ABSTRACT
Based on ethnographic research inside and outside a South African juvenile prison, I argue that asking offenders about their perspectives on their offences brings about a one-sided version both of what happened during a criminal event and of the motivation for getting involved in such events. The knowledge generated through the offender’s perspective can be evaluated for its validity through triangulation of methods, actors and contexts. These triangulations bring about various perspectives on the criminal event and the motivations for becoming a part of it, and by combining and comparing those perspectives it becomes possible to evaluate their relative validity. I illustrate this point through an analysis of a South African male youngster who committed a murder, got sentenced for it for five years and was released from prison during my fieldwork. The chapter unpacks what is meant by ‘ethnographic research’ and shows how validity is created in such kind of research.
Criminologists know very little about what really happens during criminal events (Collins 2008; Katz 1988; Lindegaard 2009; Schinkel 2004). Most research on crime is based on statistical calculations about what might have happened. It is known what kinds of factors could have played a role in the occurrences of crime; it is not known whether these factors 110actually played a role in specific incidences. Recently a considerable amount of studies have been conducted in which the researcher interviews offenders about what happened during criminal events (see this volume). This body of literature has contributed fascinating insights into how offenders perceive the crimes they have committed and what happened during those events according to their memories and interpretations. Due to the relatively limited, often one-time and one-sided interaction between the offender and the researcher, I suggest interviews with offenders are not a useful method when applied alone. When the aim is to know what happened during a criminal event and the motivations for getting involved as offender, interviews need to form part of various kinds of methodological triangulations in order to generate valid knowledge. I illustrate this point through ethnographic data collected in Cape Town.
