ABSTRACT
The chapter suggests the potential of appreciative ethnography for criminological research. It is illustrated from a study of hate-crime policing. The appreciative ethnography found police officers’ practice, engagement and relations with victims to be shaped and informed by the principle of empathy. An appreciative approach therefore revealed hate-crime detectives’ culturally competent practice. Through such immersive and reflective criminological research, we show how the ethnographer can access the occupational worlds of those oft-maligned and pathologised men and women who are clustered together as part of the police force with colleagues who are corrupt, racist and brutal. Appreciative ethnography enables us to move away from condemnatory approaches to achieve an appreciation of what officers feel they do well.
