NCJ Number
232629
Date Published
2010
Length
19 pages
Annotation
In discussing the potential limitations and strengths of research that relies on prison-based interviews, this chapter considers the advantages and disadvantages of such research compared to interviews with active offenders, and it proposes a strategy for empirically addressing this important issue.
Abstract
The credibility of prison samples is consequential for all who study crime, regardless of their methodology. Much of what researchers know of serious offenders is based on prison interviews; however, currently there is no reliable evidence about whether an active offender sample is better than a prison-based sample in obtaining accurate and informative interviews. This chapter proposes a research methodology for conducting such research. Researchers should use identical interview guides that produce qualitative loosely structured responses in interviews with inmates in a State prison system and offenders active in the State. These offenders should be matched on gender, age, criminal experience, and crime of interest. Active offenders would ideally be drawn proportionate to the composition of the prison system by residence and would likely heavily represent a few major metropolitan areas of the State, with some presence of inhabitants of rural regions. In addition to interviews, surveys with measures central to criminology should be administered to determine whether there are distinctive psychological and social characteristics among those who are caught and imprisoned. Alternatively, qualitative components can be added to longitudinal research in which a panel of potential offenders designated as high risk for continued crime are contacted and interviewed repeatedly regardless of their current status in the criminal justice system. 35 references