday lives. The extent to which researchers must avoid risks may depend on the degree of the risk as well as the weight of the consequences that may flow from it.
Researchers may adopt risk minimization strategies that might involve monitoring participants, maintaining a safety net of professionals who can provide support in emergencies, excluding vulnerable individuals or groups from participation where justifiable, considering whether lower-risk alternatives might be available, and anticipating and counteracting any distortion of research results that might act to the detriment of research participants. For example, in research with survivors of sexual violence, Rebecca Campbell demonstrated ways criminologists might provide access to information, broker referrals to support agencies, and offer participants an opportunity to talk to a supportive listener in an environment where the survivor controls what is revealed. One way of minimizing the possibility of harming participants is by incorporating members of those communities who are the focus of the research.
In some circumstances, researchers may also be expected to promote the well-being of participants or maximize the benefits to society as a whole (the principle of beneficence). For example, over and above conducting the study, in research on violence studies could provide emotional and practical support for victims, offering information about, and organizing access to, formal and informal services; providing feedback to the study community and relevant agencies; and supporting or engaging in advocacy on behalf of those who have been harmed. On the other hand, interventions by researchers are not always well judged and may be regarded as betrayal by those the researcher intended to help.
Even research that yields obvious benefits may have costs. It is likely to consume resources such as the time and salary of the researcher, or the time of participants. It may also have more obvious negative consequences and, of course, benefits and harms may not be distributed evenly. In general, obligations to do no harm override obligations to do good. However, there may be circumstances where this may not be the case, such as occasions where research might produce a major benefit while inflicting a less substantial harm.
Some ethical codes have over generalized obligations of beneficence and nonmaleficence on the basis of principles developed to meet the needs of medical research. However, some research undertaken in the social sciences may quite legitimately and deliberately work to the detriment of research subjects by revealing and critiquing their role in causing fundamental disadvantage or exploitation. Some codes explicitly acknowledge that researchers working to uncover corruption, violence, or pollution need not aim to minimize harm to the corporate or institutional entities responsible for the damage, though they might be expected to minimize any personal harm.
Integrity
Researchers owe a professional obligation to their colleagues to handle themselves honestly and with integrity. The following cover matters relating to a researcher’s own work and his or her colleagues’ scholarship: intellectual honesty in proposing, performing, and reporting research; accuracy in representing contributions to research proposals and reports; fairness in peer review; and, collegiality in scientific interactions, including communications and sharing of resources.
The U.S. Federal Policy on Research Misconduct defines research misconduct in terms of fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. In 2009, the Research Councils UK (United Kingdom) released a Policy and Code of Conduct on the Governance of Good Research Conduct. Like several other statements developed outside the United States, the code also pointed to matters of misrepresentation of data; interests, qualifications, or involvement; undisclosed duplication of publication; and breach of a researcher’s duty of care.
Researchers face enormous pressures to publish or, at least, look like they are publishing as they struggle to obtain grants or jobs. One consequence has been that problems have arisen over the attribution of authorship either because someone who has insignificant involvement has been added—gift authorship—or because junior staff who made significant contributions have been omitted—ghost authorship. Occasionally, these omissions are part of a larger disinformation strategy. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has created a definition of authorship that requires substantial contribution to research design, data acquisition or analysis, and drafting of the article. Many criminology journals have yet to catch up with such practices in publication ethics.
Relationships
Conflicts of interest occur in social science when researchers have coexisting personal, financial, political and academic interests; and the potential exists for one interest to be favored over another that has equal or even greater legitimacy, in a way that might make other reasonable people feel misled or deceived. Researchers risk appearing negligent, incompetent, or deceptive. Although criminologists may be less likely to have a financial stake in their research area than biomedical scientists, they may still have to negotiate financial or contractual relationships with corporations or government agencies. There are, therefore, questions as to whether they should accept contracts in which clients hold a veto over publication; disclose corporate or government affiliations when advising the public or publishing research; or assess grant applications from commercial competitors. Many research institutions are developing enterprise cultures that make such conflicts of interest more likely. Criminologists may use the term conflict of interest to describe role conflicts where their relationships with research participants involve multiple roles as researchers as well as perhaps teachers, clinicians, activists, colleagues, or friends. This can occur wherever researchers are embedded as insiders in the research site, notably in action research. In such circumstances, it may be particularly difficult to negotiate informed consent, guard confidentiality, avoid harm, and convince research ethics committees that the research relationship has not been exploitative.
