ABSTRACT
Criminological research is concerned with a wide range of problems and issues. These have been outlined in Chapter 1 and encompass questions such as ‘what is the extent of crime?’, ‘what is the social and ecological distribution of crime?’, ‘can criminal behaviour be explained in terms of the characteristics of individuals?’, ‘what are the social determinants of crime?’, ‘how is crime experienced by victims?’, ‘what are the systems for the control and prevention of crime and for the punishment and treatment of offenders?’. Research about these questions focuses on particular ‘objects’ of inquiry. These are the basic units of analyses about which data are collected. They can include specific individuals such as a professional fence (see, for example, Klockars (1974), The ProfessionalFence), social groups such as gangs of soccer hooligans (see, for example, Williams, Dunning and Murphy (1984), Hooligans Abroad ) and institutions such as the British Police (see, for example, Holdaway (1983) Inside the British Police ). Here we ground ourselves in case studies about different ‘objects’ of inquiry with particular reference to those individuals, social groups and institutions which comprise the criminal justice system. This is done as a vehicle by which a number of problems and issues about criminological investigation can be considered. These include problems of getting approval to conduct research in corners of the criminal justice system which, for one reason or another, are closed to outsiders; the ethical dimensions of the collection of data by covert means from individuals who have a vested interest in protecting themselves from the prying eyes of criminological researchers; the problems of getting research findings and conclusions into the public domain, particularly where these appear to compromise powerful groups and individuals; and the use, or non-use, of research findings by politicians and other decision makers.
