Social scientists and laypersons ask questions and seek answers to these questions in an attempt to understand the world around them. We all want to learn about the social and physical environment we are a part of, the people we spend time with, and perhaps even the meaning of life. There are clear differences in how people approach questions and facts, however. The regular layperson will often make assumptions about how the world works, as observations in our regular life are often made quite haphazardly. For example, before I bought my last vehicle, I had not noticed many of this particular model on the road. But lo and behold, the moment I started driving around, I noticed how many people in my own neighbourhood had the same car as I did and even the exact same colour! This is an example of a common error made in general, casual human inquiry: selective observation. Other common errors made in general, casual human inquiry include overgeneralization, illogical reasoning, inaccurate observation, and strict adherence to ideological or political stances (Maxfield & Babbie, 2018).

Let us elaborate on the error of inaccurate observation as it is arguably the most relevant for us as criminologists. Did you know that eyewitness testimony is the number one reason for wrongful convictions (Findley, 2016)? These eyewitnesses, with all good intentions, very often place an innocent person at a crime scene, even if that person was not even in the same part of town at the time the event occurred. The eyewitness may inaccurately observe, and then report, the accused’s hair colour or clothing, thus resulting in an error of fact. This alone demonstrates the dangers of casual human inquiry.

For social scientists, though, observations are made in a much more systematic manner and with much more rigour. The research questions social scientists come up with can be motivated by all types of knowledge, and they are not created out of thin air. Social scientists’ perceptions of how the world works shape the kinds of questions they ask and the kinds of strategies they use to answer those questions. During the research process, social scientists constantly move back and forth from a theoretical level (abstract, generalizable ideas) to an empirical level (actual observations and data analysis). Social scientists learn to visualize the abstract from actual observations in a strategic and deliberate way to identify hidden concepts and patterns and then synthesize those patterns into generalizable ideas that apply to contexts outside the initial observations (e.g., findings from a study examining victims of one type of crime telling us something about victims of other similar types of crime).

While these skills take many years to develop, learning about some basic elements of the theoretical level is a useful first step toward understanding how to think like a researcher. This chapter begins with a brief overview of two key concepts: ontology and epistemology. It then discusses how social science paradigms and theories inform the scientific research process. Examples of criminological theories that fall within each of the paradigms are provided, along with the policy implications of these paradigms and theories.

Ontology and Epistemology

Thinking about what you know and how you know what you know involves questions of ontology and epistemology. Perhaps you have learned about these concepts before in a philosophy class? These concepts are relevant to the work of criminologists as well. While criminology is multidisciplinary and combines knowledge from sociology as well as a wide variety of non-legal fields, our research tends to focus on aspects of crime and criminal behaviour. In doing so, we are usually not starting with zero knowledge. In fact, we usually start with some understanding of three concepts: 1) what is, 2) what can be known about what is, and 3) what the best mechanism happens to be for learning about what is (Saylor Academy, 2012).

Ontology is a Greek word that means the study, theory, or science of being. Ontology is concerned with the first question – “what is”- or the nature of reality (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2009). It can involve some very large and difficult-to-answer questions, such as:

• What is the purpose of life?
• What, if anything, exists beyond our universe?
• What categories does it belong to?
• Is there such a thing as objective reality?
• What does the verb “to be” mean?

Ontology is comprised of two aspects: objectivism and subjectivism. Objectivism means that social entities exist independently of the social actors concerned with their existence. Subjectivism means that social phenomena are created from the perceptions and actions of the social actors concerned with their existence (Saunders et al., 2009).

Epistemology, on the other hand, has to do with knowledge. Rather than dealing with questions about what is, epistemology deals with questions of how we know what is. In criminology, there are many ways to uncover knowledge. We might interview people to understand public opinions about a topic or observe people in their natural environment. We could avoid face-to-face interactions altogether by mailing people surveys to complete on their own or by reading people’s opinions in newspaper editorials. Each method of data collection comes with its own set of ontological and epistemological assumptions about how to go about finding things out (Saylor Academy, 2012). These various methods are discussed in detail in chapters throughout this textbook. But first, let us review the various worldviews—or paradigms—that guide how we go about uncovering knowledge as criminologists.