Institutional conflicts of interest may influence the governance and conduct of research. Some ethically acceptable research proposals might be blocked in the ethics review process because of, for example, a desire by the reviewing institution to avoid legal action. Commercial relationships maintained by research institutions can also place individual researchers in invidious positions— even if individual researchers are not directly compromised by their home institution’s corporate relationships, they could be influenced by the knowledge that their own institution’s financial health might be affected by the results of their research or, at least, be seen to be influenced.
While most work on research ethics is based on universal notions of justice, since the late 1970s, feminist writers have elaborated an ethics of care. For such writers, people develop and act as moral agents through social relationships. These relationships derive strength and meaning from each party’s willingness to listen, include, care for, and support the other. An ethics of care has obvious implications for ethics in research. Among other things, it forces people to think about a broad range of relationships that fall well outside those with research participants and the academy that are the traditional focus for most codes of research ethics. Criminologists sometimes work in teams and senior researchers may have responsibility for the ethical behavior of members of their staff, their physical safety and emotional well-being. In criminology, some projects require research team members to deal repeatedly with subject matter that might have a traumatic effect on them.
As pressures increase on academics to find external funding for their research, university based social scientists may find themselves working for clients. As an employee or consultant, researchers and their institutions may be bound to secrecy or commercial-in-confidence agreements. They may be questioned about the propriety of accepting money from a particular source, such as an American counterinsurgency program or the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and find themselves increasingly vulnerable to charges of conflicts of interest, or having their own interpretation of the need to minimize harm and maximize benefits to participants challenged by colleagues and sponsors.
Facing Future Challenges
As the environment within which research occurs evolves, so researchers can expect changes in the ethical challenges they face. The conduct and governance of research raises significant issues for those conducting investigations outside their home jurisdictions, or who secure funding from external sources that require ethical review in accordance with the regime applying in the jurisdiction where the research will occur, and for those with external students who must conduct research within courses taught by flexible delivery or at offshore sites. While there are obvious complications that might arise from, for example, the possibilities of increased risks to both researchers and participants, differing conceptions of rights and harm, and the role and demands of gatekeepers, there are also additional governance issues.
Criminologists have become increasingly interested in the Internet as either a tool for research or a site of study in its own right. While many long-standing ethical issues are equally relevant online, researchers may need to find new ways of responding to them. For example, Internet mediated research poses particular problems in distinguishing between public and private data, verifying the identities and status of participants, providing debriefing, securing or redacting data, and in determining which regulations might exert jurisdiction over any research.
Most ethical difficulties might be resolved by reference to one of the three principles initially formulated in the United States in the Belmont Report—justice, beneficence, and respect for others—and that form the basis for most codes of research ethics. However, more challenging dilemmas may arise if it becomes necessary to violate a basic principle in order to meet the needs of another. Criminologists have had a difficult history working with research ethics bureaucracies. In some cases, long-standing practices have been questioned and suppressed. No doubt, there is some value in identifying the points at which criminologists have struggled to gain approval for their work. Researchers, however, are compelled by their own professional ethics to draw attention to systemic difficulties and to work collectively as a discipline to develop responses to the conflicting demands inherent in their work.
Bibliography:
- Campbell, Rebecca. Emotionally Involved: The Impact of Researching Rape. London: Routledge,
- Geis, Gilbert, Alan Mobley, and David Shichor. “Private Prisons, Criminological Research, and Conflict of Interest: A Case Study.” Crime and Delinquency, v.45 (1999).
- Israel, Mark and Iain Hay. Research Ethics for Social Scientists: Between Ethical Conduct and Regulatory Compliance. London: Sage, 2006.
- Israel, Mark and Iain Hay. “Research Ethics in Criminology.” In David Gadd, Susanne Karstedt, Steven F. Messner, eds. Sage Handbook of Criminological Research Methods. London: Sage,
- Mertens, Donna M. and Pauline E. Ginsberg. The Handbook of Social Research Ethics. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2009.
- Palys, Ted and John Lowman. “Social Research With Eyes Wide Shut: The Limited Confidentiality Dilemma.” Canadian Journal of Criminology, v.43 (2001).
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