Research Catalog

Title

Offenders on offending : learning about crime from criminals / edited by Wim Bernasco.

Publication

Cullompton, Devon ; Portland, Or. : Willan Publishing, c2010.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Bernasco, Wim, 1961-

Description

xxii, 322 p. : ill.; 24 cm.

Summary

"There are many things about crime that we can only learn from offenders. It is, however, not at all easy to find them and persuade them openly and truthfully to discuss their crimes. Most are difficult to reach, and many are unable or unwilling to provide the answers we need. Nevertheless, the offenders' perspective is vital to knowing and understanding crime: How did a person learn to commit an offence? How precisely was a specific crime enacted? What made the person commit the offence?" "Offenders on Offending provides a comprehensive overview of the challenges and possible solutions to the problems posed by offender-based research. The book focuses strongly on issues of methodology and what we can do to maximise the validity of what offenders tell us about their offending. It addresses the strengths and weaknesses of various methods used to elicit information on offending behaviour from offenders, and discusses strategies to obtain the collaboration of offenders and to maximise the validity and reliability of the data." "Leading authorities from around the world present their experiences and insights of work among various types of offender populations." "This valuable new collection demonstrates that offender-based research is a thriving field where exciting developments are taking place. It will be essential reading for a wide audience, from experienced researchers to students who are starting to find there way in offender-based research."--BOOK JACKET.

Subject

• Crime > Methodology
• Crime [MESH]
• Criminal behavior
• Criminal psychology
• Criminaliteit
• Criminele psychologie
• Misdadigers

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Part 1: Setting the Stage -- 1. Learning about crime from criminals: editor's introduction / Wim Bernasco -- 2. Misinformation, misunderstanding and misleading as validity threats to offenders' accounts of offending / Henk Elffers -- 3. Apprehending criminals: the impact of law on offender-based research / Scott Jacques and Richard Wright -- Part 2: Prison Settings -- 4. Interviewing the incarcerated: pitfalls and promises / Heith Copes and Andy Hochstetler -- 5. Interviewing and validity issues in self-report research with incarcerated offenders: the Quebec inmate survey / Carlo Morselli and Pierre Tremblay -- 6. Beyond the interview: complementing and validating accounts of incarcerated violent offenders / Fiona Brookman -- Part 3: Field Settings -- 7. Method, actor and context triangulations: knowing what happened during criminal events and the motivations for getting involved / Marie Rosenkrantz Lindegaard -- 8. Repeat, triangulate and reflect: ethnographic validity in a study on urban minority youth / Frank van Gemert -- 9. Getting good data from people that do bad things: effective methods and techniques for conducting research with hard-to-reach and hidden populations / Ric Curtis -- Part 4: Social Categories of Offenders and Researchers -- 10. The impact of gender when interviewing 'offenders on offending' / Jody Miller -- 11. Talking to snakeheads: methodological considerations for research on Chinese human smuggling / Sheldon Zhang -- 12. Blue-collar, white-collar: crimesandmistakes / Neal Shover and Ben W. Hunter -- Part 5: Learning About the Actn -- 13. Research on residential burglary: ways of improving validity and participants' recall when gathering data / Claire Nee -- 14. The use of maps in offender interviewing / Lucia Summers, Shane D. Johnson and George F. Rengert -- 15. Interviewing offenders in a penitentiary environment and the use of mental maps during interviews / Veronika A. Polisenska -- 16. Validating offenders' accounts: learning from offender interviews with bank robbers in Austrian prisons / Birgit Zetinigg and Matthias Gaderer.

ISBN

• 9781843927761 (pbk.)
• 1843927764 (pbk.)
• 9781843927778 (hbk.)
• 1843927772 (hbk.)

LCCN

^^2010282084

OCLC

475456278

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library