WHAT IS CRIMINOLOGY? Eds Mary Bosworth and Carolyn Hoyle Oxford: Oxford University Press (www.oup.com), 2011. xxxvi + 551pp. ISBN 978019–9571826 (hb). £75.
| DOI | 10.3366/elr.2012.0114 |
| Published date | 01 May 2012 |
| Pages | 294-296 |
| Author | Alistair Henry |
| Date | 01 May 2012 |
In their contribution to this impressive and intriguing collection Shadd Maruna and Charles Barber ask “why can't criminology be more like medical research?”. Their response is something of a cautionary note, particularly for criminologists with highly laudable aspirations to make policy development, and the design of practical interventions and initiatives, more evidence-based (aspirations lent currency as the REF approaches and research councils increasingly demand that ‘impact’ be demonstrated). Amongst other things, they argue that criminology has long benefited from the different methodological approaches that have contributed to its development, and that tendencies to privilege experimental design and systematic review criteria of research within medicine and psychiatry should not be uncritically emulated, particularly in a discipline whose subject matter has such contested contours, and which should necessarily concern itself not only with empirical rigour, but also with normative reflection. These knotty issues get to the heart of some of the methodological and political boundaries (to use the terminology of the editors) that ultimately characterise the wider field of criminology and animate many (if not all) of the other contributions to this book, lending it a critical tone and sense of engagement that one might not necessarily expect in similarly titled collections. Maruna and Barber invoke Nikolas Rose's critique of historical overviews of disciplines (psychiatry being the target in this case), describing them as having an unfortunate tendency to be “self serving hagiographies with a familiar structure – in the beginning, there was cruelty and confusion, but as the field became progressively more scientific over time, conditions have continuously improved” (321).
This is assuredly
To continue reading
Request your trial