Why do We Need Research Ethics?

We might all think that we know how to conduct ethical research. After all, it’s just about being an honest person and doing research in “the” right way, isn’t it? Well, though honesty is important, there are specific additional elements that researchers need to consider in their work. And while we might think that there is a “right way” and a “wrong way” to conduct ethical research, it isn’t always that simple; what is deemed “right” can depend on the study design and methodology, the participants, and the decisions that we make as researchers.

In Canada, ethical research is guided by the three core ethical principles of Respect for Persons, Concern for Welfare, and Justice.  Research ethics are not merely an afterthought once research is completed, but something considered at the outset of our research, and which shapes all our research decisions. Unfortunately, prioritizing ethics was not always part of the research process, and there are many examples of research which violate aspects of these core ethical principles.

This chapter begins with a review of both classic examples – namely the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Tearoom Trade – and contemporary examples of unethical research involving Indigenous participants in Canada, illustrating the continuing need to prioritize ethical decisions in research.  Following these examples, the chapter outlines the role of Research Ethics Boards (REBs) in protecting participants in studies like these, and in preventing such ethical breaches from occurring in the future. Then, the core principles outlined in the Tri-Council Policy Statement 2 (TCPS2) are reviewed together with the 5 Rs of Indigenous research ethics to show how the two approaches can work in harmony and where they may differ.   The chapter concludes with a review of the additional responsibilities of an ethical researcher.  It is important to bear in mind while reading this chapter that the principles and guidelines presented in this chapter may not represent the principles and guidelines of all Indigenous communities and nations in Canada and that there are variations, not all of which could be captured here.  Having said that, every effort is made to provide a fulsome overview of the shared principles and lessons, with variations noted where relevant.

Unlike other introductory research methods texts in the field of criminology, it was the decision of the editors of this open education resource to place this chapter at the very beginning as ethical decisions do truly impact every single decision in the research process, from the paradigm to which we orient ourselves all the way through to how we decide to share our research findings, and every step in between. The hope is that students gain a true appreciation for the paramount importance of ethics in all that we do as criminologists.

Classic and Contemporary Examples of Unethical Research

The Stanford Prison Experiment

Phillip Zimbardo set out to research power and authority, specifically in a prison setting (Haney, Craig, & Zimbardo, 1973). He set up a simulated prison in the basement of a campus building at Stanford University, complete with cells which had steel bars and a space for solitary confinement. Zimbardo recruited 24 undergraduate men who were then assessed for physical and psychological health and randomly assigned to be prisoners or guards. The goal was to see how otherwise normal young men would embody or adopt the roles they were assigned – a prisoner with little power, or a guard with near absolute authority.

To keep the experiment as authentic as possible, participants were not informed in advance about which role they had been assigned. The “prisoners” found out about their role when they were publicly arrested at their homes, then taken to the “prison”  for processing. They were given a uniform and a prisoner number. The “guards” were also given a uniform which included mirrored sunglasses and billy clubs. The guards were told to maintain order in the prison, though they were not provided with any specific rules. Instead, the guards created their own rules and punishments for breaking those rules, such as forcing them to engage in physical tasks like push-ups, withholding food and sleep, removing the beds from cells, stripping prisoners naked, and placing prisoners in solitary confinement. While the experiment was to last for two weeks (running 24 hours a day), adverse events occurred early in the study, including a prisoner “rebellion” against their treatment, plans for a prison break, prisoners engaging in self-harm as well as experiencing psychological distress. The experiment was terminated after six days (Zimbardo, Maslach, & Haney, 1999). Although participants technically volunteered for the study were compensated for their time ($15 a day), and they all provided general consent, the degree of harm experienced was beyond what was disclosed or even anticipated by Zimbardo. The extent to which their participation was truly voluntary is also questionable; after all, they were university students with significant tuition, textbook and living expenses, and $15 a day in 1971 is equivalent to $117 a day in 2025.  Over the full two weeks of the experiment, that would amount to $1638 today, a pay day that would likely be enough to convince many students these days to participate even if they would not otherwise do so.

Researchers have an ethical responsibility to ensure participant welfare and to avoid harm, and that was missing in this case. With the cruelty evidenced by the guards, and the resulting harm to the prisoners (and the guards), the study should have been stopped immediately; however, Zimbardo was so engrossed in his role as “prison warden” that he started seeing the participants as research objects rather than as participants who were being harmed. It was only after a doctoral student questioned the ethics of what Zimbardo was allowing to happen that he ended the study (Zimbardo, Maslach, & Haney, 1999). Since the study, Zimbardo has discussed things that could have been done differently, including not assuming the role of warden.

The Stanford Prison Experiment is a good example of a few ethical issues, one being the responsibility to minimize or mitigate harm to participants, and another being the need to ensure voluntariness of participation.  Another ethical issue centres on the researcher themselves and their own role in the research. Researchers are not objective bystanders in their research; they are active in their own work and have an obligation to ensure ethical and honest research. Indeed, there is evidence (e.g., Le Textier, 2019) that Zimbardo was not completely forthcoming when communicating with research participants or the public when describing the study due to his own personal goals and biases. Some of the criticisms include providing the guards with more guidance on how to interact with prisoners than reported, pre-writing the conclusions of this study for presentation to the media before it had concluded, and overdramatizing the severity of the simulation for personal gain.

The Tearoom Trade

Laud Humphreys was a doctoral student in the late 1960s at Washington University; his dissertation research explored the practice of men engaging in anonymous sexual encounters with other men in public restrooms (known as the tearoom trade). Humphreys wished to understand who these men were and why they participated in the trade. To conduct his research, Humphreys offered to serve as a “watch queen,” the person who keeps an eye out for police and other strangers who were not a part of the tearoom activities. At the time, homosexual behaviour was illegal, so watch queens served an important role in protecting the tearoom participants by alerting them to the presence of others. What Humphreys did not do was identify himself as a researcher to his research participants. Instead, he watched his participants for several months, getting to know several of them, learning more about the tearoom trade practice and, without the knowledge of his research participants, jotting down their license plate numbers as they pulled into or out of the parking lot near the restroom. After participating as a watch queen, with the help of several insiders who had access to motor vehicle registration information, Humphreys used those license plate numbers to obtain the names and home addresses of his research participants. Then, disguised as a public health researcher, Humphreys visited his participants in their homes and interviewed them about their lives and their health (Humphreys, 2008).

Humphreys’ research dispelled a good number of myths and stereotypes about the tearoom trade and its participants. He learned, for example, that over half of his participants were married to women and many of them did not identify as gay or bisexual: ground-breaking research at the time. However, once Humphreys’ work became public, it created quite a controversy among sociologists and the public at large, largely over ethical issues of privacy, consent, and deception. Controversy about the study is still ongoing, even years after Humphreys’ death.