Paradigms of Social Science Research

The word “paradigm” was popularized by Thomas Kuhn (1962) in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in which he identified patterns of activities that shape the progress of science. For our purposes, we will define a paradigm as a way of viewing the world or the frame of reference we use to organize our thoughts and observations. It is a shared worldview that represents the beliefs and values guiding how problems are solved within a discipline (Schwandt, 2001). The chosen worldview affects how we think about the problem and influences how we go about investigating the problem.  Think of paradigms as mental models we use to understand our human experiences. Different people perceive social issues and institutions in different ways that may frame their thinking and reasoning about an observed phenomenon. For instance, people tend to have vastly different views about the appropriateness of the death penalty as a sentence for serious violent crimes. While some will vehemently argue that this is a moral and just punishment for serious crimes, will suggest that it provides closure for families of the victims, and will say things like “it’s an eye for an eye.” Others will rely on research about the ineffectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent for crime and will make mention of key wrongful conviction cases where an innocent person was convicted and executed for a crime they did not commit. Underlying these opposite standpoints are religious, political, cultural, and intellectual assumptions about how the world works and perhaps more importantly, how it ought to work. The paradigm you are operating under shapes your stance on the issue. Moreover, it shapes our attitudes and our values and, in turn, whether or not we accept or reject data based on how well those data conform to our ideology (Cooper et al., 2010).

Our personal paradigms are like “coloured glasses” that govern how we view the world and how we structure our thoughts about what we see in the world. Paradigms are often hard to recognize because they are implicit, assumed, and taken for granted. By implicit, it is meant that they are not mentioned in a research study, so you really do have to read between the lines; the paradigm, while not stated in plain form, informs the topics researchers choose to study, the methods they employ, the conclusions they draw and, ultimately, the solutions they recommend to address the problem at hand. In other words, paradigms are connected to policy. After all, as researchers in the discipline of criminology, we are tasked with contributing to knowledge and informing policymakers on how to better deal with the social problems that plague our communities. Recognizing these paradigms is key to making sense of and reconciling differences in people’s perceptions of the same social phenomenon. For instance, why might one group of stakeholders be in favour of safe injection sites while another group of stakeholders argues that it only condones drug use? The former will approach the topic from an evidence-based, harm reduction perspective and quote statistics on the lives that are saved when intravenous drug users are not forced to consume these substances in the shadows, spreading disease by sharing dirty needles and overdosing alone in dark alleys. The latter group will make moral or maybe even religious arguments about how it is wrong to condone these illicit acts and that prohibition is the only thing government policies should promote, despite the miserable failure of prohibition policies throughout history (see History of Drug Policy in Canada for a summary of the history of alcohol and drug prohibition in Canada and how it has been described as intricately linked to colonization).

As these examples illustrate, subconscious paradigms often constrain the concepts researchers attempt to measure, their observations, and their subsequent interpretations of a phenomenon. Given the complex nature of social phenomena, many social scientific paradigms may offer a partial view of a phenomenon, and researchers may need to operate from multiple paradigms to fully understand a problem and potential solutions. Social scientific researchers have typically operated from one of four paradigms: positivism, social constructionism, the critical paradigm, and postmodernism. In more recent years, some scholars have noted that we are undergoing a paradigmatic shift in the social sciences towards the inclusion of an anti-colonialist, Indigenous framework, which has been historically largely missing from texts in the discipline of criminology (Agozino, 2023). In the next section, each of these paradigms, including the Indigenous paradigm, will be reviewed.

