Criminal behavior: patterns and theoretical perspectives

¶ … Criminal Behavior and How to Address Them

Perhaps the foremost challenge relating to the study of criminal behavior is the question of compliance: unlike many other research subjects, criminal subjects in prison are not able to fully, freely consent to being studied. Because of the relationship of the researchers to the subjects under study there is likely to always be an appearance of coercion, in contrast to other fields of research of volunteers. By virtue of being incarcerated, it is difficult for subjects not to feel coerced. Of course, not all criminology research is conducted on inmates, but when the subjects have criminal backgrounds, there may be a profound discrepancy between the class, culture and worldview of the persons being studied and researchers.

Another ethical challenge is the question of to whom does the research benefit. Ideally, research should benefit the test population as well as the persons doing the study. However, in many aspects of criminal research, the criminals themselves may receive no benefit (such as studies about how to better apprehend criminals by flagging specific psychological profiles). On the other hand, it could be argued that it is unfair if the criminals do benefit from the research vs. The victims of their crimes. However, no matter how heinous the acts the criminals may have committed, the research must never be 'punishment' for their crimes.

Particularly in relation to juvenile detainees, there are thorny ethical questions regarding studying this population. Theoretically, their records are expunged once they become adults. Thus there is even more of an ethical responsibility for researchers to take care to preserve all juvenile's anonymous nature. But even if confidentiality can be guaranteed, what about the issue of consent? Many juveniles may be in the care of the state or foster homes and are too young to be competent to consent to the research themselves.

Of course, there are also the 'meta-ethics' of studying crime, namely the profound policy implications that the findings of different criminal research studies can yield. Important decisions regarding the death penalty and social welfare programs may be made based upon criminology research. Criminology is not an abstract discipline. It is designed to have real world, real-life implications and thus must be undertaken with care. However, human beings' behavior cannot be perfectly controlled, and no experiment conducted in the field can be isolated from variables that may potentially affect the results, even with the inclusion of a control group. A faulty experiment could have far-reaching effects.