633274
research-article2016
CRJ0010.1177/1748895816633274Criminology & Criminal JusticeTaylor et al.
Article
Prohibition, privilege and the
drug apartheid: The failure of
drug policy reform to address
the underlying fallacies of drug
prohibition
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2016, Vol. 16(4) 452–469
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895816633274
crj.sagepub.com
Stuart Taylor
Liverpool John Moores University, UK
Julian Buchanan
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Tammy Ayres
University of Leicester, UK
Abstract
It appears to be a time of turbulence within the global drug policy landscape. The historically
dominant model of drug prohibition endures, yet a number of alternative models of legalization,
decriminalization and regulation are emerging across the world. While critics have asserted that
prohibition and the ensuing ‘war on drugs’ lack both an evidence base and legitimacy, reformers are
embracing these alternatives as indicators of progressive change. This article, however, argues that
such reforms adhere to the same arbitrary notions, moral dogma and fallacious evidence base as their
predecessor. As such they represent the ‘metamorphosis of prohibition’, whereby the structure
of drug policy changes, yet the underpinning principles remain unchanged. Consequentially, these
reforms should not be considered ‘progressive’ as they risk further consolidating the underlying
inconsistencies and contradictions that have formed the basis of drug prohibition.
Keywords
Decriminalization, drug policy, evidence, legalization, prohibition, reform
Corresponding author:
Stuart Taylor, Liverpool John Moores University, Redmonds Building, Brownlow Hill, Liverpool, L35UG, UK.
Email: S.Taylor2@ljmu.ac.uk
Taylor et al.
453
Introduction
There is a transformative change in the global drugs policy landscape with significant
adjustments to the historically dominant model of prohibition emerging, leading some
commentators to suggest a ‘quiet revolution’ is taking place (Rosmarin and Eastwood,
2011). Policies of drug decriminalization, legalization and regulation are materializing in
a number of jurisdictions around the world, a phenomenon welcomed by critics of prohibition who have long exposed its lack of evidence base (Boland, 2008), efficacy (GCDP,
2014) and legitimacy (Pryce, 2012). While a number of these reforms have been posited
as ‘progressive’ (Transform, 2014), this article argues that they represent the ‘metamorphosis of prohibition’ whereby the face of drug policy changes yet the fundamental principles remain unaffected. Inadvertently this reform ‘revolution’ camouflages the
underlying contradictions that have lain at the heart of global drug policy since they were
enshrined in the United Nations (UN) Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in 1961.
This article, therefore, seeks to expose how the fundamental inconsistencies of drug
prohibition continue to be accommodated in policy reform. It will do so by exploring two
interlinking issues; first it will identify the untenable flawed assumptions underpinning
drug law enforcement and prohibition. It will contend that certain ‘fallacies’ used to
legitimize drug prohibition lack an evidence base, and instead draw upon myth and a
reductionist discourse that obscures nuanced drug policy debate. These fallacies arbitrarily frame particular substances as ‘drugs’ and skew the risks of ‘drug use’ by focusing
almost exclusively on specific types of use and users, and concentrating attention upon
associated negative outcomes. This process allows certain substances to attain an unwarranted position of privilege while others are prohibited, creating a ‘drug apartheid’ – a
deeply divisive system of segregation and punishment determined by the substance used.
Second, the article will reflect on how the changing global policy landscape and ad hoc
reform strategies are essentially rooted within a prohibitionist mind-set resulting in the
‘metamorphosis of prohibition’ – whereby a raft of reforms give the impression of progressive drug policy evolution, yet actually mask a continuation of the arbitrary and
contradictory processes that underpin contemporary drug policy. Consequentially the
article concludes that given the paucity of rationale, evidence and lack of scientific analysis upholding both prohibition and the current wave of alternative strategies, the repeal
of drug laws rather than superficial policy reform is necessary.
The article will utilize the United Kingdom as a lens through which to scrutinize drug
prohibition while drawing on comparative reform policies from across the globe to illustrate how fallacy continues to inform, motivate and legitimize drug policy change. This
examination of drug policy, critiquing the fundamental evidence base upholding both
drug prohibition and drug reform has international significance.
A Changing Landscape?
The 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs listed those ‘narcotic’ substances
that required strict legal controls. In doing so it represented a significant shift away from
drug regulation towards a more prohibitive approach (Bewley-Taylor and Jelsma, 2012),
providing the legislative bedrock for contemporary global drug control.1 For almost five
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decades relatively little changed, however, recent years have witnessed a wave of alternative drug policies, including models of decriminalization (e.g. Portugal, Spain,
Jamaica), legalization (e.g. Uruguay, US states) and regulation (e.g. New Zealand).
Despite these adjustments, no single jurisdiction has completely decoupled itself from
the prohibition model.2 While these reforms indicate a growing turbulence and diversification within the drug prohibition landscape, it is questionable whether this amounts to
a ‘revolution’. Some reform advocates have argued that incremental drug policy change
represents positive progress (Rolles and Kushlick, 2014), however, such strategies risk
strengthening rather than challenging the fundamentally flawed principles on which prohibition is built. We argue these ‘reforms’ fail to address the drug apartheid and instead
perpetuate the arbitrary distinctions concerning ‘drugs’ that privilege some substances as
legal while prohibiting others.