Positivism

When you think of science, you most likely consider it through a positivist paradigm. Positivism operates according to the principles of objectivity, knowability, and deductive logic (Williams & McShane, 1988). This paradigm calls for value-free social science research in which researchers aim to abandon their biases and values in a quest for objective, empirical, and universal truth. Positivism holds that the creation of scientific knowledge should be restricted to what researchers can observe and measure using their senses; if you cannot see it and measure it, touch it or smell it, it simply does not exist. The works of French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857) spurred the positivist paradigm as an attempt to separate scientific inquiry from religion (where the precepts could not be objectively observed) (Williams & McShane, 1988). He argued that theories created via reasoning are only authentic if they can be verified through observations. As a result, positivism focuses on empiricism, meaning knowledge that is produced through experience or observation (Maxfield & Babbie, 2018).

An example of a theory in criminology that falls under this positivist paradigm is Lombroso’s biological theory of criminology. As you may recall from your introductory criminology courses, Lombroso has often been referred to as the “father of criminology.” He argued that criminals were evolutionary throwbacks who possessed identifiable and measurable physical characteristics, or atavisms, that distinguished them from non-criminals, such as sloped foreheads and larger noses. According to his theory, criminals are born with these features and cannot be helped. As such, the only logical policy response to this “fact” that criminals are simply born that way was to identify them using so-called scientific methods and to remove them from society. The notion of free will was completely rejected by biological criminologists, as was any consideration of social influences on human behaviour, including criminal behaviour.

While one might think that this is a ludicrous position to take and was held only by criminologists of Lombroso’s time, history has shown us that these notions have infiltrated more recent approaches to dealing with crime and criminality, such as genetic theories examining the similarities and differences between twins, and theories examining the impacts of hormones on behaviour (Miller, Schreck, & Tewksbury, 2006). Moreover, this positivist worldview has led to dangerous and racially charged eugenics efforts much closer to home, including the ongoing sterilization of Indigenous women in Canada (see Indigenous women in Canada are still forcibly sterilised). For a review of these early biological theories and the impact they have had on more recent eugenics efforts, see Biological Influences on Criminal Behaviour.

Social Constructionism

In the late 1960s, two sociologists, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman, developed the social constructionist paradigm in their book The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. While positivists seek to discover “the truth,” social constructionism posits that “truth” is varying, socially constructed, and ever-changing (Berger & Luckman, 1966). In other words, there is no truth that simply exists out there, waiting for researchers to discover it.

Instead, we create our individual and social realities through our interactions and our interpretations of those interactions, which are influenced by the social context in which they occur (Berger & Luckman, 1966). As Heidt (2023) notes, it is through social processes such as voting, political action, cultural practices, and media debates that society collectively decides which types of behaviour are considered harmful or criminal. Consider the evolution of face masks before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a simple square of material edged with elastic bands went from an innocuous piece of protective equipment to an emotionally charged political symbol. Researchers who operate in the social constructionist paradigm would investigate how and why the meanings associated with face masks changed over time. They would also look at how the meaning of a Canadian flag mounted to one’s vehicle has come to mean something very specific in the post-COVID era.

An example of a theory in criminology that falls within the social constructionist paradigm is Howard Becker’s labelling theory, which is covered in most introduction to criminology textbooks (see Labelling Theory). According to labelling theory, criminals are only criminals because they come to be defined and labelled as such through a series of symbolic exchanges, and which behaviours come to be labelled as deviant and criminal change over time and place (Ashley, 2023). Take, for example, the case of homosexuality, once defined as a clinical psychological disorder, or the case of alcohol, once prohibited in many U.S. states and Canadian provinces. It is society’s reaction to initial deviant acts that shapes the subsequent behaviours of these deviants and leads to eventual criminality (Ashley, 2023). The actor, or the offender, takes on a passive role, while society takes on an active role in labelling theory.

