43. Criminological engagements

Abstract

This chapter considers the relationships between criminology and the worlds of penal policy and practice. It focuses in particular on the day-to-day interactions the authors of the chapter forge in their research lives and on their ‘effects’ and failures as ‘engaged criminologists’. The chapter supports forms of criminological engagement that are subtle, long term and relational rather than occasional, mechanical, linear, or instrumental, and proposes that these forms of engagement improve understanding but require constant reflection and negotiation. This chapter argues that knowledge-generation is slow and cumulative; it takes time to ‘read a situation’ in complex human and social environments and it should be an iterative process with the research community and the world of practice teaching, learning from each other at every step of the way. Research participants welcome a ‘full’ research presence of the kind described in this chapter. For knowledge to ‘do good’, it needs to be (qualitatively) ‘good’ and should be produced through patient, honest, rigorous, and disciplined but also deeply engaged forms of enquiry. This chapter suggests that our institutional structures often fail to support this model of research.

Collaboration before collaborative research: The development of ‘Distant Voices’

“…Liebling et al (2017) suggest that we should moderate that position. While accepting that academics can claim to see things with a certain sort of clarity because they possess a specific set of methodological skills as well as specific forms of knowledge that allow them to look at social phenomena in a particular way, making sense of what we see (and what to do about it) requires academics to work with others, and with their particular forms of knowledge.…”

“…In one sense, these transitions – from the community to the academy – reflect fundamental questions about who ‘owns’ and controls research as knowledge production. In reflecting on their varied ‘criminological engagements’, Liebling et al (2017) discuss the associated problem of ‘epistemic privilege’; referring to the sometimes subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle assumption (particularly implied by the contemporary ‘impact agenda’) that academic researchers and institutions somehow ‘know best’ and must therefore be the leaders of research processes and projects. They note thatConventionally, academics tend to defend the value of research and scholarship in two ways; one related to method and one related to theory.…”

“…To summarize, we are able to see better because we look harder and because we have a body of knowledge that enables us to make better sense of what we see. (Liebling et al, 2017: 996)…”

“…That would be ‘impact’ to be sure, but not of the sort we would seek or endorse. (Liebling et al, 2017: 997)…”

Access denied: Research on sex in prison and the subjugation of ‘deviant knowledge’

“…Prisons researchers, however, are neither entirely without influence nor without alternative options. In encouraging the Prison Service to be(come) 'literate and enlightened users of, commissioners of, and partners in meaningful research' (Liebling et al, 2017(Liebling et al, : 1007, senior scholars in particular may yet be able to persuade gatekeepers that there is no justification for the automatic preferment of quantitative methods or assumption that qualitative approaches must always be yoked, however awkwardly, to quantitative data collection and analysis in order to be perceived as rigorous and credible. They should, in short, contest what Martel (2004) terms the tendencies towards paradigmatic 'bipolarization' and 'banalization', in which the deification of quantitative methods seemingly demands the denigration of qualitative approaches.…”