For years everybody has been citing the same good but somewhat dated stats on comparative drug use in the U.S. and other countries (I know because I did so in my book). Well, while I was busy visiting family and friends in Amsterdam last week, a new study was released (in conjunction with the World Health Organization) that updates drug…
Tag: sociology
In the name of research
The man behind the famous Stanford Prison Experiment, Dr. Phillip Zimbardo, is examining how people view altruism and heroism. Help his research by completing an online questionnaire at http://www.socialpsychresearch.org. There are six screens of questions (I hate when they don’t tell you when it will end). It takes about 10 min. What do you get out of it? Well, nothing…
A night of fieldwork in Amsterdam
I often wonder why anybody would prefer to crunch numbers than do fun qualitative research. I’m in Amsterdam right now. I made contact with and successfully gained access to my desired police station tonight (to make a long story short). I want to compare the attitude toward drugs of Baltimore and Amsterdam police officers. These attitudes are very different. Even…
Brave ethnographic confession from Cop in the Hood
Professor Corey J. Colyer of West Virginia University sent me the following email: Peter, This note is motivated by a remark you make about your methods in the first chapter of Cop in the Hood. It is rare (and therefore refreshing) to see an ethnographer admit that they failed to capture details in their notes. We get tired, overwhelmed, and…
A sociology dissertation thesis?
Feel free to steal this idea: For centuries, the Netherlands has tried to “normalize” their society. While it may have worked in the past, today “normalization” is killing Amsterdam. What makes Amsterdam great and unique, is that it isn’t a “normal” city. In Holland, they have a different idea of democracy. The mayor of Amsterdam isn’t even an elected position.…
The raw excitment of criminal-justice
I was interviewed tonight by a good writer from a prominent local magazine. I ate and drank very well, thank you very much. It was a nice chat. Toward the end, I was asked a softball question and couldn’t really make contact. “What’s the most exciting thing happening right now in the criminal justice field right?” I couldn’t really think…
Against Prediction
My book review of Bernard Harcourt’s, Against Prediction,was just published in the American Journal of Sociology. You can read it here.
Criminal Justice Journalists
One of the best resources to stay on top of current police and criminal-justice news is a daily email from Criminal Justice Journalists. They’re not exactly a secret, but most people don’t know about it and everybody should. Bookmark them or give them your email and they’ll send you one e-mail every weekday (and nothing else and no spam). You…
More on IRBs
Fair warning: If you’re not interested in Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)–and there’s no reason you should be–you should probably just skip this whole post. Brief background: Federal regulations require IRB approval is required for all professors’ research on people. Since 1991 (I just learned this from Shrag’s blog), IRB approval was expanded to cover, among others things, participant-observation research (that’s…
Outing the insiders
There’s a very interesting exchange on Slate.com between Sudhir Venkatesh and Alex Kotlowitz. These are two authors I respect deeply (and not just because Prof. Venkatesh was kind enough to offer to write a blurb for Cop in the Hood). Their letters discuss the role of researchers vis-à-vis their research subjects. You should read all four. I just finished reading…