Introduction: Measuring Crime and Criminal Justice

Date26 August 2019
Published date26 August 2019
Pages1-4
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/S1521-613620190000024001
AuthorMathieu Deflem,Derek M. D. Silva
1
INTRODUCTION: MEASURING
CRIME AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Mathieu Deem and Derek M. D. Silva
It is not true that the scientic nature of scholarship is primarily determined by
its methods. It is a common misconception of science, hopefully made more by
non-scientists than by those who practice it, to refer to the merits of scholarship
by virtue of the so-called “scientic methods” that are used in a particular eld
of study. Nothing could be less scientic. In truth, a scientic discipline is dened
primarily by the systematic nature in which it builds knowledge about a particu-
lar part of reality to account for variation therein. The questions of science are
its most foundational component, not the methods with which those questions
are answered. Theories clarify what appropriate questions can be formulated
and how they should be approached. As such, methods always follow theories.
However, this does not mean that methods are any less valuable and indispensable
in the scientic process. On the contrary, methods of discovery, data collection,
and analysis must be relied upon to test and/or apply propositions on a universe
of observable phenomena and their interrelations. In other words, methodol-
ogy is a necessary but insufcient condition for the accumulation of systematic
knowledge the sciences pursue.
From this conception of the relation between theory, methods, and data, the
present volume seeks to offer a useful contribution to present an overview of the
value and use of a variety of methods and research techniques in criminology and
criminal justice research today. There is no doubt that contemporary scholarship
in criminology and criminal justice studies is sophisticated in all relevant respects
that social science demands. Yet, the value of methodology in research on crime
and criminal justice has sometimes been more and sometimes less recognized over
the course of the development of these elds of study, with all due consequences.
While today’s methodological contributions in crime and criminal justice schol-
arship are at times not always fully acknowledged, it is to be noted that historically
the so-called criminal sciences such as criminal anthropology and criminal justice
administration were in fact virtually synonymous with methodology and empiri-
cal research. Traditional elds of criminological investigation, such as criminal
Methods of Criminology and Criminal Justice Research
Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, Volume 24, 1–4
Copyright © 2019 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
ISSN: 1521-6136/doi:10.1108/S1521-613620190000024001

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