Essential Readings

Question 1

Ward & Willis (2010) intro

Answer 1

• Lavin (2004) suggests professional ethics codes are insufficient to guide forensic research and are opaque
• Ward and Syverson (2009) - ethical codes have rules to address issues and ethical conflicts arise when they clash
• Ward and Willis 2010 believe forensic domain lacks framework to detect and resolve ethical problems and aims to provide general ideas of how to proceed

Question 2

ethical framework suggested by Ward and Syverson 2009 (ward and willis 2010 paper)

Answer 2

• should justify ethical decisions in stepwise process e.g. common sense then steps of ethical codes.
• codes of ethics may conflict with alternative ones
• in ethical dilemmas should: generalise or other persons in similar situations and treat everyone involved as someone of equal moral status
• overall researchers should approach ethical issues with framework to detect ethical problems that are typically missed, find solutions to those that are identified and provide deeper justifications

Question 3

ethical issues in forensic contexts - - design analysis and reporting data (ward and willis 2010 paper)

Answer 3

• design analysis and reporting data
  > ensuring assumptions are explicit
  > need to reflect on study justification. consider needs of victims, offenders and public & be inclusive so research not justified on one group
  > choose research designs that do not harm relationships e.g. qualitative, ethical issues over no treatment, but also RCT may lack validity and have ethical implications of allocating treatment
  > be careful accepting findings - may need to distinguish offender riak levels
  > publish negative results
  > have rules about what to do if intervention is clearly ineffective
  > sel-as-instrument - ethnographic/qual research may lack validity sensitivity and reliability

Question 4

ethical issues in forensic contexts - - researcher and offenders (ward and willis 2010 paper)

Answer 4

> ethical blindness - ethical matters can remain undetected due to conceptual constraints
moral status of offenders, consent and aims
vulnerability of offenders - wellbeing, freedom interests. To address: expand definition of prisoner, ensure universal ethic protection, risk-benefit approach, collaborative responsibility
cultural differences - e.g. indigenous prisoners over-represented
assumptions about disorders and offender treatability. every research is underpinned by core assumptions of nature of problems and participated.