The 1961 Convention asserts that ‘narcotic drugs’ have no place in society and must
be restricted to medical and scientific purposes, but the Convention, offers no scientific
definition to determine a ‘narcotic’ drug.3 Narcotics or controlled drugs as they are
referred to, are simply those substances listed in the UN document, a list that reflects
social and cultural practices of the mid-20th century, rather than any pharmacological or
scientific evidence (Bancroft, 2009), and despite new knowledge this arbitrary categorization of substances prevails. Under the UK Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, strict rules govern storage, cultivation, possession and supply of these controlled substances, and any
breach attracts severe penalties. The UK Drug Strategy (Home Office, 2010: 9) emphasizes the danger posed by narcotics: ‘people should not start taking drugs and those who
do should stop’, however, the government warning against ‘drugs’, excludes state
approved drugs such as caffeine, alcohol, tobacco and sugars. Further, the Misuse of
Drugs Act 1971 with its ABC classification system sanctions severe punishments for
anyone possessing or supplying ‘drugs’, vehemently enforced by a concerted national
and international collaboration involving police, armed forces, border control officials,
security and secret services. In addition, rapidly expanding civil enforcement measures
include ‘drug’ testing by employers, schools, colleges and welfare agencies (Buchanan,
2010), while government bodies, non-government organizations and private companies
exclude known ‘drug’ users from education, employment, travel, housing, medical provision, financial credit and/or insurance.
The rationale for this relentless punitive approach led by the UN may appear to have
some validity given the perceived threat posed by ‘drugs’. The association between
‘drug’ use and crime in the UK is well documented and commonly asserted (Boreham
et al., 2006; Budd et al., 2005), and the detrimental impact of drug use upon individuals,
families and communities is frequently cited in UK governmental documentation (Home
Office, 2008, 2010). While this apparent body of evidence has been contested as methodologically flawed (Stevens, 2007) and limited in scope (Moore, 2008), it nonetheless
presents a persistent and forceful rhetoric to bolster prohibition.
The Social Construction of ‘Drugs’
The omission of legal drugs from drug policy debate, portrayed as ‘non-drugs’, has created a bifurcation, reinforced by the social construction of narcotics or dangerous ‘drugs’
Taylor et al.
455
(Buchanan, 2006). Dangerous drugs are perceived as those substances listed under the
Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, a continually expanding list, with mephedrone, BZP and khat
more recent additions. Once included in the Act substances become ‘controlled’ dangerous drugs, while legally promoted counterparts fly under the ‘drug’ radar. Scientists,
academics and experts in the field have long questioned the rationale of this drug bifurcation, highlighting the contradictions, inconsistencies and hypocrisy (GCDP, 2014) and
the misleading nature of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 as a guide to potential risk (Rolles
and Measham, 2011). Indeed, Nutt et al.’s (2010) research illustrates that legal–illegal
distinctions are not based on scientific principles of harm, and that legally approved
substances such as alcohol and tobacco, present far greater potential for harm than many
Class A drugs.
In recent years a number of jurisdictions (e.g. Uruguay, certain US states) have
amended their drug laws to permit the use of cannabis, and proponents for drug reform
appear to assume that cannabis is the obvious drug to legalize ‘first’, but the reasons for this
seem no different to the arbitrary classifications in the 1961 UN Single Convention that
prohibited substances used by a minority of ‘others’ while privileging those that were popular in the western world (Hari, 2015). The justification to privilege cannabis rather than
substances such as ecstasy, LSD and psilocybin mushrooms which are relatively less harmful (Nutt et al., 2010) is a populist driven decision, rather than one rooted in science. The
lack of scientific evidence driving the legalization of cannabis indicates the capricious
nature of drug law reform and perpetuates a drug apartheid based on privilege and populism rather than rationale and evidence. Given the dearth of scientific rationale upholding
drug laws it may seem difficult to comprehend how policies based on such arbitrary notions
attain and maintain legitimacy, however, an examination of the reductionist discourse surrounding the social construction of ‘drugs’ can help our understanding.
Deconstructing Drugs: A Reductionist Discourse
Since the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 there has been an intensive multi-disciplinary effort
across the UK to remove banned substances from circulation and protect communities
from the purported dangers (Home Office, 1998, 2008, 2010). This campaign is part of a
global effort impelled by the UN to ensure zero-tolerance towards narcotics. In 2012,
when confronted by a growing number of countries seeking to accommodate certain
narcotic drugs (particularly cannabis), Raymond Yans, President of the UN International
Narcotics Control Board (INCB), urged countries to stand firm: ‘governments must continue to strengthen their efforts in the licit control of narcotic drugs and psychotropic
substances […] I cannot over-emphasize the importance of international cooperation and
shared responsibility in facing all facets of the global drug problem’ (UNIS, 2012: 1).
Those substances labelled as ‘drugs’ are seen to pose a global threat requiring international cooperation and tough action. In response to the legalization of cannabis in certain
jurisdictions, the INCB President robustly asserts ‘such initiatives, if pursued, would
pose a grave danger to public health and well-being, the very things the States, in designing the conventions, intended to protect’ (INCB, 2014: v). Furthermore, Yury Fedotov,
Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) called for greater
international resolve:
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many countries around the world are suffering […] we must also ask ourselves tough questions
about whether we have managed to reduce the global drug threat […] if we are really determined
to confront illicit drugs, we must move with more determination. (UNODC, 2013)
In the context of drug policy liberalization, the UN seeks greater commitment for tough
enforcement and prohibition.
The UK Home Office (2014a, 2014b) recently underlined its full support of prohibition when it published simultaneous reports, one considering international comparative
drug policies while the other explored the management of Novel Psychoactive
Substances (NPS) – the former resulted in UK Prime Minister David Cameron declaring ‘the evidence is, what we’re doing [prohibition] is working’, emphasizing that
reform is not on the political agenda, while the latter report extended prohibition by
proposing a blanket ban on all NPS.4 It seems curious that during a period of apparent
reform, the UK is set to join Eire and New Zealand by banning all NPS, further entrenching the drug apartheid. The UK government’s commitment to drug prohibition and
refusal to consider any ‘liberalisation of drug laws’ (Home Office, 2010: 2) remains
resolute with the Prime Minister emphasizing that ‘I don’t believe in decriminalising
drugs that are illegal today […] I’m a parent with three children – I don’t want to send
out a message that somehow taking these drugs is okay and safe because, frankly, it
isn’t’ (cited in Morris and Cooper, 2014).