Humphreys (2008) maintained that his observations were ethical as the interactions observed occurred in public places where people have a diminished expectation of privacy. Others have critiqued this, arguing instead that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy even in a public washroom, and that by recording license plate numbers and tracking down participants in their “normal lives,” Humphreys crossed an ethical line (Babbie, 2004; Lenza, 2004). While the critics do have a solid argument, Humphreys went to great lengths to protect the identities of the participants, including destroying the list of participants, and never disclosing any identifying information about the tearooms or the men who frequented them (Lenza, 2004). Critics of Humphreys’ work also focused on lack of consent and deception as participants were not informed of Humphreys’ role as a researcher or their role as a research subject (Lenza, 2004).

While full, free, and informed consent is the ideal now, there are some circumstances in which deception may be necessary or consent impractical. It is entirely likely that the men in the tearoom would have acted differently, or even stopped coming, had Humphreys been forthcoming with his true purpose. In a subsequent edition of Tearoom Trade, Humphreys (2008) offered that he would conduct the second part of his research differently. Rather than trace license plate numbers and interview unwitting tearoom participants in their homes under the guise of public health research, Humphreys instead would spend more time in the field and work to cultivate a pool of informants. Those informants would know that he was a researcher and would be able to fully consent to being interviewed. Covert research is fraught with ethical dilemmas, and the welfare of the participants must be prioritized in such situations. Humphreys’ research illustrates the time and effort that strong, ethical research may require.

Experiments on Indigenous Peoples in Canada

While these classic American social science examples provide us with rich learning opportunities about what not to do when conducting research, Canada has its own problematic history when it comes to conducting unethical experiments on Indigenous people that warrant our attention. While we present the following examples of research that has been conducted in the past, we also must recognize that harmful and colonial research is an on-going concern for Indigenous people.

For readers who have had similar experiences to those about to be discussed (human experimentation and boarding schools), or those who are impacted by the unethical research, past or present, please feel free to skip ahead to the section on Research Ethics Boards. For other readers, it is important to discuss a topic typically not addressed in research methods texts: the problematic research on Indigenous people. In many of these experiments, harmful or untested interventions were administered, without following ethical guidelines such as those discussed later in this chapter, and at times without proper consent given by participants or without proper respect for their dignity. For instance, George (2019) describes medical experiments that were conducted on Igloolik Inuit men to examine the effectiveness of skin grafts that were painful and that left participants with significant scars. As one of the former subjects, Mr. Paul Quassa declared in an interview in 2019, “We are not animals, we are another human being that deserves respect” (Oudshoorn, 2019).

Other notable examples of unethical research conducted on Indigenous people are those of the nutritional and biomedical experiments conducted on residents of Indigenous communities and Indigenous children attending residential schools in the 1940s and 1950s. Mosby (2013) describes a series of studies intended to examine “the state of nutrition of the Indian by newly developed medical procedures… [which] included physical examinations, blood tests, and x-rays on nearly 400 Aboriginal residents” (p. 146) in northern Manitoba. Upon arriving at the communities, the researchers noted that many of the residents were severely malnourished. Without fully taking political and power dynamics of colonization into consideration, the researchers concluded that the malnourishment had likely resulted from a combination of factors, including reductions over time in income and food sources due to overhunting and the decline in the fur trade, and reductions of relief payments distributed to Indigenous peoples by the Canadian federal government. It was initially determined that an intensive study would be undertaken over the course of 1-2 years to examine interventions for malnutrition in these communities. However, the study ballooned into a series of studies conducted over a decade, largely without the knowledge or consent of the participants. Those assigned to the control groups for these studies were exposed to continued malnutrition for long periods of time. For example, in an initial study of 300 participants, just over one-third of participants were administered nutritional supplements like riboflavin, thiamine, and/or ascorbic acid, while the remaining participants did not receive any supplements.

Additionally, many of the nutritional supplements used or intended to be used in the research studies were either known to be nutritionally sub-par or had not yet been tested for their effectiveness. The most well-known study within these experiments is that of the James Bay Survey, whereby vitamins and fortified foods were introduced into the diets of residents via “decidedly experimental strategies” (Mosby, 2013, p. 155) for nutrition supplementation. Two of the nutrition sources intended to be distributed to the northern communities for the study, via both relief allocations or in the food distributed to residential schools, included a variation of a blood sausage containing largely organ meat and filler products and what was referred to as a “Meat Spread.” These were ultimately rejected by the Department of Agriculture and not used in the study because the foods were in contravention of the Food and Drugs Act which controls the proportion of substances that can be added to food products in Canada that lower its quality. Unfortunately, potential harm to participants due to the experimental interventions was not a top priority for researchers.

Such unethical research was not limited to adults; research was also conducted on children in residential schools. In the 1940s in Brandon, Manitoba, a study was conducted aimed at identifying a measurement of extrasensory perception and to “find evidence of supernatural abilities of [those who the researchers referred to as] ‘primitive’ people” (Phillip, 2015, para 4). This serves as an example of cultural information taken out of context resulting in published conclusions that were factually incorrect and failed to respect cultural beliefs. Though the study authors describe the children as having willingly participated, as was typical at the time of the study, consent was neither given nor received from the children nor the parents. Further, given the issues mentioned earlier of hunger and malnourishment, offering candy to children as compensation for their participation, likely impeded in part their free will in deciding to participate in the study (Phillip, 2015). This touches on the key concept of voluntariness.

These examples illustrate that there was a time in which Indigenous people were largely viewed through a lens of racism and dehumanization, considered more as a convenient population of individuals who were inhumanely labelled as “laboratory rats” (George, 2019, para 5) or “experimental materials” (Mosby, 2013, pg. 148) than as human beings deserving of respect.  Together with the classic examples discussed earlier in the chapter, the history of research on Indigenous Peoples in Canada highlights the dire need for clear protections when conducting research with or on vulnerable populations. Let us now turn our attention to the role of research ethics boards in addressing this need.

Research Ethics Boards

The Tri-Council Policy Statement 2 (TCPS2) (Government of Canada, 2022) requires any institution which receives funds from the Tri-Council agencies (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)) to have a Research Ethics Board to review and approve all research conducted by staff, faculty, or students on human participants. This research may employ a variety of methodologies, including but not limited to interviews, surveys, observations, and collection of human tissue.

The purpose of a Research Ethics Board (REB) is to ensure that research complies with the TCPS2 (2022) principles and prioritizes the well-being of participants. REBs are composed of faculty members who have expertise in research ethics and methodologies across a variety of academic disciplines. For example, a REB may be composed of faculty members from Criminology, History, Communications, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, Kinesiology, Chemistry, and Marketing. Ideally, this affords a diversity of perspectives on the proposed research project before it has begun.

No research is risk-free, and part of the REB’s job is to assess risk to participants. Research proposals are generally classified as “minimal risk” or “above minimal risk.” Minimal risk is where the risks of participation in research are no greater than what participants would encounter in their everyday lives. In contrast, above minimal risk is where the risks of participation in research exceed those in everyday life. For example, an anonymous survey of students about their views on probation as a sentence would be minimal risk, as this may be something that they consider as part of their studies. On the other hand, in-depth interviews with offenders about their own histories of trauma and victimization would likely be considered above minimal risk, as the participants may experience re-traumatization through the re-telling of their stories, something they are unlikely to do on a regular basis. The level of risk is initially assessed or suggested by the researcher in their Research Ethics Board application based on the level of sensitivity of the subject being studied, the risks of the method, and the relative vulnerability of the participants. Often, the REB will also consider researcher expertise in their assessment of risk.

