Cover Page -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface and acknowledgements -- PART 1 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN CRIMINOLOGY: HISTORY, POLITICS AND ETHICS -- 1 The development of qualitative approaches to criminological research -- Introduction -- The origins of criminology and criminological research -- Combining traditions -- Why conduct qualitative research on criminological topics? -- Concluding comments -- Exercises -- Further reading -- 2 Doing research on crime and justice: a political endeavour? -- Introduction -- Towards a definition of 'political' -- The politicization of law and order -- The politicization of criminological theory -- Pipers and paymasters -- The politics of postgraduate research -- The micro-politics of criminological research -- The politics of publication and dissemination -- Making use of criminological research -- Concluding comments -- Exercises -- Further reading -- Useful websites -- 3 Ethical dimensions of qualitative research in criminology -- Introduction -- Definitions -- Ethical issues brought to the fore -- Organizational and political constraints -- Community concerns -- Individual rights -- Review of ethical statements -- Informed consent -- Privacy and confidentiality -- Avoiding exploitation -- Ethical positioning -- Concluding comments -- Exercises -- Further reading -- Useful websites -- PART 2 THE QUALITATIVE RESEARCH PROCESS: FROM ACCESS TO ANALYSIS -- 4 Negotiating and sustaining access -- Introduction -- Getting in: negotiating physical access -- Social access -- Conducting research without access -- Saying goodbye: leaving the field -- Concluding comments -- Exercises -- Further reading -- 5 Interviews -- Introduction -- The skilled interviewer -- Selection of method -- Theorizing the interview -- The contribution of feminism -- Closed and open questions -- A typology of interview strategies.

The skill base -- Group interviews and focus groups -- Responsibilities to interviewees -- Tools for gathering information -- Concluding comments -- Exercise -- Further reading -- 6 Ethnographic approaches to researching crime and deviance -- Introduction -- What is ethnography? -- The origins of ethnography -- The Chicago School and its legacy -- A new twist: the Deviancy School and ethnography in the UK -- Feminist criminologies and ethnography -- The decline of ethnography? -- Contemporary ethnographies of crime and criminals -- Contemporary ethnographies of criminal justice agencies and institutions -- Concluding comments -- Exercises -- Further reading -- 7 Using documentary evidence in qualitative research -- Introduction -- Documents as a resource and a focus of research -- Historical research -- Court and police records -- Media sources -- Political and personal accounts -- Approaches to using documentary evidence -- Concluding comments -- Exercises -- Further reading -- 8 Analysing qualitative data -- Introduction -- Establishing the research questions -- The grounded approach -- The hidden skill -- Matching data and analytic strategies -- Triangulation -- Devising strategies for data collection and management -- Content analysis -- Transcription -- Coding of data -- Grounded theory -- Approaches to coding -- Computer packages as an analytic resource -- Interpretation of data -- Concluding comments -- Exercises -- Further reading -- PART 3 REFLECTIONS ON THE RESEARCH PROCESS: TWO CRIMINOLOGICAL CASE STUDIES -- 9 Researching substance use among young homeless people -- Introduction -- Theoretical background to the research -- Research questions and design -- Research issues -- Concluding comments -- Exercises -- Further reading -- Notes -- 10 Researching private policing -- Introduction -- Background to the research project.

Establishing strategies to research private policing -- The theoretical background -- Gaining access -- Diverse agendas -- Field relations -- An ethnography of private policing -- Problems in handling informants -- Groundwork for the survey -- The neighbourhood survey -- Interviewing -- Data collection and analysis -- Concluding comments -- Exercise -- Further reading -- 11 Looking forward: the future of qualitative research in criminology -- Qualitative research: challenges, controversies and opportunities -- Reflection on the future of qualitative research in criminology -- Concluding comments -- References -- Index.

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.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.