While some writers have contributed to an informed nuanced narrative of illicit drug
taking (Aldridge et al., 2011; Seddon, 2010; Stevens, 2011), political rhetoric and UK
media coverage of drug policy deliver a strong ideological crusade against what they call
‘drugs’, focusing almost exclusively upon the damaging consequences arising from a
minority of problematic drug users, and conveniently conflating drug use with drug misuse, resulting in a negative portrayal and stereotype of the ‘drug user’ (UKDPC, 2012).
The dominant prohibitionist discourse on ‘drugs’ then takes place within a framework
preoccupied by compulsion, pain and pathology (O’Malley and Valverde, 2004), in
which drug use is presented as an activity undertaken by a small group of risk bearing
‘outsiders’, that inevitably leads to desperation and addiction (Taylor, 2008).
Media representations frame ‘drugs’ as causing: petty crime (Salkeld, 2009); serious
crime (Stretch, 2014); organized crime (Daily Mail, 2013); mental illness (Byrne, 2011);
psychosis (Bloom, 2014); and physical and moral decay (Ayres and Jewkes, 2012) and
wrongly presents drug use as a significant causal factor in a range of societal problems
including: car accidents (Romano et al., 2014); workplace accidents (Price, 2014); disease (Ceste, 2010); and child abuse (Ryder and Brisgone, 2013), and so prohibition is
legitimized by the construction of ‘drugs’ as unsafe and extremely harmful. Whereas in
contrast to the rhetoric, the reality is that the majority of illegal drug use is non-problematic, most commonly associated with leisure, pleasure and desired outcomes (Hunt et al.,
2010) and rarely does drug use lead to addiction (Cloud and Granfield, 2001) or require
treatment (Siliquini et al., 2005). Importantly, given the lack of empirical evidence to
uphold prohibition the rhetoric could be more accurately described as fallacies that have
their roots in the social and political construction of ‘drugs’ and a reductionist analysis
(Ayres and Jewkes, 2012). Crucially, this discourse employs and indeed perpetuates
these myths as the ongoing evidence base to provide legitimacy for prohibition.
Taylor et al.
457
By distorting the social reality surrounding drugs and drug users, the media provide the
‘reality effect’ of ideology (Hall, 1982). In symbolizing normality (Cohen, 1971) the media
constructed matrix of ‘drugs = danger = death’ provokes social conformity by frequent
graphic illustrations of the negative consequences associated with the use of these prohibited drugs. By engendering fear and highlighting extreme case stories, the media create a
hyper-reality constructing a ‘simulacrum’ of drug use (Baudrillard, 1994), what Baudrillard
(1983: 36) aptly refers to as a process ‘of proving the real by the imaginary; proving truth
by scandal’. Since the creation of the 1961 UN Single Convention this simulacrum of ‘drug
use’ has become more real and influential in shaping our perceptions, knowledge and policies on drugs, than rationality, science and evidence, and indeed worryingly, such distortions have been accepted and adopted by drug reformers (Reynolds, 2015).
Perpetuating these fallacies within a reductionist discourse has far reaching consequences. First, it continues the ‘routinisation of caricature’ (Reinarman and Duskin,
1999: 81) whereby all use of illicit substances becomes conflated with problematic drug
use. Second, the enjoyment, benefits and pleasures derived from illicit drug use are inadequately researched, acknowledged and discussed (Moore, 2008). Third, drugs policy
becomes impervious to scientific evidence and instead takes its lead from political ideology (Boland, 2008). Fourth, policy responses tend to focus almost exclusively upon
problematic use and fail to comprehend the policy needs of recreational drug users
(Taylor, 2011). The current raft of policy ‘reforms’, which tweak and utilize the existing
drug war paradigm have done little to address these fundamental issues that sustain the
drug apartheid.
Reforming Prohibition?
In 2012 when Nick Clegg (UK Deputy Prime Minister) advocated drug policy reform it
was perhaps indicative that he simultaneously maintained his commitment to reductionist drug war propaganda, arguing ‘I’m anti-drugs, it’s for that reason that I’m pro-reform’
(cited in Doward, 2014, emphasis added). The underlying motivation for reform here is
rooted in moral bias rather than science and reasoning.
A key reformist argument is to cite countries like The Netherlands and Portugal who
have introduced elements of decriminalization, and claim they are successful precisely
because decriminalization has had little impact on rates of drug use (Rosmarin and
Eastwood, 2011: 42). Portugal, for example, has been heralded as a progressive reform
model for drug policy since it decriminalized personal possession of all drugs in 2001
with levels of drug use remaining stable and comparable to neighbouring countries
(Hughes and Stevens, 2010). Such indicators of effectiveness, however, further reinforce
the ‘anti-drugs’ prohibitionist discourse that sees drug use as undesirable and problematic. In addition, Portugal continues to support prohibition with 15 per cent of personal
possession rulings in 2012 resulting in a punitive outcome; Portugal continues to criminalize individuals caught in possession of amounts above the decriminalized threshold
limit5 and continues to imprison people for drug defined crimes with 21 per cent of the
Portuguese prison population incarcerated under drug laws (RNFP, 2013).