Grekul and LaBoucane-Benson (2008) discuss the labelling process in the context of the formation of Indigenous youth gangs in the Prairie provinces of Canada, whereby Indigenous youth deal with the label of “Aboriginal” followed by the label of “gang member.” In this research, they state that these labels, within the context of colonialism and a long history of discriminatory laws and practices, only serve to stigmatize and reinforce the deviance. As their study found, “one ex-gang member recalls the police calling his group of friends a gang, so they ‘began to act that way’ and identify as a gang” (Grekul & LaBoucane-Benson, 2008, pp. 71-72). To address crime, then, labelling theorists urge us to re-examine and eliminate the labels we use to describe deviance. They warn us of the self-fulfilling prophecy, which refers to the impact that labelling someone as deviant has on the likelihood of that individual internalizing that label and in turn becoming deviant in the long term (Einstadter & Henry, 1995). Programs and policies designed to intervene early and divert young offenders away from the formal criminal justice system through, for example, the reliance on extrajudicial measures and the prohibited disclosure of the names of young offenders, as outlined in the Youth Criminal Justice Act (2003), embody many of the principles of labelling theory.

Critical Paradigm

At its core, the critical paradigm focuses on power and inequality (Gorkoff & Walby, 2023). Unlike the positivist paradigm, the critical paradigm posits that social science can never be truly objective or value-free. Researchers are human beings located within specific social structures in various positions of power. The same inherent biases that inform and are reinforced in everyday interactions influence the types of questions researchers ask, how they ask those questions, and their methods for investigating and answering questions. Researchers who work within this paradigm believe that social scientists must evaluate and be transparent about how their biases impact their work in every phase of the research process. Researchers within this paradigm also operate from a perspective that social scientific investigation should be conducted with the express goal of social change.

Feminist criminology falls within the critical paradigm (Stevenson et al., 2023). While there are many branches of feminist theory, each with its own focus, they all share common features, namely, a focus on patriarchy and gender inequality. Feminist criminologists highlight the fact that, historically, criminological theories have been male-centred and have not meaningfully examined the plight of women as offenders or as victims of crime. In examining the disproportionate victimization of women, it becomes clear that Indigenous women are at greater risk compared to their white counterparts and the experiences of these women need to be understood within the context of colonial, capitalist, and gendered structural inequities. In addition to developing theories on women by women, feminist criminologists urge researchers to examine their unique pathways to offending so that the criminal justice system is better equipped in responding to female crime through a gender lens, with culturally appropriate and trauma-informed programming. Like other critical theories within the critical paradigm (such as green criminology and restorative, transformative justice), the goal of feminist criminology is to dismantle power structures and more specifically to eliminate the social inequities experienced by female victims and offenders. For a more detailed discussion on feminist criminology, its various branches, and statistics on the victimization of women and treatment of women by the Canadian criminal justice system, see Feminist Criminology).

Postmodernism

In its briefest form, postmodernism asserts that truth in any form may or may not be knowable and that much of the knowledge we have about criminality has in fact been socially constructed (Miller et al., 2006). Whereas positivists claim there is an objective, knowable truth that can be discovered using proven, scientific methods, postmodernists would say there is not. Social constructionists may argue that truth is in the eye of the beholder (or in the eye of the group that agrees on it), but postmodernists may claim that we can never really know such truth because, in studying and reporting others’ truths, researchers stamp their own truth onto the investigation. Finally, while the critical paradigm may argue that power, inequality, and change shape reality and truth, a postmodernist may in turn ask, whose power, whose inequality, whose change, whose reality, and whose truth? For illustrative purposes, Figure 2.2 displays these paradigms on a continuum of objectivity/subjectivity, including the Indigenous paradigm, which will be reviewed next.

