Crime and justice research: The current landscape and future possibilities
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895820949297 |
| Published date | 01 September 2020 |
| Author | Richard Sparks |
| Date | 01 September 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Themed Section: Some reflections on the future of research in criminology |
research in criminology
Abstract
The contributions in this themed section developed from conversations that took place at an
event hosted by the British Society of Criminology and Criminology & Criminal Justice in April 2019.
The papers that follow respond to a ‘think-piece’ presented by Richard Sparks at that event, and
engage with the subsequent debate about the future of funding for crime and justice research.
Contributors reflect on the opportunities and challenges arising from recent shifts in funding
allocations and priorities, from their different vantage points. Highlighting the importance of
interdisciplinary and international work, they consider priorities for future investment in crime
and justice research and draw attention to the impact of an increasingly restrictive and risk-averse
climate on critical research. The papers explore the consequences for criminology as a discipline
and warn of the potential reinforcement of existing inequalities in academia unless action is taken
to support the development of future researchers.
Keywords
Challenges, future priorities, opportunities, research funding
949297CRJ0010.1177/1748895820949297Criminology & Criminal JusticeSparks
research-article2020
Thematic Section
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2020, Vol. 20(4) 471 –494
Crime and justice research:
© The Author(s) 2020
The current landscape and
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future possibilities
https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895820949297
DOI: 10.1177/1748895820949297
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Richard Sparks
The University of Edinburgh, UK
Introduction – The ‘brief’ and its context
Early in 2018, I was invited by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to
prepare a concise (12 page) paper – a ‘think piece’ – on the scope for future Research
Council investments in research on crime and justice.1 This was one of 13 such invita-
tions. These were issued to scholars working in fields that for various reasons (in some
cases, perhaps, their comparative newness, in others their interdisciplinary character,
among other possible reasons) seemed to have attracted comparatively little investment
in recent years.
The papers were to be prepared on a common template in three main parts. These
were the following:
1. An overview of the current landscape, including some indication of its current
scope, the identification of major ‘gaps’ and some observations on needs regard-
ing data and capacity building.
2. Key opportunities and future directions, including topics such as interdisciplinar-
ity, internationalization, impact and collaboration.
3. Recommendations on where ESRC might best focus its future funding in order to
make a distinctive contribution to developing research in the area.
The authors had roughly 3 months in which to prepare these pieces, during which time
they were encouraged to consult as widely as possible with people in the field, both
researchers and users or commissioners of research, and with one another. A crucial part
of the context of this mission (for I chose, rashly, to accept it) was the transition then
taking place from the seven existing Research Councils, understood as distinct albeit
collaborating organizations, to the creation of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)2 as
Corresponding author:
Richard Sparks, School of Law, The University of Edinburgh, EH8 9YL, UK.
Email: r.sparks@ed.ac.uk
472
Criminology & Criminal Justice 20(4)
an over-arching body. Although these papers were written primarily for the purpose of
advising ESRC Council and staff on their strategy, there was also an intention that they
should be widely discussed and at least their Executive Summaries published.
I interpreted the injunction to consult to mean trying to open the invitation to com-
ment or contribute as widely as possible. I asked the British Society of Criminology
(BSC) to publicize this to its members, and I sent out emails to about 100 people in the
United Kingdom and around the world. These included everyone I could identify as
Head of a Criminology department or centre, with a request to pass the message on to
colleagues. I received about 40 responses from a range of individuals and groups (for all
of which I remain very grateful).
At the time of writing, I did not know what use ESRC have determined to make of any
suggestion of mine. The project, however, has had a bit of an afterlife, of which this
exchange of views in Criminology and Criminal Justice (CCJ) is a significant extension.
In April 2019, we held a day of discussion in Edinburgh under the auspices of BSC and
CCJ at which I presented the outline of my position, with responses from a number of
people and a lively debate from the floor.
It was evident both from the responses I received to my initial request for input, and
from the discussions in April 2019 that there is a keen appetite for a serious, structured
and inclusive conversation about the future of research on crime and justice. We also
know that there are widely divergent views on these matters. This has always been a
plural and contentious area, often characterized (as Ian Loader and I have pointed out in
other contexts3) by its capacity to generate heat. Part of my responsibility, as I interpreted
it, was to convey some of that diversity in what I wrote for ESRC as a source of strength
and vitality, even if I was also required to offer some definite propositions.
I acknowledge full responsibility for the propositions, therefore, while also affirming
that I made a serious and grateful effort to reflect the range of views that people took so
much time and trouble to formulate and send to me. All I am able to present here, then,
is a condensed version of my argument. I have removed some of the more technical
aspects, concerning data sharing or impact pathways for example, in order to focus on
some ‘big picture’ questions about the shape of the field now and, so far as we can
glimpse it, in the next couple of decades. I cannot speak for decisions that ESRC may
ultimately take, and that in my view is in any case no longer the main topic. I have there-
fore removed explicit recommendations to ESRC from what follows. The issue is rather
how we, as producers and users of research, organize our thinking on actual and emer-
gent problems of crime and control, and in which ways we consider it important to
respond to them.
An overview of the current landscape
What is the current scope of research in this area? The scope of research in the fields of
crime and justice is in principle extremely large. It has always been the case that it is dif-
ficult – and on some views impossible in principle – to draw boundaries around the ques-
tions of crime and justice so as to say that only some topics, concepts, approaches or
methods are relevant.
Sparks
473
We should not begin by regarding this expansiveness as a problem, or only as a prob-
lem. What it means is that crime and justice intersect with many other societal questions
and developments. They cannot be successfully ‘thought’ in isolation but go alongside
other key institutions, processes and approaches. This is key to their contemporary sig-
nificance, and central to the contributions that crime and justice researchers can make to
interdisciplinary approaches to current and emergent challenges.
Here, in order to try to gain some perspective on this question of ‘scope’, I organize
this research area into six broad themes, in roughly ascending order of scale. These are
in no sense evaluative judgements (all the themes noted here are vital and intensely topi-
cal ones), but they may disclose different opportunities for investment, and different
potential impacts among readers and users of research.
1. Crime-as-conduct. Although explaining or otherwise understanding the actions
of people identified as having contravened criminal law (or of other people in
interaction with them – victims of crime, for example) is the most traditional goal
of ‘criminological’4 inquiry it is by no means the sole or even dominant raison
d’être of the field today. Nevertheless, some of the best work internationally on
crime, social exclusion and urban fortunes (characterized by strong observational
research practice and grounding in place), has been done in the United Kingdom,
sometimes with ESRC support.5
The gradually gathering awareness of the centrality of gender in social relations
generally, and in questions of crime and justice in particular, has informed much
of the most imaginative and compelling recent work. Work has addressed the
violences of men against women and children in domestic contexts (coercive
control, intimate partner violence) and in public space6 (including both antique
and seemingly more fully contemporary phenomena such as online threats and
abuse).
2. Pathways and trajectories. Longitudinal studies of pathways and transitions,
often of a cohort drawn from a single city (Edinburgh, Peterborough),7 are
designed to illuminate questions such as the differing outcomes in terms of crime
and victimization among people growing up in different areas or subject to other
influences or disadvantages.
The resources required to sustain such studies over time, and to enable them to
interact with other large-scale, life-course studies, are clearly considerable.
Among the most significant recent extensions of criminal careers research – and
one in which UK-based...
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