This manual analyses empirical challenges and considerations of criminological empirical violence research. The aim of the manual on empirical operationalisation of the research subject and scope is to provide an insight into the used research technique and underlying considerations. Moreover, the purpose of this manual is to deliver specific guidelines for Violence Lab field workers/ researchers who will collect the data from court and prosecution case files. This manual depicts the rationale that guided the development of the research method and how the research tool, the questionnaire for measuring violence, has been devised. In addition, it provides for detailed description and instruction of how to use the questionnaire. An important building block of this manual is the sampling procedure. According to the research project’s subject and scope both criminal offences and misdemeanours are potentially relevant and to be included in the project. However, since the inclusion of all potentially relevant criminal offences and misdemeanours would have resulted in a tremendously large sample, an appropriate sampling strategy had to be developed.
This manual analyses common (and less common) normative challenges surrounding criminological or even general empirical violence research. The manual’s aim is to provide for a systematic review of principle as well as practical normative questions that arise when designing and conducting criminological violence research within the criminal justice system and all its inherent normative constraints of reality. The manual should serve as kind of a violence-focused translation tool from criminology to criminal law, practically enabling one to keep the focus on the criminological realities of violence, in terms of research questions, subject and scope, while working within the limitations of the criminal justice system and its normative constructs.
The purpose of this manual is to present the evolution of basic ideas, discuss challenges, develop concepts and present solutions for criminological violence research in the context of criminal justice systems. The manual is primarily intended for the Violence Lab as common grounds for conducting empirical violence research in Croatia. It is also intended to transpose our research ideas and approaches to our colleagues in the various field(s) of criminal justice practice, ranging from police and prosecution all the way to courts and prisons. Moreover, the manual’s concepts and proposed solutions to challenges in violence research in more general, are also intended to generate constructive criticism, attract feedback and generate lively debates among experts in the field of violence research in various disciplines, both in Croatia and abroad. Finally, the manual is also the basis for developing much more practical guidelines for the Violence Lab field work to be used by the researchers conducting the data gathering (case analysis) for the study at hands.