Within these ‘liberal’ reforms the central tenets of prohibition remain – the ability to
criminalize and severely punish users and suppliers of certain substances. Such processes
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have been historically steeped in prejudice, resulting in a racially motivated ‘war on
drugs’ (Boyd, 2002) and despite reform, discrimination and inequality endures. For
example, black people continue to be arrested for possession of cannabis in Colorado at
exactly the same disproportionate rate (2.4 times more than white people) as they were
prior to cannabis legalization. Similarly, while black people comprise around 3.9 per cent
of the population in Colorado, they accounted for 18.1 per cent of arrests for cannabis
distribution in 2014 (Drug Policy Alliance, 2015a).
While decriminalization in Portugal has resulted in some promising developments in
reducing drug-related harm, such as: a reduction in drug-related deaths; a reduction in
infectious diseases; an increase in drug treatment uptake; and a reduction in the level of
problematic drug users (Hughes and Stevens, 2010), these outcomes emerge through the
lens of prohibition and the preoccupation with negative associations with drug taking
such as death, disease and addiction. Whereas, the vast majority of illicit drug users in
Portugal (as elsewhere around the globe) are recreational drug users, who do not die,
contract diseases, require drug treatment or become ‘problematic users’; yet their rights
and needs seem to go unnoticed. Similarly, in respect of cannabis legalization in Colorado
reformers cite evidence of: arrests and judicial savings; decrease in crime rates; decrease
in traffic fatalities; and increased tax revenue and economic benefits (Drug Policy
Alliance, 2015b), measurements which once again have their roots in the prohibitionist
reductionist discourse.
Prohibition has privileged and promoted particular drugs while the use of other substances has been outlawed and punished. The current reform momentum towards legalizing or decriminalizing particular substances (such as cannabis) so they can become
‘privileged’, reinforces the existing drug apartheid and fails to fundamentally address the
contradictions and lack of evidence base upon which prohibition is premised. Such
reforms amount to little more than a ‘metamorphosis of prohibition’, since they fail to
address the fundamental fallacies underpinning the drug apartheid.
Reconstructing Drugs: The Five Fallacies of Drug
Prohibition
There is a scientific reason why some substances are categorized as
‘drugs’
A war needs an enemy and successive governments have rallied a war against ‘drugs’,
but there is no rationale for the substances we have come to regard as drugs. If we assume
a drug is a psychoactive substance that alters our mood state (Nutt, 2012), then we have
to include alcohol, tobacco and caffeine along with a wide range of other substances currently categorized as: herbs (e.g. nutmeg); medicines (e.g. codeine); foods (e.g. sugar);
and legal highs (e.g. Spice). Angus Bancroft (2009: 8) exposing the ‘drug’ fallacy
explains:
there are no pharmacological categories of ‘illicit drugs’, ‘licit drugs’ and ‘medications’. They
are social categories constructed because as a political community we have come to treat some
substances differently from others, depending on who uses them, how and for what.
Taylor et al.
459
If instead we assumed that prohibition was concerned with outlawing the most ‘dangerous drugs’, then according to the evidence a range of illegal substances such as khat,
LSD, psilocybin mushrooms and ecstasy would become legal; while currently legal substances such as alcohol, tobacco and arguably sugars would become prohibited.
Any scientific examination of ‘drugs’ renders the present classification of illicit drugs
as illogical and the present cultural promotion of legal substances as misguided. The idea
promoted by the UN of being against ‘drugs’ and seeking a ‘drug free world’, is not only
untenable and unthinkable, it is undesirable. Therefore, the notion of Nixon’s ‘war on
drugs’ is a contradiction; there has never been a war on drugs, only a war on particular
drugs, a war seriously lacking coherence, without a rational basis to support it. More
accurately it is a ‘war between drugs’ a system of drug apartheid that has privileged the
use of certain substances and outlawed the use of other substances, a corrupt system that
has much to do with who uses the drugs and little to do with the risks posed by the drugs
(Nadelmann, 2014).
In the USA, while several states have legalized cannabis, they continue to have a zero
tolerance policy towards other less harmful substances (Nutt et al., 2010). Such reforms
fail to address the fundamental flaws of prohibition and instead support the myth of
‘drugs’ by reinforcing the drug apartheid by inviting cannabis to enjoy the privilege
afforded to alcohol, tobacco and caffeine. This is a move that potentially obfuscates
important underlying drug policy issues and risks dividing the drug reform momentum
by appeasing a large group of previously criminalized cannabis users. Worryingly, the
key motivation for privileging cannabis appears to be its popularity and income generation potential.
Conversely, while drug laws around cannabis are relaxed in various US states, recent
international responses to Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS) suggest a strengthening
grip of prohibition (Stevens and Measham, 2013) by extending the scope of substances
classified as ‘drugs’. One of the first countries to respond was New Zealand with the
Psychoactive Substance Act 2013, which was hailed by reformers as showcasing ‘world
leading’ drug reform (McCullough et al., 2013), because it included a theoretical possibility of drug regulation. However, the Act also provides new powers to prohibit and
punish personal possession of every NPS unless state approved (s. 71), impose two years’
prison for anyone supplying an unapproved NPS (s. 70) and provides the police with new
powers to enter premises without a warrant (s. 77). While the UK Misuse of Drugs Act
1971 prohibits only those substances listed, the New Zealand Psychoactive Substance
Act 2013 reverses this process prohibiting every NPS unless state approved (no substances have currently been approved at the time of writing). The Psychoactive Substance
Act strengthens the illegal–legal bifurcation of drugs, extends state control and widens
the net of prohibition, yet reform experts promote it as ‘a sensible and pragmatic
approach’ (Bassil, 2015).
