The Value(s) of Criminology and Criminal Justice
| Author | Anne Robinson |
| Pages | 5-8 |
5
THOUGHT PIECE
'Thought Pieces' are papers which draw on the au thor's personal knowledge and
experience to offer stimulating and thought provoking ideas relevant to the aims of the
Journal. The ideas are located in an academic, research, and/or practice con text and all
papers are peer reviewed. Responses to them should be submitted to the Journal in the
normal way.
THE VALUE(S) OF CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL
JUSTICE
Anne Robinson, Principal Lecturer, Dept. of Law, Criminology and Community Justice,
Sheffield Hallam University
Awareness and understanding of va lues is of critical importance in criminology and
criminological enquiry. Why? Because thinking about crime and how such thinking
informs actions and systems set up to control or reduce the impacts of crime are not mere
abstractions, but derive from b eliefs, values and assumptions about the social world and
individuals within it..
And these can work in ways that discriminate, oppress and exclude sectors of society,
sometimes deliberately but often unwittingly. It is a fairly safe p resumption that most in
the criminological world would not want to be associated with that. But if we want to see
ourselves, in contrast, as car ing, moral, humane, ci vilised, then it is imperative that w e
identify and articulate our values and ensure they are consistent with those qualities.
And that requires more than just saying that we are ‘good’, principled academi cs,
researchers, policy-makers or practitioners. It means being rigorous in examining our
activities - in the academy or in the real world of criminal justice – an d questioning where
we are going, what values we think are driving us and which ones are driving us in reality.
That is an extensive and on-going process, which requires us to reflect and to reconsider
what has become matter-of-fact or taken-for-granted in our thinking or ou r day to day
practices. We are often so busy getting on with tasks that we don’t take time to st ep back
– so we benefit from prompts now and then to carefully and consciously do exactly that. A
good starting point for reflection is Howard Becker’s notion of ‘taking sides’, and the
understanding that we can never be entirely objective – indeed the attempt within
sociological and criminological research to take a neutral stance is itself underpinned by
British Journal of Community Justice
©2014 Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield
ISSN 1475-0279
Vol. 12(1): 5-8
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