Each REB will have a standard Research Ethics Board application process that needs to be completed prior to conducting the research, which is typically a series of forms submitted through an online portal. Simply submitting a REB application does not mean that the research can start right away, however. No contact with participants can occur until the REB approves the research. Like any peer review process, obtaining REB approval can take time. The REB review process typically proceeds in the manner shown in Figure 1.1 below.

It is important to note that the research ethics documents that you submit to the REB must accurately reflect the research that you actually conduct! Any modifications to the research protocol, such as a change to recruitment methods, additional participant groups, or a change in survey questions or observation site should be approved by the REB. Any adverse events must also be reported to the REB.  The good news is that modifications usually take a much shorter time to get approval, but it is always important to budget enough time in your research plan for ethical approval and revision. If data collection is ongoing at the time that a revision is submitted to the REB, it is also important to stop collecting data until that revision has been approved.

Core Principles in Canadian Research Ethics

The studies discussed thus far are simply a few examples of research where the desires and interests of the researchers have been prioritized over the rights of participants. Notably, the studies detailed above took place before the establishment of REBs.  In Canada, researchers are required to abide by the Tri-Council Policy Statement 2 (TCPS2), a set of guidelines for conducting ethical research collaboratively developed by the three major funding agencies: the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC). As research is not static, the TCPS is updated and revised in response to changes in research and in society. There have been several revisions since the first TCPS in 1998, with the TCPS2, published in 2022, being the most recent version (see TCPS: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans). The policy identifies three interconnected core principles that every researcher must consider when developing and conducting research with human participants: Respect for Persons, Concern for Welfare, and Justice.

Western research has been critiqued as colonial and there are widespread calls to decolonize research, and research ethics specifically (Smith, 2012; Wilson, 2008). Recent collaborative efforts with Indigenous researchers and academics in the revisions to the TCPS2 have resulted in the creation of a specific chapter on ethical considerations in research with Indigenous Peoples. Even still, colonial ideologies have been, and in some cases still are, prioritized over the rights of Indigenous Peoples.  In response, Indigenous communities in Canada – Inuit, Métis, and First Nations – have started to develop their own research ethics guidelines and principles to represent formally how the community wants and expects research to be conducted. The Secwépemc Nation Research Ethics Guidelines and the Esk’etemc Traditional Knowledge and Research Ethics Policy are two examples of these guidelines.

In such guidelines, there are some foundational ethical elements common to Indigenous research methodologies that are referred to as the 5 Rs: Respect, Responsibility, Reciprocity, Relationships, and Relevance (Davey, 2023). There are variations to these foundational ethical elements across nations and researchers, however.  For example, Tsosie et al. (2022) add Representation to the Rs to guide Indigenous research, while others like Roy (2022) focus on the first four Rs, dropping Relevance. In this chapter, we have chosen to present 5 Rs of Indigenous research, as these tend to be consistent in the research literature and among nations. That said, consultation with the community is key in any Indigenous research, and through this you will learn which Rs they hold to be their own ethical core values (more discussion on consultation later in this chapter).

Below we discuss the three core principles and the 5 Rs together to show how the two approaches can work in harmony and where Indigenous research ethics ideals challenge researchers to decolonize their work regardless of the focus of the research.

Core Principle #1: Respect for Persons

Respect for Persons is the first core principle to consider when conducting research with humans.  The TCPS2 of 2022 states “Respect for Persons recognizes the intrinsic value of human beings and the respect and consideration that they are due” (p. 6). This principle includes respecting the autonomy of individuals, respecting their choice to be involved in research (or not), and respecting their contributions to research.

Part of respecting autonomy and choice in research is ensuring that potential participants have the information that they need to make a fully informed and voluntary decision about whether to engage in the research. To ensure that potential participants are informed, researchers communicate all the information a participant needs to know about the study before they consent to participate, including:

• the title of the research project and who the researchers are, including the affiliated institution and contact information for the researchers;
• the main goal of the research project, such as the research question(s) or the topic area that the research is exploring;
• what the participants are being asked to do, such as participate in an interview or respond to a survey, and for how long;
• the potential risks of participation, such as emotional distress, temporary discomfort, or physical harms;
• the benefits of participating, such as using the data to improve services or recommend policy changes;
• any assurances of confidentiality and/or anonymity, including any limitations to confidentiality;
• how the participant data will be stored and protected;
• how the findings will be communicated, such as academic articles, conference presentations, policy papers, or community forums;
• how to withdraw their consent if desired and any limitations to withdrawal, such as within a time window or before a certain date;
• an additional contact person/office if participants have questions about their rights as a research participant (usually contact information for the Research Ethics Board of the institution); and
• a space for the participant (and guardian or representative, if applicable) and the researcher to sign indicating agreement to participate in the study.

This information is usually presented in a document which is signed by both the participant and the researcher. It may also be signed by a guardian if the participant is a minor, or a legal representative for someone whose ability to give voluntary and informed consent is potentially compromised, such as a person who has been diagnosed with dementia.

Signing a formal document is not the only way that a participant can consent to being included in a study. Informed consent is not always written; a participant can consent verbally or in other ways. Take a research project that involves interviews as an example. The informed consent document can be given to a potential participant in advance, allowing them additional time to consider their participation. The project details in the document can be verbally discussed at the beginning of an interview before the participant agrees to participate, and their agreement would likely be audio-recorded to capture their decision. In other contexts, a handshake or the exchange of gifts indicates consent. Researchers should take into consideration the respectful way that consent may be communicated within the cultural context of the research.

Another part of respecting autonomy and choice is the participant’s ability to withdraw their consent. This revocation could happen during data collection, such as exiting in the middle of a survey, or after their participation is complete, such as an interview participant stating that they no longer want their data included in the study once it is completed. Researchers may place reasonable limits on the ability to withdraw for practical reasons. For example, participants may be given a specific date after which withdrawal is not possible, such as the date at which the final report is expected to be complete, or after a time frame during which withdrawal is possible, such as during a 30-day period between when the interview occurs and when measures have been taken to anonymize the data to protect the identity of the participant. These limits on withdrawal should offer the participants enough time to reflect on their contributions and change their mind if they want to; after the research has been published or the data have been anonymized, an individual’s data could be impossible to remove.

Moreover, withdrawal may not be possible at all in some studies depending on the method of data collection. For example, if a survey is completely anonymous, meaning that the identity of the person cannot be linked to their responses at all, it would no longer be possible to locate the survey to remove the data in question. In the case of focus groups, removing one person’s contribution to the conversation after the fact is next to impossible; participants may be able to leave the group during the conversations, but any comments made to that point may not be able to be separated from the other data collected throughout the course of the focus group. Part of Respect for Persons is ensuring that any limits to withdrawal are clearly communicated to potential participants so that they have all the information they need before they consent.