Prohibiting drugs protects society
The arbitrary Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 classification of drugs posits that society requires
protection from particular substances through the criminal justice system while simultaneously indicating that other legal substances can be managed via legal regulation; this
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taxonomy wrongly assumes prohibition is able to reduce supply and demand and protect
society from harm. Prohibition not only fails to protect, it actually creates more harm by
placing users at risk of a drug conviction that can have serious life-long consequences
detrimentally impacting upon education, employment, housing, travel and relationships
– indeed criminalization itself arguably poses far greater harm to a person’s future wellbeing than the drugs themselves (Buchanan, 2015; Lenton et al., 2000).
Evidence suggests that neither tough drug policy, nor liberal drug policy, have much
impact upon levels of drug use (Hughes and Stevens, 2010), but prohibition places
responsibility for the content, strength and purity of drugs on underground organizations
who, while motivated by the same profit orientated goals as licit drug manufacturers, are
unregulated and unable to operate openly. This forces illicit users to engage in criminal
networks to purchase and use unknown substances while having no legal recourse when
issues arise. The risks of drug-related disease, overdose and death linked with drug use
are largely caused by prohibition (Buchanan, 2009). Unless prohibition is abolished and
all drugs are regulated and legal to possess, ‘reforms’ will continue to punish users of
unapproved and/or outlawed drugs, driving them underground and significantly increasing harms.
Drug use causes crime and social problems
Drug policy has been premised on a contested causal relationship between drug use and
crime (Home Office, 1998, 2008, 2010), ‘evidenced’ via research undertaken with unrepresentative samples of drug users (Boreham et al., 2006; Budd et al., 2005) which fails to
acknowledge the complex and multifaceted nature of drug use (Stevens, 2011), or consider those users not in contact with criminal justice or treatment agencies (McSweeney
and Turnbull, 2007; Manzoni et al., 2006).
Closer examination suggests the drug–crime connection is tenuous, while the majority of arrestees in the UK use drugs (59 per cent), they are not problematic users6 and
report little or no causal connection between their drug use and offending (UKDPC,
2008). Contrary to prohibitionist driven ideology problematic drug users represent only
22 per cent of drug using arrestees, and although two-thirds of this group (64 per cent)
report committing crime to acquire drugs, they represent a small minority of the drug
using offender population (UKDPC, 2008). The popular stereotype of the drug driven
addict, however, continues to inform policy and exaggerate the extent of crime caused by
drug dependence (Stevens, 2011).
There is however, a clear causal drug–crime connection established by the prohibition
of substances under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Pedersen and Skardhamar, 2009), in
which crime is not driven by any pharmacological impact of the drug, but fuelled by the
process of tough law enforcement upon outlawed substances: ‘using drug-related crime
as a justification for the war on drugs is unsustainable given the key role of enforcement
in fuelling the illegal trade and related criminality’ (Rolles et al., 2012: 10). Prohibition
amplifies the crime rate via the criminalization of thousands of otherwise law abiding
citizens and young people (Pedersen and Skardhamar, 2009). Further, the associated
social problems of crime, violence and deviant behaviour linked with the ‘drug underworld’ have less to do with the drug and more to do with prohibition that spawns criminal
Taylor et al.
461
activity and deviant sub-cultures. Research has shown that tough enforcement measures
that disrupt and destabilize the illegal market are strongly associated with increases in
drug-related violence (Werb et al., 2011) while simultaneously exacerbating the harms
experienced by individual users and wider society (Kerr et al., 2005).
Current reform models fail to address these issues but continue to: criminalize users
of certain substances; arbitrarily distinguish so called ‘soft’ drugs from ‘hard’ drugs
(those that are perceived to lead to crime and social problems); employ policies based on
a contested drugs–crime causal relationship which attempts to coerce offenders who use
illicit drugs into abstinence orientated treatment; use considerable financial resources
recouped from justice savings/confiscation orders in the policing of drugs to further step
up enforcement on drug production and supply, inadvertently fuelling further criminal
activity, risk and violence (Werb et al., 2011).
Drug use has no place in civilized society
The 2014 Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) suggests 2.7 million (8.2 per
cent of the 16–59 year old population) have used illicit drugs in the past year alone, with
920,000 (2.8 per cent of this population) defined as ‘frequent users’ (ONS, 2014) compared to an estimated 298,752 ‘problematic’ drug users (Hay et al., 2013). Clearly using
illicit drugs is not uncommon, and problematic use is confined to a minority, despite this
‘drug use’ remains curiously framed as a deviant activity, undertaken by outsiders, resulting in undesirable life threatening outcomes (Taylor, 2008).
The use of drugs for pleasure or recreation has occurred throughout history (Buchanan,
2009) and will continue to do so. Drug use per se is not immoral, but the use of particular
drugs (those made illegal in the UK Misuse of Drugs Act 1971) has been socially constructed as dangerous, immoral and deviant while the use of other substances is promoted
and culturally embedded (Measham and Brain, 2005) – this position is contradictory,
inconsistent and unsustainable.
Scientifically there is no pharmacological or rational basis to distinguish between licit
and illicit substances. If recreational drugs have no place in society then the logical conclusion is there is no place for tea, coffee, fizzy drinks or hot chocolate that all contain
the stimulant drug caffeine or the addictive substance sugar, and no place for the depressant drug alcohol. This would be an untenable position to defend and impossible to
enforce. Currently legal substances are used daily and valued for: providing energy;
making us more alert; helping us relax; become more sociable; chill out; sleep; and have
fun; unsurprisingly illicit drugs are used as part of everyday life for the very same purposes and could also be beneficial to that individual’s well-being and health (Boys et al.,
2001).
