Localism, clientelism and secrecy: Examining the institutional resistance to criminal justice research in Ireland

This seminar will examine the institutional factors that have limited the growth of criminological evaluation in Ireland. The seminar will focus on the resistance of the Department of Justice to the conducting of research on life sentence prisoners by an external evaluator.  Resistance to research and a suspicion of ‘outsiders’ interested in examining aspects of the criminal process has now existed for many decades resulting in a culture of secrecy that has proved difficult to displace.  The seminar will explore the challenges in engaging with the bureaucratic process as a researcher, where localism and clientelism appears to preoccupy the decision-making of both politicians and civil servants.It should be of interest to anyone interested in doing research on sensitive topics.

Part of the Research Methodology Seminar Series