You may have noticed that we use the terms participants, individuals, and persons to refer to people who engage in research. Language matters, and such terms are more reflective of respect in the research process. Rather than refer to participants as “research subjects,” which implies that research is being done on humans or to humans, the term “participants” is a respectful representation and acknowledgement of the way people engage with research and contribute to knowledge and understanding of the world around us.

Indigenous Research Ethics and the 5 Rs: Respect, Relevance, and Relationships

When thinking about respect in the context of the 5 Rs, we can extend the idea of respect discussed above in the context of the TCPS to not only respect for the persons involved in the research, but also respect for the community, ways of life, knowledges with various ways of communicating and holding them, culture, land and environment, and sovereignty of the Nation to decide what is in their best interests. That is, rather than a researcher coming to the community with a fully formed research proposal, wanting to do research on or in the community, the community should be involved at the earliest planning stage so that the research is relevant to what the community wants and needs. Ensuring the relevance of research for the community could take many forms, such as formal conversations with community members about what they see as the most pressing needs, connecting the research with identified strategic priorities of a particular Nation, or building research around a few of the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015). Any research in Indigenous communities should be done with and for the community first and foremost.

The collaborative process in developing not only the research focus, but the entire methodology, ensures that the Indigenous community maintains “agency over the entire research process” (Davey, 2023, p. 53). Wilson (2008, p. 77) offers several questions that researchers working within an Indigenous research paradigm should reflect upon, including:

• How do my methods help to build respectful relationships between myself and the other research participants?
• How can I relate respectfully to the other participants involved in this research so that together we can form a stronger relationship with the idea that we will share?”

Given the lack of respect that Indigenous Peoples have experienced in research in the past, thoughtful and intentional research practice with Indigenous people must centre respect in ethical research moving forward with thoughtful and intentional research practice.

Respect also refers to respect for Indigenous knowledges and ways. Western (colonial) systems of research place emphasis on the objectivity of the researcher as separate from the research, collecting and analyzing data without emotion or personal involvement. Indigenous research, on the other hand, places relationships and the interconnection of people, animals, land, and environment at the centre of the systems of knowledge and the sharing of knowledge with others. Wilson (2008) points out that a Western conceptualization of a “story” is a make-believe tale, yet Indigenous Peoples hold storytelling as a core practice in the communication of knowledge and histories. Respecting not only the relationships but the manner of communication is core to ethical research; rather than dismissing the knowledge as just a story, researchers have a responsibility to honour both the knowledge and the relationship within which the knowledge is shared.

Core Principle #2: Concern for Welfare

Concern for Welfare is the second core principle that every researcher must incorporate into research with human participants.  This principle states that attention must be paid to the well-being of research participants before, during, and after the research. Researchers must mitigate risks of research participation, avoid exposing participants to unnecessary risks, and deliberately consider the “physical, mental, and spiritual health of participants, as well as their physical, economic, and social circumstances” (Government of Canada, 2022, p. 7). As is considered by the Research Ethics Boards, researchers must approach welfare from the perspective of a potential participant in the research.

At the core of Concern for Welfare, and in fact all research, is that research should not result in harm. Harm within research ethics is conceptualized quite broadly, and includes physical, psychological, social, and legal harms (Dixon & Quirke, 2017). Such harms can occur at all stages of the research process, from literature review creation to data collection to dissemination of results. At all points, when risk for harm exceeds the potential benefits of the research, it should not be undertaken.

Researchers must make reasonable efforts to anticipate any physical harms associated with the study and to assess whether the benefits of the research exceed the potential harms that could result from it. The examples of the skin graft research on Igloolik Inuit men and the physical cruelty of guards in the Stanford prison experiment demonstrate the bodily harm that can result from research; notably, harm was not outweighed by the knowledge benefits of the research. Another example involving physical harm is illustrated in a laboratory research study examining the effects of a newly developed antipsychotic drug intended to decrease violent behaviours in dangerous offenders. Participants who are randomly assigned to receive the drug could suffer serious side effects of such medication (e.g., Stroup & Gray, 2018), including a worsening rather than an improvement of their violent behaviour (e.g., Eikelenboom-Schieveld & Fogleman, 2023). Though Concern for Welfare is predominantly concerned with potential harm to participants, we must also consider and attempt to prevent harm to researchers themselves. For example, research assistants could be at increased risk of harm as they are working with individuals who have known histories of significant aggression. Here, a researcher may require that interviewers work in pairs as part of a safety plan to mitigate physical harm.

Like in laboratory research, dangers of physical harm are also present in field research. For example, Mathna & Koen (2022) required students to engage in a police ride-along as a component of the course and evaluated the impact of the ride-along experience on perceptions of law enforcement. Students were exposed to the same potential physical harms that law enforcement officials encounter each day as part of their professions, including vehicular accidents or harm during a police response to suspected criminal incidents. Participants may also be at risk of harm by others simply by consenting to be part of a research study.  A significant concern in research on vulnerable populations, such as survivors of intimate partner violence, is how to keep participants safe when participating in research and when contacting them for follow-up sessions (e.g., Logan, Walker, Shannon, & Cole, 2008) as there is the potential that they may be victimized by those who do not want them to share their experiences. In all cases, it is important to develop detailed safety plans for all persons involved to reduce risk of harm.

Though actions taken in research could result in harm, so can inaction on the part of the researcher. Researchers who conduct experiments may administer an independent variable to an experimental group and withhold this variable from a control group. Researchers must consider how depriving the control group of the independent variable could be harmful (Maxfield & Babbie, 2017). For example, Indigenous participants in control groups of nutritional studies described by Mosby were deprived of minerals and nutrients that could have allayed the negative long-term effects of malnutrition, including increased risk for disease and death (e.g., Mosby & Galloway, 2017). In another example, depriving dangerous offenders from a drug proven to be successful at decreasing aggression could result in victimization of others. As such, in cases where the administration of an experimental treatment is found to be beneficial or effective for participants in the experimental group, plans should be made to offer that treatment to those in the control group to remedy any relative harm due to deprivation.

Consider research studies that you learned about in your very first criminology course – who was examined? It is likely that the participants in at least one of the studies that you learned about were people who have committed crime, been victimized by crime, and/or enforced criminal law. Individuals in these groups may be more susceptible to psychological harm due to their personal and professional experiences. Criminal offenders report significantly higher levels of past trauma than non-offenders (e.g., Matheson, 2012). Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) rates in both victims and law enforcement officials, like police officers, typically exceed the rates in the general population (Cotter, 2019; Public Safety Canada, 2023). Asking individuals to reflect on or discuss experiences may lead to re-traumatization, which can contribute to trauma symptoms resurfacing. Researchers or their assistants may experience secondary psychological trauma when hearing about participants’ past histories of abuse or when reading archival data describing violent crimes in detail as well. As with physical safety, psychological safety of participants and researchers should be considered as part of research designs and procedures. A common approach is to develop distress protocols to respond to potential and actual emotional harm of participants. Such protocols may include using scripted language to reduce the stress of participants, stopping the research study, and recommending contact with crisis hotlines or counselling services (Whitney & Evered, 2022). Similar protocols could be established for the research team as well to combat psychological harms that can result from conducting research.