This skewed perception embedded within the drug apartheid, of overlooking the
harms posed by legally approved substances and denying the normalization and benefits
of recreational illicit drugs in society obscures that: drugs can be acquired easily and are
readily available (Aldridge et al., 2011); drug use permeates all sections of society
(Aldridge, 2008); most people use drugs responsibly, sensibly and recreationally
(Measham et al., 2001); most drug taking is controlled rather than chaotic (Shewan and
Dalgarno, 2005); most drug users enjoy and take pleasure from their use (Hunt et al.,
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2010); most drug users exercise agency and choose to use drugs rather than finding
themselves propelled by a series of external pressures and/or negative life experiences
(Aldridge et al., 2011); and most drug use does not result in drug-related crime (Stevens,
2011). Within a stifled prohibitionist drug discourse such statements, despite being evidenced, might be perceived as provocative, dangerous or even promoting drugs by
‘sending out the wrong message’. Interestingly, if re-read in relation to caffeine and
alcohol such statements suddenly become entirely reasonable. The social construction of
‘drugs’ provides a distorted lens through which licit and illicit drug use is seen, where
reason, logic and science become clouded by ideology, dogma and intolerance: a process
that reflects the wider political climate, which elevates feeling and prejudice above reason and evidence (Cohen, 2013).
Policies such as the New Zealand Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 represent little
more than a metamorphosis of prohibition as they extend state power to determine and
sanction the personal use of certain drugs while outlawing and punishing the use of other
substances. Such laws fail to recognize that it is drug prohibition rather than substance
use itself that causes most harm. With a lack of evidence that drug use per se causes
significant harm, the role of law enforcement over what a person can and cannot consume becomes very questionable.
Continued drug use inevitably leads to addiction
Use of any banned drug is portrayed as dangerous, and little distinction is made between
use and addiction. Similar to people who use alcohol, illicit drug users are generally sensible, recreational users, and no more likely to be irresponsible or become ‘addicts’ than
regular wine, beer or spirit drinkers are likely to become ‘alcoholics’. There is no inevitable progression that regular drug use is likely to lead to drug addiction (Hart, 2013). The
idea that a ‘gateway’ drug leads to escalated drug use and/or addiction is unfounded
(ACMD, 2008), and while some substances are for some people more addictive than others, there is no substance that once taken turns people into ‘addicts’ (Hart, 2013).
It is widely assumed that the traumas associated with chronic dependent use of drugs
are a direct consequence of addiction to illicit substances; however, closer examination
indicates a host of other, more deep-rooted socio-economic issues, disadvantages and
personal traumas often precede addiction (Stevens, 2011). It may be politically expedient
to present lives that have been damaged by deindustrialization, poverty, unemployment,
exclusion, abuse and/or trauma as caused by ‘drugs’, however, chronic problematic drug
use is more often a symptom of wider underlying issues, not the causal factor (Buchanan,
2006; MacGregor and Thickett, 2011). In terms of problematic drug use, the set (the
person) and setting (the environment) are more influential risk factors than the substance
(Zinberg, 1984). For example, when Switzerland prescribed clean injectable heroin
maintenance, long-term problematic users were able to move away from the damaging
illegal environment and pattern of life and were able to engage in productive and healthier lifestyles – despite their ongoing use and physical dependence upon pharmaceutical
heroin (Ceste, 2010).
Reformers seeking incremental change may be afraid to argue for the legalization of
all drugs, but the numerous successful Heroin Assisted Treatment programmes, such as
Taylor et al.
463
in Switzerland, provide a robust evidence base (Strang et al., 2012) that drugs, even
injected heroin, do not inherently of themselves lead to problematic drug use, and legalizing all drugs would remove the associated harms caused through: cutting drugs with
toxic agents; uncertainty of strength and purity; and the acquisition through the criminal
underworld.
Conclusion
The UK government claims it is ‘committed to an evidence-based approach, high quality
scientific advice in this complex field is therefore of the utmost importance’ (Home
Office, 2010: 9), however, this article has demonstrated there is a paucity of evidence to
support this claim. Drug policy nevertheless, seeks to vindicate itself by continuing to
assert that illicit drugs cause a wide range of harms, and that drug prohibition protects
society from these harms, but to the contrary, the evidence indicates the present drug
policy is causing more harm and offering little or no benefits to either users or non-users.
Drug policy premised on media driven myth, flawed assumptions and political populism
lacks credibility and legitimacy. The UK drug policy imbues prohibited drugs with innate
powers to cause crime, poverty, family and community breakdown, disease and even
death, and drugs have become society’s scapegoat (Szasz, 2003). This demonization of
drugs conveniently detracts from the more complex personal, social and structural drivers of addiction, such as poverty and social exclusion (MacGregor and Thickett, 2011);
while it also avoids addressing the hypocrisy inherent in the bifurcation of substances
(Buchanan, 2009).
This article contends recent shifts towards selective regulation, decriminalization or
legalization fail to tackle fundamental drug war fallacies, and perpetuate a discourse
rooted in prohibition rather than scientific evidence and reason. Selectively inviting particular drugs to join alcohol, caffeine and tobacco as commercial products is a dubious
and uncertain pathway towards dismantling prohibition. Reform advocates may argue
these alternative drug policies represent a progressive incremental movement – but we
contend that these amendments symbolize the ‘metamorphosis of prohibition’, and are
rooted in the drug policy malaise. Indeed, tweaking the flawed model risks obfuscating
the fundamental contradictions and hypocrisy at the heart of prohibition and the 1961
UN Single Convention.
