Experimental research in Nordic criminology

Abstract

The experimental method is generally considered to be the gold standard in the difficult task of ascertaining causal relations. The core of this method is the act of randomising research units into different conditions. Thus, for instance, prisoners could be randomly allocated to receive a specific therapy while others would receive an alternative intervention. Randomisation ensures that the treatment itself is the cause of possible differential effects. Thus, the experimental method can be seen as a multivariate analysis that probes the causal power of a core variable (the intervention or other stimulus) while controlling for all other factors, including unknown factors. Methodological guides for experimental studies often talk of ‘treatment’ and control groups. Some of the other concepts in this field are also such that they evoke visions of medical research (dosage, outcome). This discourse is a natural consequence of the fact that medicine pioneered the rise of experimentation. Similarly, in criminology, randomised controlled trials of crime prevention interventions are sometimes therapies, such as cognitive-behavioural programmes. However, it needs to be stressed that the experimental method can be used to test almost any type of peopleor place-targeted crime prevention intervention. Of course, the experimental method can also be used in theoretical-substantial and methodological research. In a survey setting, for instance, the causal impact of how the nature of crime, or the social status of the offender or victim, impact people’s reactions to crime can be studied by randomising people into their response to different crime scenarios. Methodological research can use the experimental design in assessing whether and how the framing, sequencing or data collection mode of surveys impact responding. Clearly, the experimental method is not just something for the evaluation of treatment effects: its potential application domain is broad. Globally, it is possible to speak of a renaissance of the experimental design and experimental criminology over the recent decades. In the US, the Division of Experimental Criminology (DEC), one of the eight divisions of the American Society of Criminology, promotes the use of randomised trials in the field of criminology and criminal policy. European criminology similarly shows increasing interest in experiments. My participant observer’s tally of the recent Prague conference of the European Society of Criminology (2014) suggests that roughly 8 per cent of the panels included papers that utilised the experimental design. But what about Nordic criminology? A quick look at the articles published in the Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention since it was launched locates three articles whose title includes words “experim*” and/or “random*” (Sorensen 2007; Balvig & Holmberg 2011; Kjaer Minke 2011). Counting all articles published from 2000–2013 (N 1⁄4 168), altogether 1.8 per cent thus appear to use or advocate the experimental method. While these three articles are of high quality, their rarity indicates that the experimental method has not been very popular in the field of Nordic social science criminology. Interestingly, all of the three articles are by Danish