Social harm manifests from actions that “damage relationships, diminish social standing or reputation, or threaten employment status” (Dixon & Quirke, 2017, pg. 17). Social harms can be felt by individuals, groups, communities, and organizations. For example, the participants in Humphreys’ tearoom trade study were men whose identity as gay was secret or not widely known in their social networks (Humphreys, 2008). Disclosure of their identities could have had serious social consequences, including reputational damage and loss of personal and professional relationships at a time when homophobic attitudes were widespread. Though Humphreys did take steps to conceal the identities of the men in the study, obtaining their names and addresses from their licence plates increased the likelihood that they may have experienced social harms.

Groups can experience social harms as the result of publication of criminology research as well. For example, law enforcement agencies do not systematically publish or release data that break down crime rates by the race or ethnicity of the persons who committed the crimes (Adler, Mueller, Laufer, & Grekul, 2022). It is speculated that this may be due in part to concerns that publication of such data could portray those groups negatively and be used as evidence to bolster prejudiced and/or racist beliefs held by some members of the public (Adler et al., 2022).

Organizations, and the individuals who are members of organizations, can also suffer social harms when research describing past harms committed by those organizations is made public. In 2010, the Toronto Star obtained, analyzed, and published police data which exposed racial bias in the practice of “carding,” or random stops of citizens and the collection of their personal data (e.g., Rankin, 2010). The data revealed that Black persons were stopped disproportionately more often than other groups, which portrayed the Toronto Police in a negative light and resulted in significant public backlash against the organization. However, it is arguable that the benefits of these reports outweighed the resulting harm to the reputation of the Toronto Police. Indeed, a review of police policies and practices was conducted in response to the public backlash and the practice of random carding was prohibited in 2017 (Draaisma, 2017). So while the publication of information may harm the reputation of individuals and organizations who are studied, it would be problematic to ban all criminology research from publishing anything that could cast individuals or groups in a negative light; after all, much research identifies critical problems with individuals or groups that operate within the criminal justice system that are causing harm to others, such as carding. Note that the Toronto Star articles did not single out specific police officers who engaged in the practice of carding, but rather the organization in general. It is important to note that the identities of participants in research studies should be protected whenever possible to mitigate such harms.

Researchers must also take steps to mitigate any potential legal harm for those involved in or affected by research. Research participants may reveal details of crimes that they have not been prosecuted for or may specifically reveal details that would implicate them in the crimes that they describe. Upon hearing this information, researchers may feel compelled to report this information to law enforcement. To prevent this from occurring, researchers may caution participants from divulging any information that could be used to implicate them in past crimes that have gone undetected by law enforcement. However, the purpose of some research studies may run contrary to these cautions – that is, it may be precisely the goal of the research to gather details of crimes that have gone undetected. The courts have generally upheld the confidentiality of research relationships on a case-by-case privilege basis for some types of criminal offences (e.g., R v. Parent, 2014). Of course, there are some instances in which researchers are legally required to disclose criminal acts to authorities, such as in situations where a participant discloses harm to a child. Mandatory reporting of child abuse is discussed more fully alongside confidentiality later in this section of the chapter.

To prevent legal harms, the TCPS2 (2022) directs researchers to be informed about and comply with all legal and regulatory requirements regarding protection of the identities of participants, intellectual property, and decision-making capabilities of participants.  Researchers are also directed to avoid discrimination of participants as per human rights legislation and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And don’t forget about the Criminal Code of Canada! While this may be obvious to the average criminology student, it is important to emphasize that researchers should not actively break the law during the course of their research. For example, a researcher may decide that they will secretly pose as a member of an organized crime group to gain an insider perspective of the organization. To keep their identity secret, the researcher may have to engage in illegal acts to prove their loyalty to the group (e.g., assaulting rival gang members). Though very rich, real-world data about gang life could be obtained, the researcher could be compelled to commit harmful acts in contravention of the law. To avoid this, the researcher may choose a more indirect way of studying the organized crime group, such as interviewing former gang members. All in all, researchers are encouraged to comply with the law in the application of ethical principles to their research (Government of Canada, 2022).

In the context of Concern for Welfare, protecting the identity of participants through confidentiality or anonymity is also required by the TCPS2 of 2022. In fact, the policy requires researchers to “safeguard information entrusted to them and not misuse or wrongfully disclose it” (Government of Canada, 2022, p. 81).  Confidentiality and anonymity are not the same. Anonymity means that you can’t identify research participants; confidentiality means you can identify research participants, but you won’t identify them publicly. Researchers should consider if they are able to promise confidentiality or anonymity to participants and embed processes to ensure identity protections into the research design.

Anonymity can be achieved by designing the research study in such a way that no identifying information about the individual – such as name, birthdate, or address – is shared with the researcher. For example, participants responding to an online self-report survey may be anonymous, whereas anonymity is not possible if your research includes face-to-face interviews as a person could be identified by personal features such as their face or voice. Anonymity is often promised in studies where the participants may be hesitant to be identified because they are fearful that they will face negative consequences for providing data for research. For example, as part of a multi-methodological study funded by the BC Ministry of the Attorney General examining the characteristics of men who purchase sexual services in the Greater Vancouver Regional District, Lowman and Atchison (2006) employed an anonymous self-report survey methodology. Participants completed surveys independently that they obtained from a shelf rented by the researchers in an all-night bookstore. Pre-paid envelopes were left with the surveys, which participants used to mail their completed surveys to Simon Fraser University without including identifying information like a return address. Lowman and Atchison (2006) had no way to identify specific participants, thus participants were completely anonymous.

In contrast, confidentiality should be promised by a researcher when the identities of the participants can be linked back to their individual data.  In another study within Lowman & Atchison’s (2006) project, participants completed a semi-structured interview via telephone with researchers about their experiences as consumers of sex work. Here, participants could potentially be identified by their phone number or their voice. However, researchers promised not to reveal their identities, or any identifying information, to anyone. These details can be directly identifying information, such as participant names, driver’s license numbers, or social insurance numbers, or indirectly identifying information, such as phone numbers, the community where someone lives, or other unique characteristics that may distinguish them from others (Government of Canada, 2022). This information also needs to be considered in the context of the research. For example, a person named Amar who is a criminal lawyer would likely not be identifiable among the millions of residents in Toronto. However, if Amar is a criminal lawyer in a small town with 500 residents, together the details of name, profession, and town may allow Amar to be specifically identified.  Researchers can deidentify (or anonymize) data, meaning removing or hiding identifying information, either in the research process or in the publication process. Deidentifying can include using pseudonyms for participants, and changing their place of residence, such as referring to a large Canadian city or rural small town rather than naming the city or town. Deidentifying can also be accomplished by assigning participants a unique participant ID number and then protecting the document that links the participant with their ID number. Password protection or file encryption are two common ways to protect these data.