We would argue that the 1961 Convention was not a mistake; it was a deliberate strategy to protect the privileged position of the preferred drugs, its users and the associated
industries dominating the western market in the 1950/1960s. Prohibition created the
‘drug apartheid’, a brutal system of inclusion and exclusion, rooted in the politics and
culture of maintaining power and privilege. The contradictions between legal and illegal
drugs and the arbitrary classification of drugs in the UK Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 suggest
this law is no longer fit for purpose and should be repealed not reformed. There is a need to
challenge the social construction of ‘drugs’ and the ‘drug user’, a need to develop a new
approach that is rooted in human rights, health and social care and not prohibition, criminalization and punishment. Drug reform must engage in the difficult and complex process
of exploring how best to legalize and regulate all psychoactive substances that are currently
legal and illegal, to develop a drug policy that seeks to embrace and accommodate the use
464
Criminology & Criminal Justice 16(4)
of all drugs in society rather than prevent, deny or privilege particular drug use. Drug
reformers who see incremental adaptations to existing drug policy as stepping stones
towards ending prohibition should at the very least be clear about the transitory nature of
such ‘reforms’, and vocal and explicit about long-term goals. This is however, a risky
strategy that too often involves compromising key principles and confusing important
issues to achieve short-term gains. Each incremental step must be part of dismantling the
drug apartheid; it cannot be seen to be colluding with or supporting ongoing systemic
misinformation, unsound policies and practices that are rooted in prohibition.
The current raft of reforms fail to expose and challenge the very principles that underpin prohibition; instead they perpetuate the flawed discourse upholding it. The drug
apartheid is a deeply divisive and damaging system that cannot be adapted, but must be
dismantled. Abolition inevitably requires a process of transition; it could begin with the
decriminalization of all possession, cultivation and production for personal use – while
acknowledging and planning a model of regulation to address the ongoing harm caused
by the perpetuation of wider prohibition and the continued criminalization of those
involved in manufacture and supply. Unless a mature, scientific and evidence-based
approach to drug policy reform is adopted that clearly starts to expose, challenge and
dismantle the very foundations of the drug apartheid any new regulatory framework or
so called reform is arguably little more than repackaged prohibition.
Acknowledgements
We are thankful to Rebecca Askew for her constructive comments on an earlier draft of the article
and to the anonymous reviewers who provided thoughtful feedback.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
Although the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs consolidated and reinforced international drug prohibition, this was initially established in 1909–1912 with the Shanghai Opium
Commission (1909) and the subsequent International Opium Convention of the Hague (1912).
Despite the possession of certain substances or amounts of substances being decriminalized/
legalized/regulated in certain jurisdictions there are no jurisdictions which have decriminalized/legalized/regulated the possession and/or supply of all previously illegal substances. As
a consequence the prohibition of certain substances and the criminalization of those who possess/supply these continue to be evident in every nation across the globe.
The term ‘narcotic’ first appeared in the 1914 Harrison Act in the USA to refer to opiates
and cocaine. According to the World Health Organization (1994: 47) ‘narcotic’ refers to ‘a
chemical agent that induces stupor, coma, or insensibility to pain’, which is why it was used
as a catch all term for opiates and the anaesthetic cocaine in the Harrison Act. However, the
Taylor et al.
4.
5.
6.
465
1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs provides no scientific definition of narcotic and
although medically the term still refers to opioids, in its legal context and everyday use it has
become an all-encompassing term for prohibited drugs regardless of their pharmacology and
thus erroneous. Due to the imprecise nature of the word narcotic the 1961 Convention should
provide a clear and exact definition since it is the foundation of all subsequent prohibitionist
legislation, despite only initially referring to opiates and cocaine.
The resulting Psychoactive Substances Bill proposes a blanket ban on all Novel Psychoactive
Substances and at the time of writing is passing through the UK House of Commons on its
journey towards becoming legislation.
Portuguese possession limits are based on average consumption over a 10 day period, that is,
25g for cannabis, 1g MDMA, 0.3g for cocaine, 1g of heroin.
Defined here as those who use heroin and crack cocaine.
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Author biographies
Stuart Taylor is Senior Lecturer in Criminal Justice at Liverpool John Moores University, UK.
Before entering academia Stuart worked for the National Probation Service, specializing within
the drugs field. His research interests revolve around substance use and his most recent research
focuses on cannabis use and cultivation within a community context.
Julian Buchanan is Associate Professor at the Institute of Criminology, Victoria University of
Wellington in New Zealand. Julian began his career as a probation officer working with drug users
in Merseyside in the early 1980s and has researched into the drugs field for over 30 years. He has
particular interest in problematic drug use, harm reduction, barriers to integration, drug policy and
drug reform. He is specialist assessor for a number of journals, has worked as a consultant and
expert adviser to the UNODC, Vienna and has published widely on the subject including over 40
contributions in books and journals.
Tammy Ayres is Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Leicester, England. Previously, Tammy
has conducted research for HM Prison Service on drug supply, substance detoxification, self-harm
and suicide. She has just completed her PhD titled Drugs and crime: The true relationship.
COMPARATIVE
HISTORICAL RESEARCH
Introduction
• In
historical-comparative (HC) research,
social researchers study social situations in the past,
and perhaps across time and context.
• They must understand details about various countries or
have a strong historical background to be good at HC.
• This can be intimidating for some. It is not intimidating
due to the method, but rather because the topic of study is
often complex.
Introduction, Cont’d
• HC
research does not merely catalogue facts, dates,
people, and events in history.
• Instead, it studies the relationships among facts,
dates, people, and events and how those
relationships have affected the past, the present, and
even predictions are made about the future.
