Sociology - Unstructured Interviews + Crime and Deviance

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  • Created by: Iqra
  • Created on: 21-12-12 19:12
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  • Unstructured Interviews {Crime & Deviance}
    • Power and Status Inequality
      • Can overcome barriers of power and status inequality.
      • Due to informal manner, a rapport can emerge, this could encourage interviewees to respond more fully.
      • This then producing more valid data, this can be useful when talking about sensitive topics like violence crime victims, childhood abuse or racism in the CJS
    • Recording Data
      • Those involved may be unwilling to have responses recorded on a digital recorder for fear of incrimination.
      • To offender or police, recording by writing could  seem as though an official report is being written about them
    • Safety
      • Due to direct contact with certain violent offenders, it could raise safety issues.
      • Access may be limited due to safety concers
    • Access
      • Difficult to find suitable interview venue's. Criminals may be concerned with talking to a researcher who may look like a police officer or journalist.
      • Homes, or workplaces are inappropriate for certain people and prisons provide little privacy for sensitive topics.
    • Validity
      • Some involved in crime have slang language and this type of interview provides the researcher to stop and ask specific meanings.
        • Few researchers have personal experience of crime, so open ended exploratory nature of these questions, means that the researcher can learn as they go.
    • Rapport
      • Those being interviewed are likely to be defensive and suspicious, therefore a high level of trust is needed.
      • Fear of possible punishment could lead to the truth being harder to discover. Therefore the relaxed nature of unstructured interviews could be more helpful here.
    • Reliablity
      • The relaxed atmosphere cannot be standardized, therefore different interviewers may maintain different results, this reduces the reliability of the findings.

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