Though it is important to protect the identities of participants, there are limits to confidentiality protections. As mentioned earlier, sometimes these are limits that are set in law. In all provinces and territories in Canada, researchers have a legal obligation to report suspected or known child abuse (Tonmyr et al., 2018). Failure to report can be met with fines or other punishments. This information could be divulged by suspected child victims or suspected perpetrators of abuse who are participating in research studies. Researchers are expected to design their research plans to mitigate any confidentiality issues that may arise (TCPS2, 2022). For example, when researchers collect data from populations who are more likely to divulge involvement in child abuse, participants are often directed as part of informed consent that the researchers have a mandatory duty to report child abuse. Researchers may even request that participants not divulge this information to them to avoid situations where reporting of child abuse must occur.

Though the legal obligation to report intended or undetected child abuse is consistent among many professionals in Canada, reporting of intended or actual crimes against adults is not a legal obligation of researchers in Canada, though it may be an ethical one. Other professionals in criminology and the criminal justice system do have such legal obligations; for example, police have both a common law and statutory duty to warn if they are informed of a credible threat of grievous or lethal violence against an individual or group. There are cases in which the right to uphold confidentiality of participants have been adjudicated for some (but not all) criminal offences in criminal court such as in R v. Parent (2014). In a notable case in British Columbia, a researcher was successful in concealing the identities of participants who committed offences when challenged in coroner’s court. Russell Ogden was subpoenaed in 1994 to Vancouver’s Coroner’s Court when he was a graduate student at Simon Fraser University (Lowman & Palys, 1998). Ogden’s research centred on assisted suicide in patients with HIV/AIDS at a time when medically-assisted deaths by physicians were legally prohibited in Canada. He was called to testify because it was suspected that he had acquired knowledge about the death of a “Jane Doe” during his research. Ogden refused to divulge protected information from his research because he had promised participants absolute confidentiality. He successfully argued that he had passed the legal test of privilege in his relationship with his participants as a researcher. It is important to note, however, that issues of duty to warn or researcher-participant privilege when it comes to reporting all criminal offences in Canada remain largely untested in criminal courts to date.

The absence of a legal duty to warn about all intended or actual crimes against adults when they are discovered by researchers does not preclude the presence of ethical duties to warn authorities that participants are a danger to themselves or others. Often, ethical guidelines will include provisions where reporting intended or actual serious harms are exceptions to rules about the protection of participant identities. For example, failure to report harms being committed or experienced by participants conflicts with the core principle of Concern for Welfare. As per the TCPS2 of 2022,

the ethical duty of confidentiality must, at times, be balanced against competing ethical considerations or legal or professional requirements that call for disclosure of information obtained or created in a research context. For example, in exceptional and compelling circumstances, researchers may be subject to obligations to report information to authorities to protect the health, life or safety of a participant or a third party, a community, or the general population. (Government of Canada, 2022, p. 81)

Further, many research studies into sensitive subjects often include a limitation to confidentiality in the informed consent information in that if a participant shares an intention to harm themselves or others, those details (and only those details) will be shared with authorities. REBs also require that researchers report adverse events that occur during their research (e.g., Lyons & Fagbamiye, 2023). In the absence of duty to warn legislation for researchers, they must carefully consider whether the harm of failing to disclose participants’ planned or past crimes exceeds the harm that may result from breaching confidentiality. If the risk of failing to report exceeds the benefits of doing so, disclosures of harm to self or others should be reported to authorities.

Indigenous Research Ethics and the 5 Rs: Responsibility, Relationships, and Respect

The 5 Rs of Indigenous Research Ethics also connect to the core principle of Concern for Welfare, challenging researchers to expand notions of harm and welfare beyond the risks and harms noted above. The 5 Rs invite researchers to consider their own ongoing responsibility in the research process for ensuring the welfare of not only the participants themselves, but also the community and relationships within it. As with the core principle of Respect for Persons, the R of respect in Indigenous Research Ethics underpins considerations of welfare and harm.

In his list of questions for researchers, Wilson (2008, p. 77) raises notions of responsibility and relationships:

• “What is my role as researcher in this relationship, and what are my responsibilities?
• Am I being responsible in fulfilling my role and obligations to the other participants, to the topic, and to all of my relations?”

We add two questions  to those Wilson (2008) invites researchers to consider, which challenge researchers to consider their own identity and how that may influence the research and relationships:

• Who am I as a researcher, community member, and person?
• What is my social location, such as positions of privilege and identity?

Recognizing the importance that relationships hold in Indigenous research methodologies and ethics and taking active responsibility for building and maintaining relationships is part of avoiding harm within the research process and is central to the concern for welfare the TCPS highlights as a core principle. Also, recognizing that harm is not limited to the immediate community members, but also includes the ancestors and relations of the community as a whole is an important idea to hold close as the welfare of the entire community is prioritized.

Reputational harm is a form of harm experienced by Indigenous Peoples in the past within a Western/colonial research framework. Because of this harm, and the extractive practices of Western/colonial research, Smith (2012, p. 1) has identified that research is “probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world’s vocabulary.” Historically, research has been conducted which has reified harmful stereotypes, portraying a community or group in a harmful or derogatory way (Tuck, 2022). Such research tended to frame Indigenous communities from a deficit perspective, meaning that there was something wrong with the community or individuals that needed to be identified, explained, and solved, thus causing harm to the community. Instead, researchers could consider a strengths-based perspective to mitigate community harm as part of their responsibility to prioritize the welfare of participants. A strengths-based approach does not mean ignoring any problems or challenges; indeed, recognizing and naming problems are crucial steps in developing solutions. Rather, a strengths-based perspective highlights the resources and strengths within the community itself. Such strengths can include the relationships among and between community members, connections to cultural practices, and the lands as resources to respond to the challenges in the community.

An example can help to illustrate the difference between deficit and strengths-based perspectives. Data from the Canadian Uniform Crime Reporting Survey shows that in 2018, the “rate of police reported crime [was] six times higher in Indigenous communities than in non-Indigenous communities” (Statistics Canada, 2020, p. 7). A deficit perspective would frame this statistic as indicating something wrong in the communities that needs to be fixed by others because the communities are not capable of doing so themselves. This way of framing the problem would cause reputational harm, portraying the communities as helpless and rife with criminals. Instead, a strengths-based approach, as seen in Statistics Canada (2020), highlights all the actions taken by the communities to respond to crime in their communities, such as justice circles and restorative justice practices like community justice committees which seek to repair relationships between victims and offenders and mitigate the harm of stigma for the individuals as well as the community at large. Such responses draw on the strengths of the communities, including the deep family connections and relationships with community and land to reduce recidivism and increase accountability.

In light of the discussion above about confidentiality and anonymity, it bears a note here in connection to Indigenous Research Ethics. Confidentiality and anonymity may be a part of protecting the welfare of the community but given that so many Indigenous voices have been silenced by Western/colonial research in the past, some Indigenous communities or community members may want their contributions recognized using their own names. It is the responsibility of the researcher to respect the participant’s choice and not force confidentiality as a condition of participation.