Postmodernist thought is not unique to criminology; rather, it is a movement that has influenced social scientific thought since the 1980s (Miller et al., 2006). An example of a criminological theory within the postmodern paradigm is the constitutive criminology of Henry and Milovanovic (Einstadter & Henry, 1995), which urges us to re-examine beliefs that may be taken for granted and to question everything we may have once considered to be an indisputable fact. This theory posits that we must deconstruct all “facts” we have about crime to be able to reconstruct them. Let us take the example of the law to illustrate this theory. Postmodern criminologists would argue that there is no one “real” interpretation of the law and that our understanding of the law and the intention of those who wrote laws is entirely subjective (Einstadter & Henry, 1995). We must therefore deconstruct law—break it down into its components—analyze it and re-construct it; law is always subject to challenge and change, as are our definitions of crime and deviance. Postmodernism is the opposite of positivism in that it rejects the search for the causes of crime. Postmodernists go further to argue that criminal justice policy and practice is itself a crime against others as it holds the power to define crime and denies those defined as criminal the power to engage in this exercise. As such, the policy proposed by postmodern criminologists is to rely on informal forms of social control and to dismantle the power of formal criminal justice agents. As these examples suggest, the postmodernist paradigm poses quite a challenge for social scientific researchers. How does one study something that may or may not be real or that is only real in your current and unique experience of it? For a discussion of research conducted on crime media and how another theory – cultural criminology – draws from postmodern thought, see Crime Media and Popular Culture.

Indigenous Paradigm

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, a paradigmatic shift in criminology has been documented in the literature, with increasing mention of decolonization and anticolonialism. While there continues to be a lack of clarity as to what decolonization actually means, at its core, it is agreed upon that decolonization in criminology is a critical approach that seeks to regain independence from racist and sexist power structures and systems (Agozino, 2023) with deconstruction as the larger intent (Smith, 2021). Relationality is central to the Indigenous paradigm (Wilson, 2008). This concept suggests that knowledge cannot be gained or owned by an individual; rather, knowledge is shared with the research participants as well as with and from all creation, including plants, four-legged as well as winged brothers and sisters, and the earth (Wilson, 2008). While the dominant paradigms would argue that empirical evidence and knowledge are paramount, with written text seen as superior, Indigenous scholars emphasize the significance of cultural knowledge and oral tradition (Wilson, 2008). Social change is also paramount in this worldview; the concerns of Indigenous Peoples and the benefits research can create with and for them, is how work within the critical Indigenous paradigm is assessed (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008). Research is to be seen as transformative. As Wilson (2008, p. 153) so eloquently states, “if research doesn’t change you, then you haven’t done it right.”

While it may seem obvious, it is important to acknowledge that this term “research” has historically had a very negative connotation amongst Indigenous peoples. As Smith (1999, p.1, as cited in Denzin & Lincoln, 2008, p. 5) states, “the word itself is probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world’s vocabulary.” Research was used by “scientists” to “objectively” observe, measure, categorize, and create knowledge about the Indigenous other. The reports produced by Western scientists as a result of this “research” were sent back to the Western colonial powers without the consent of Indigenous subjects, denying them a voice or an identity. These research findings were used to strategically colonize and control or eradicate Indigenous peoples and lands (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008).

It is no wonder why there has been a push by Indigenous scholars and their allies to decolonize Western research methodologies. Many of these scholars have been educated within critical and feminist research paradigms, which give attention to power, inequity, justice, and representation (Smith, 2021). The goal of these scholars is to give Indigenous peoples a voice and seek their input on the design of the research, to hold researchers accountable, and to give Indigenous peoples first access to research findings as well as control over how this knowledge is disseminated (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008) (see chapter 1 for more on the ethics of doing research with Indigenous peoples). The sharing of knowledge is seen as a long-term commitment in which reciprocity and feedback are paramount (Smith, 2021). Those critical scholars within the Indigenous paradigm argue that “Indigenous persons must conduct, own, and benefit from any research that is done on, for, or with them” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008, p. 14). They call for new methodologies to engage in critical Indigenous inquiry as well. As the critical feminist scholar Audre Lorde (1984, p. 110) famously stated, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” While her work is in the area of black feminism, Lorde’s idea also applies to efforts to decolonize our research as criminologists. We cannot use the colonial, namely positivist, research methodologies of the West to research with and for Indigenous peoples. We need new tools to collectively decolonize and revitalize Indigenous knowledge (Smith, 2021). Otherwise, the biases and potential harms inherent in the dominant scientific approach will spill over, despite any efforts made to be “objective.”

