 |
Ethical guidelines, principles and duties
|
|
|
|
Ethical guidelines, principles and duties
The key principles of social research ethics were laid down by the Belmont Report (National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioural Research, 1979). Almost 40 years ago, the Belmont Report provided an early template for ethical guidelines of University Research Ethics Boards (REBs), emphasizing the importance of not harming research participants. Research participants should not
suffer physical harm, loss of self-esteem or experience unnecessary stress. They should be protected by anonymity and confidentiality in analysis and dissemination (i. e. publica- tion). Criminological research should also be guided by informed consent, provision of sufficient information for participants and voluntariness; a clear assessment of risks and benefits; and the selection of subjects by fair procedures (Israel, 2015). Haggerty (2016: 15), however, warns of how Research Ethics Boards (REBs) can also contribute to the policing of criminological research. REBs may promote risk reduction and protect the reputation of the university rather than seeking to reflect the intellectual or social impor- tance of creating new knowledge. Ethics can be trumped by risk.
A number of the principles found in the Belmont Report are also to be found in the 2015 Code of Ethics of the British Society of Criminology (BSC – see Box 6. 8). Yet, reflections on the ethics of research lead us back to key questions around ontol- ogy and epistemology. As Walters (2003) has highlighted, criminological research funding has reached a new zenith in recent years and this pressure to conform is illustrated in the 2015 BSC ethics code. Sections 5. 1 and 5. 2 remind researchers that they should ‘avoid damaging confrontations with funding agencies and the
BOX 6. 8 BRITISH SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY 2015 CODE OF ETHICS
SectIon 5: RelatIonshIps wIth Sponsors
Researchers should:
1. seek to maintain good relationships with all funding and professional agencies in order to achieve the aim of advancing knowledge about criminological issues and to avoid bringing the wider criminological community into disrepute with these agencies. In particular, researchers should seek to avoid damaging confronta- tions with funding agencies and the participants of research which may reduce research possibilities for other researchers.
2. seek to clarify in advance the respective obligations of funders and researchers and their institutions and encourage written agreements wherever possible. They should recognise their obligations to funders whether contractually defined or only the subject of informal or unwritten agreements. They should attempt to complete research projects to the best of their ability within contractual or unwrit- ten agreements. Researchers have a responsibility to notify the sponsor/funder of any proposed departure from the terms of reference.
Source: British Society of Criminology (2015) at www. britsoccrim. org/documents/ BSCEthics2015. pdf
|
|
|
participants of research’. This could imply compliance so that future opportunities for funding are not damaged. As Schumann (2013), Behr et al. (2013) and Walters (2003) have warned, this could mean adopting methodologies and epistemologies which reflect the priorities and ontologies of the State.
This discussion of risk and rule-bound ethics raises important questions about undertaking interviews with ‘vulnerable’ research participants and asking questions on sensitive and emotive topic areas. Taking the example of self-harm and attempted SIDs in prison once again, it is possible that asking prisoners about their experience of coping/not coping with imprisonment may be traumatizing for participants. It may be deeply upsetting for some to talk about the harmful outcomes of the prison place. On the other hand, prisons are places that systematically generate hurt and injury and so any probing inquiry inevitably touches on such emotive issues. Indeed, by providing a sympathetic ear and a platform for their voice to be heard, the research may even be a cathartic and empowering experience. People react to research ques- tions differently, but all participants who are talking about a harmful experience will probably find this painful to some extent. Researchers should not be silenced or prevented from asking difficult questions, though it is important they are sensitive and responsive to the emotional feelings of participants in that moment, recognizing that interviews may have to be prematurely ended if distressing for respondents.
Virtuous researchers
Research principles and guidelines are undoubtedly good things but they are not always helpful in the day-to-day situational context of doing research (Carlen, 2016). Many of the ethical decisions researchers need to make cannot be codified. For virtue ethicists like Fricker (2007), researchers should have good character and be commit- ted to the search for truth (see also Hammersley, 1995; Gregory, 2003). Accepting that there can be no objective or value-free research, for Fricker (2007) problems arise when epistemology is either compromised by a bias or prejudice against the credibility of the worldview of research participants or when researchers do not have the appropriate social or cultural resources to understand participant worldviews. Consequently, the best guide for doing ethical research is to habituate researchers into the culture and practices of research excellence. By this she means training researchers in virtues around unprejudiced listening, ethical trust, respect, honesty, sensitivity and scholarship so that they can develop their own ‘ethical consciousness’ and a ‘virtuous perception’ of the world (Fricker, 2007: 74). In so doing, researchers will develop wise and virtuous judgements and become reflexive enough to recognize their own privileged position and personal prejudices.
For Fricker (2007) though, this individual pursuit of excellence is not always enough. There may also be collective (societal) failures of interpretation (how we understand). Here, whole social experiences may be ‘obscured’ from our collective understanding. The research subject is in effect silenced. If researchers cannot under- stand or frame an issue/harm appropriately, they therefore are unable to communicate
|
|
|
it effectively to others. One example is the prisoner experience of the pains of impris- onment. On the surface, the daily prison regime seems mundane. Some have even gone as far as to claim that it is easy – a ‘holiday camp’ (Barrett, 2015). Yet one of the most insidious aspects of imprisonment is the manner in which the enforced boredom of prison life leads to an increased sense of time consciousness (Cohen and Taylor, 1972). There is no obvious language available to describe the sense of waste, longing and loss generated through the awareness of the passing of time, and this lack of understanding only exacerbates the pains of imprisonment (Scott, 2016a). Fricker (2007) suggests that what we need is a new common sense – a new shared interpretation – of the lived realities of the marginalized and excluded and a commitment to become a responsible and ‘virtuous hearer’ (Fricker, 2007: 5): that is, to be prepared to listen carefully, empathetically and without prejudice not only to what is said but also what is not said, thus identifying structural denials of voice (Cohen, 2001).
|
|
|