Core Principle #3: Justice

The TCPS2 of 2022 offers the following definition of Justice:

Justice refers to the obligation to treat people fairly and equitably. Fairness entails treating all people with equal respect and concern. Equity requires distributing the benefits and burdens of research participation in such a way that no segment of the population is unduly burdened by the harms of research or denied the benefits of the knowledge generated from it. (p. 9)

You can see in the definition the overlap with the core principles of Respect for Persons and Concern for Welfare. However, Justice focuses more on equity and fairness within the research process and participation in research. Basically, no person or group should be exploited for research, and no person or group should be systemically included in or excluded from the benefits of research. Take the examples offered earlier in the chapter of the research conducted on Indigenous people. While there were certainly issues of lack of respect and harm, there was also a lack of Justice. The Indigenous participants were treated as research subjects, exploited for research because of their relative powerlessness, and disproportionately bore the burden of the risks and harms of the research.

The power imbalance between researcher and researched, and the vulnerability of the persons or group involved in the research as participants are two aspects of Justice that need to be considered. Vulnerability can refer to “limited decision-making capacity, or limited access to social goods, such as rights, opportunities, and power” (Government of Canada, 2022, p. 9). For example, in a study interviewing older adults about their perceptions of crime, an older adult with mild dementia could be considered a vulnerable person in the context of research due to the possibility of compromised decision-making about participating in the research. Under the core principle of Justice, this person should not automatically be excluded from research. Instead, how could this person be included in the research respecting their choice and with attention to their welfare? One possibility is to ask a caregiver to assist during the consent process and be present in the interview, and to be a familiar person to support the older adult if they have a brief memory lapse or get momentarily confused (both symptoms of mild dementia). This way, the welfare of the older adult is being protected and their choice to be included in the research is respected.

What about the ethics of paid participation? Valuing the time and energy that participants give to the research is encouraged, such as offering gestures of appreciation like a mug or t-shirt, or a gift card or cash representing an average hourly wage. A reward can be considered one of the benefits of research participation. However, the amount should not be so high as to induce or coerce the participant into the research and thus undermine the voluntariness of participation, as seen in the Stanford Prison Experiment. The reasonableness of the payment or gift (or coercive nature of the amount) can vary depending on the group that is participating. Pretend that two students, for example Jill and Pahar, are each conducting their own research. Jill is researching how people who are unhoused perceive their interactions with law enforcement, and Pahar is interviewing successful criminal defence lawyers about setting boundaries with their clients. Each student is offering their participants a $75 gift card to a local coffee shop as thanks for their time in a one-hour interview. For Pahar’s participants, the gift card amount is a small fraction of their billable rate and thus represents a nice perk of participation but is unlikely to induce anyone to agree to take part in the study. For Jill’s participants who are unhoused and impoverished, $75 likely represents a great deal of money to them. For Jill’s participants, the gift card amount could coerce participants into taking part in the study even if they don’t want to, negating the voluntariness of participation that is key to the core principle of Respect for Persons.

Indigenous Research Ethics and the 5 Rs: Relevance and Reciprocity

Recall the definition of Justice above, that no one should be disproportionately burdened by research nor unequally denied the benefits of research. This is where we look to the Rs of Relevance again as well as Reciprocity as components of ethical research.

When research is relevant and beneficial for a community, the burden of participating in research (i.e., time, energy, effort) is offset by the benefits gleaned from the research. Engaging in relationship building and conversations about the needs of the community as the foundation of the research, at the very first stage of the research idea, is a way to ensure both relevance of the research for the community as well as respect for the protocols of the Nation. Some communities may have strategic priorities with which research should be aligned, while others may have a specific program to evaluate or a challenge within the community that requires research to support solutions. Building relationships within the community takes time and effort but are crucial for ethical and relevant research with and for Indigenous communities.

Reflections on research conducted with (on) Indigenous Peoples in Canada in the past have revealed that much of this research adopted an extractive or “helicopter” approach (University of Waterloo, n.d.), whereby agencies and researchers entered communities, extracted data, and left without returning to present findings or with the aim of using the information to benefit the communities in which it was collected. Among the questions Wilson (2008, p. 77) invites researchers to consider are the following two:

• “What am I contributing or giving back to the relationship?
• Is the sharing, learning, and growth that is taking place reciprocal?”

Reciprocity means giving something back and is the opposite of the extractive research of the past. Reciprocity is grounded in relationships based on trust and openness. Within Indigenous Research Ethics, part of reciprocity is the return of information to the community. Acknowledging the past harms that have been done via extractive research, many First Nations have developed research protocols and research agreements to clearly establish relevance, reciprocity, and respect within the research process.  Many of these agreements and protocols directly address data sovereignty. For an example of a resource for example knowledge sharing along with links to research protocols, see this resource from the Government of Northwest Territories: TK Data Sharing Agreement [PDF].

The First Nations Information Governance Centre (FNIGC) offers the OCAP® principles as a way to ensure one aspect of reciprocity when it comes to data and information. OCAP® stands for Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession of information and data about the community and individuals within it; in short, addressing Indigenous data sovereignty. The OCAP® principles offer a framework to ensure that “First Nations alone have control over data collection processes in their communities, and that they own and control how this information can be stored, interpreted, used, or shared” (FNIGC, 2024, para. 3).

Another way to ensure reciprocity is by sharing the results of the research in an open community gathering. The community gathering may happen at various points throughout the research process to have conversations over meals about how the research is progressing and results so far, or a celebration and sharing at the conclusion of the research project. Again, respect of the particular ceremonies of the Nation with whom you are doing research and honouring the relationships that are being built through the research process are pivotal to ethical and reciprocal relationships.

In summary, it is important to note that while the core principles of Respect for Persons, Concern for Welfare, and Justice shape and guide researchers’ actions and decisions, how these principles are operationalized may differ depending on the group that is participating in the research. In researching with and for Indigenous communities, Davey (2023) offers that the methodology used should resonate with and reflect the values and approaches of the community involved in the research as a component of ethical research.

Researcher in the Research Process: Additional Responsibilities of an Ethical Researcher

In addition to upholding the core principles of the TCPS2 of 2022 and the 5Rs, researchers have some general ethical responsibilities to the academic and research community: Honesty and Transparency, Respect, and Openness. These responsibilities and ways to honour them are outlined below.

Honesty and Transparency

From the proposal to the presentation of findings stages of research, it is critical that we are truthful in communicating how our research will be or has been conducted. Researchers bear a significant responsibility to the participants and groups that they study, to the individuals who assist them in conducting their research, to those who are impacted by the findings, and to the scientific community and knowledge keepers in general. As such, researchers must be upfront about the risks and benefits of their research, as well as about what they can and cannot conclude from the data they have examined. Such transparency may be achieved by doing the following:

• Preparing research proposals and ethics applications that contain honest and realistic plans for research that are followed faithfully and revised with granting agencies and REBs if necessary;
• Providing accurate information to participants when they give informed consent to participate in research;
• Clearly describing the methods and findings of research studies when disseminating findings in presentations, publications, or community gatherings; and
• Abstaining from falsification of data or exaggerating what can be concluded or inferred from research findings.