Indigenous feminism is an example of a critical theory within the Indigenous paradigm that is relevant to criminologists. It considers the intersection of gender, race, and colonial and patriarchal practices (Suzack, 2015) as both victims of violent crime and as offenders. Much of the ideology of critical feminist criminological theory is consistent with the Indigenous worldview as they both challenge the outlook of mainstream society and seek to re-examine the power relationships and hierarchies that form the basis of the male-dominated ethnocentricity that characterizes most social science theory and research, including criminology. The overrepresentation of Indigenous women at each stage of the criminal justice process and the staggering number of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls highlighted in numerous commissions and inquiries in Canada shed light on the dangers of being an Indigenous female in this country and on the undeniable need to examine these issues from a critical, Indigenous worldview. For more on this topic, see the following case study on Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls: Treatment in the Criminal Justice System.

Table 2.1 below provides a summary of each of these paradigms and one theory that falls within each of them. You will notice that the core premise of each theory logically connects to what the respective theorists might consider an appropriate policy or research approach in dealing with and/or studying criminals. For example, as shown below, the positivist biological theory of crime sees the root cause of crime as being some kind of biological or physiological defect. As such, it would not make sense for a biological criminologist to suggest that we should improve access to education and employment for those living in high-crime-risk neighbourhoods. Rather, it logically flows from biological theories that the solution is to methodically identify these defects and either find a treatment or, if no treatment option is deemed viable, segregate that criminal from the rest of society. While this approach seems rather archaic and ruthless, one need not look much further than the psychological assessment tools designed to identify psychopaths and ultimately justify their indefinite incapacitation.

Theories

Much like paradigms, theories provide a way of looking at the world and understanding human interaction; however, they are narrower in their focus, aiming to understand one phenomenon (e.g., criminal behaviour or a specific crime) without attempting to tackle a broader level of explanation (e.g., explaining all behaviour).

In the social sciences, theories are sets of systematically interrelated ideas intended to explain a social phenomenon or behaviour (Maxfield & Babbie, 2018). They help us answer the “why” and “how” questions we often have about the patterns we observe in social life. For example, criminological theories can help answer the question of why and how some people stop committing crimes as they become adults while others continue to commit crimes throughout their entire lives. This is the question asked by life-course and developmental criminological theorists, like Laub and Sampson (2020). While paradigms may point us in a particular direction with respect to our “why” questions, theories more specifically map out the explanation, or the “how,” behind the “why.” Traditionally speaking, a good social science theory is well supported using observed facts and should also have practical value, which means that an essential challenge for researchers is to gather and analyze data to build strong and more comprehensive theories to explain social phenomena. Moreover, theory ideally “has to do with what is, not what should be” (Maxfield & Babbie, 2018, p. 30).

Some theories related to crime you may have heard of, a few of which were summarized earlier in this chapter under their respective paradigm, include labelling theory, feminist criminological theory, social control theory, strain theory and social disorganization theory (for a more comprehensive review of these key theories and others, please see Introduction to Criminology). From a research methods standpoint, these theories are important because they propose answers to the “why” and “how” questions of crime. The stage during which theory enters the research process depends on the paradigm the researcher is operating in, amongst other things. Researchers either start with theory very early on in the research process, if they are proceeding by way of the deductive approach (typical in the positivist tradition), or theory emerges at the end of the research process after observations are gathered, if they are proceeding with the inductive approach (more typical in each of the other paradigms discussed earlier). These two approaches, deduction and induction, along with other approaches to conducting social science research, will be elaborated upon in the next chapter.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we started by discussing the philosophical concepts of ontology and epistemology and we examined the various paradigms that social scientists orient themselves with, including the Indigenous paradigm. These paradigms can be thought of as existing on a continuum of objectivity/subjectivity, with positivism at the objective end and postmodernism at the subjective end. We then connected each of these paradigms to a criminological theory to demonstrate how paradigms are related to the theories that guide our research as well as the types of policies that are developed to address social problems like crime. In the next chapter, we will continue our journey from ontology to analysis by focusing on the various approaches we can take and the purposes we can choose from, or even combine, to answer our research question(s).

References