Citation

Bell E, Hall R. Crime Prev. Community Safety 2007; 9(4): 252-274.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group -- Palgrave-Macmillan)

DOI

10.1057/palgrave.cpcs.8150051

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The paper explores the challenges of capturing context in criminology with reference to one kind of small-N situation - violent crime in rural communities. An illustrative analysis of the violent crime prevention research and select adjunct debates about method, including case-based approaches, was undertaken. First, the paper explores the need for methods offering diversity-oriented ways of understanding country, community, and the individual in situ in the community. Second, it examines how the challenges of "context" are being described in wider debates: about the technical limitations of "big Q" methods for criminology; about the relevance of research evidence; about case-based analyses. Third, it sketches the value of Charles Ragin's diversity-oriented, small-N method for enriching understandings of context. The paper concludes that Ragin's method can add value to local rural crime prevention practice and related micro-social policy development by illuminating the "black box" of individual cases.

Keywords: criminology research methods, case study methodologies, rural violent crime, local community crime prevention