When in the planning stages of research, researchers must anticipate whether they may encounter “incompatibility of two or more duties, responsibilities or interests … of an individual or institution as they relate to the ethical conduct of research, such that one cannot be fulfilled without compromising another” (Government of Canada, 2022, p. 265) during the course of their research. This is referred to as a conflict of interest. Conflicts of interest can be real (e.g., the researcher’s parent works for the agency funding the research), potential (e.g., the researcher could obtain a job with the participant’s legal firm in the future), or perceived (e.g., the researcher has worked for a similar organization previously that is funding the research, but has neither official ties to the organization nor plans to join them).

Not all conflicts of interest substantively impact the outcomes of research studies, but the possibility that they may be present and how they could affect the work for a researcher must at the very least be considered.  When a conflict of interest is present, steps must be taken to ensure that role conflict does not compromise the integrity of the work at any stage of the research process. For example, as you may recall from earlier in the chapter, Zimbardo erroneously adopted the role of Superintendent in the Stanford Prison Experiment. It has been suggested that his immersion in the prison simulation played a role in the failure to cease data collection earlier, resulting in harms to participants that should not have occurred. Similarly, he has been accused of prewriting the results of the study to achieve non-academic goals (e.g., Le Textier, 2019). Researchers must take steps to ensure that other roles that they hold do not unduly influence the research they conduct.

Holding dual roles can also affect decisions about if and how data should be published. Take for example an active-duty police detective who also conducts research part-time at a university. The detective decides to conduct research on the effectiveness of an interrogation technique that is used in their department. However, upon analysis of the study data, the detective discovers that the interrogation method poses a significant risk of resulting in a false confession. As a researcher, the detective knows that the discovery of a problematic interrogation technique should be disseminated to the criminal justice community to prevent wrongful convictions. But as a detective, the findings of this study could call into question the validity of hundreds of confessions made to police and have serious legal ramifications for the department. As such, the detective may be tempted to manipulate or falsify data to make the risk for false confessions appear lower, or simply fail to present the findings publicly. But withholding accurate findings would violate principles of integrity that the researcher must uphold.

This example demonstrates how important it is that researchers report and distribute research findings in an honest manner and reflect on how their biases may affect how they collect, examine, and report data. Positionality statements, also referred to as reflexivity statements, offer a way for the researcher to be transparent about their perspectives and potential biases in the research process (Lumsden & Winter, 2014). For example, a researcher may begin a conversation, presentation, or publication about the research that describes their background and reasons for conducting the research in question. These statements may allow the researcher and others to consider any potential biases that they may hold in the planning and execution of research  (see Ethics – British Society of Criminology and Statement of Professional Ethics – Canadian Sociological Association [PDF] for more on how to support collegial relationships when conducting research).

Respect

To further uphold Respect for Persons, researchers have a duty to show respect to the field of study in general and to other researchers in particular.  With regards to showing respect to the field, according to the American Criminology Society (ASC) Code of Ethics (2016), researchers must take strides to avoid “incompetent, unethical, or unscrupulous use of criminological knowledge” (pg. 1).  Incompetence could include failure to use up-to-date measurements or failure to conduct an updated review of literature that is reflective of current knowledge and practices in criminology research. Unethical research could be that which is harmful to the life, safety, and/or reputation of participants or does not respect their decision to or not to participate in research studies. Unscrupulous research could be studies that are conducted with a hidden agenda to harm a group of individuals, such as publishing a study that finds Indigenous people are incarcerated at higher rates than non-Indigenous people, with the intention to implement tougher sentencing laws on offenders who are Indigenous. As experts in the field, researchers must follow sound, high-quality research practices and conduct their research in a responsible manner to uphold high standards for the discipline.

As there are numerous instances when researchers may engage with others and provide critical commentary on their work, such as at public presentations or as part of the peer review process when research studies are published in academic journals, often professional associations also provide guidance on how to engage respectfully with the work of colleagues.  For instance, section 11.10 of the Canadian Sociological Association Statement of Professional Ethics (2021) states that any evaluations of colleagues, students, and their work must be based on professional criteria only and cautions against reviewing the work of others when the researcher has a conflict of interest or has a pre-existing close relationship (be it positive or negative) with those being reviewed. Section 2.9 of the ASC Code of Ethics requires that criminologists respect the rights, dignity, and worth of all people they study and work alongside in their research. Though researchers often review the work of others and provide critical feedback, this should not be taken as an opportunity to launch unkind criticism at others. Critique should be direct but helpful and focus on the ideas in the research and not the characteristics or personality of the researcher. And though it can be challenging, it is also respectful to be open to critiques of your own research from others as they may have perspectives that you have not considered. When in doubt, be curious, not critical. We should all be collegial and receptive to the ideas of others, as good research stems from collaborative efforts at generating knowledge, which ultimately benefits the discipline as a whole.

Openness

As we have discussed in the previous section, being open to the ideas of others is important. It is also important to be open to sharing research ideas with others. Financial support and resources to conduct and communicate research are finite and need to be respected as such. Further, ensuring that no one person or group is unduly burdened by research and that all people and groups equally benefit from research is central to the core principle of Justice. One way to achieve the equitable distribution of the work and benefits of research is to subscribe to the principle of scientific openness, which is defined as “the commitment to publicly and freely sharing the products and means of scientific investigation, including data, results, theories, models, hypotheses, methods, protocols, materials, and computer code used in processing and analyzing data and images” (Resnik, 2023, p. 2). By extension, openness also includes sharing results of research studies with communities at large. Considering the extractive research approach taken with Indigenous populations in Canada in the past, sharing results with the community first is particularly important when working alongside Indigenous communities to uphold ideals of reciprocity and relationships forged during the research process.

Conclusion

In this chapter, you have been exposed to past studies where ethical violations occurred. You have also learned about the core principles of Concern for Welfare, Respect for Persons, and Justice and the 5 Rs of Indigenous research ethics – Respect, Relevance, Responsibility, Reciprocity, and Relationships – which are intended to prevent ethical violations of the past and improve the benefits of research in the future. You have learned that while some literature suggests that there are 4 Rs while others refer to 6 or more Rs, the important thing to keep in mind is the importance of consulting with the Indigenous community you are researching with to learn which Rs they hold to be their own ethical core values.

You have also learned about the ways in which researchers uphold these principles and goals of ethical research. These ways include but are not limited to prevention of harm, protection of identities of research participants, ensuring research participation is voluntary and informed, and respecting the cultural beliefs and practices of the populations with whom you work. Finally, you learned about the importance of being honest and transparent, respectful, and open as a researcher, as well as the necessity to hold yourself and others accountable to uphold these responsibilities. It is important that you consider these principles and ideas as you consume research moving forward, as well as to practice them if you conduct research in the future.

References

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