Introduction, Cont’d
• HC
research blends different techniques and
approaches.
• Some research relies on history, others use quantitative
data, and others focus on qualitative data methods.
• There are many methodological approaches that may
be used in historical comparative research.
Types of Research Questions
• HC research is generally useful for addressing big
questions (i.e., macro-level questions), though sometimes
they address micro-level questions as well.
• It is useful for examining a combination of social factors
that may have led up to some specific large event (e.g., a
civil war).
• It is used to reinterpret data or historical explanations, or
challenge them.
• Some example research questions are:
• How did country X change from socialist to democratic?
• What fundamental features are common to most societies?
• What caused the revolution in country Y?
• How did X, Y, and Z, contribute to the Civil Rights
Movement?
The Logic
• Is there a difference between
quantitative research and HC research?
• The answer to this is, it depends.
• Why?
• Because some HC researchers use quantitative
methods and others use qualitative methods, including
historical methods.
QUANTitative HC
• The quantitative HC approach is often referred to as the
•
•
•
•
•
“positivist” approach.
In this case, this does not mean the opposite of “negativist.”
A “positivist” is one who believes in the positivism
philosophy. So what is that?
Positivism is the system introduced by Auguste Comte
(one of the founders of sociology).
Positivism means to adopt science, instead of depending
on theology and metaphysics, popular resources of Comte’s
time.
A “positivist” is someone who emphasizes observable
facts and excludes pseudoscience. A positivist is a
rationalist.
QUANTitative HC, Cont’d
• Positivist HC researchers measure variables, test
hypotheses, analyze quantitative data, and replicate
research to discover generalizable laws that hold across
time and societies.
• A positivist HC researcher sees no difference
between quantitative research and positivist research.
QUALitative HC
• On the other hand, there are HC researchers who
embrace the qualitative approach.
• This group may be referred to as using the
“interpretive” approach.
• They use qualitative data and perform inductive
reasoning to determine themes and relationships in their
study. They collect data first and examine it for patterns
without testing a specific theory – instead, they are
building theory.
QUALitative HC, Cont’d
• Interpretive HC researchers might engage in historical
case studies or use other documents that represent
qualitative data.
• In their research, a limited number of cases are usually
examined in which social meaning and context are
critically interpreted.
HC Research Dimensions
• Overall, HC research approaches can be organized along
three dimensions:
1. Is research focused on one or many nations?
2. How is time or history involved in the research? That
is, is research focused on a single time period in the
past, or across many years, or the present?
3. And, is the researcher’s analysis primarily
quantitative- or qualitative-based?
HC Compared to Field Research
• Qualitative HC is
similar to Field Research
(FR) in these ways. Both:
• include the researcher’s perspective as an integral
part of the research process.
• pay attention to many details
• use the inductive approach.
• present findings within a “meaning system” (or
culture).
• acknowledge that people construct meaning, but that
they do so within some structure.
• are limited in generalizing findings because they
depend on context.
Doing HC
• There are no rigid steps in HC. But here is
a general
outline of how to conduct HC research in six
steps.
1. Conceptualize the object of inquiry: This means getting
familiar with the setting and historical era of interest.
2. Locate evidence: Do extensive bibliographic work. Use
many indexes, catalogs, and reference works that list what
libraries contain. This may take many weeks, visits to many
libraries, traveling, and sometimes even learning a foreign
language.
3. Evaluate the quality of evidence: Ask: How relevant is the
evidence? How accurate and strong is it? Researchers are
trying to avoid fallacies here. For example, the fallacy of
pseudo-proof is a failure to place something into its full
context.
Doing HC, Cont’d
Organize evidence: Organizing begins early and continues
through the gathering of records and data. Some preliminary
analysis may occur—maybe noting some theme that is
recognizable early. But note that early themes often get
modified as data gathering continues.
5. Synthesizing: This involves refining concepts and moving
towards a more general explanatory model. This occurs
when most or all the evidence is in. Old themes or concepts
are often revised, and new ones are created. Synthesis links
specific evidence with some abstract model of underlying
relations or causal mechanisms.
6. Write the report: As with any research, one must write up
the report and share it with others. This writing involves
combining evidence, concepts, and the synthesis into a
research report.
4.
Types of HC Data
• There are
many types of data for HC.
history, or the events of
the past, and historiography, or the method of
• First let’s distinguish between
doing historical research or of gathering and analyzing
historical evidence.
• HC is a style of historiography that tries to explain
the past in terms of sociological models and theories.
Types of HC Data, Cont’d
• Here are
some data sources in HC:
• Primary sources: letters, diaries, newspapers, movies,
novels, articles of clothing, photos from the time period of
interest and that are available today.
• Secondary sources: writings of specialist historians who
have spent years studying primary sources.
• Running records: Files or existing statistical documents
maintained by organizations (e.g., a church with marriage
records).
Types of HC Data, Cont’d
• Continuing data sources:
• Recollections: Words or writings of individuals about
their past lives or experiences based on memory. This
may include an oral history, or a type of recollection via
unstructured research interviews.
• NOTE: With recollections, researchers keep in mind the
inaccuracy of memory.
Comparative Research (CR)
• So far this lecture has focused specifically on
Historical
Comparative (HC) research.
• We now focus more on
Comparative
Research (CR) in general.
HC is a form of CR.
Introduction, Cont’d
• First, what is the CR method?
• The comparative method of research is more of a
perspective, or “orienting strategy.”
• Its focus is on similarities and differences between units.
• It assumes that comparison is central to the very acts of
knowing and perceiving (said by Warwick and Osherson,
1973).
Introduction, Cont’d
• There are
limitations in the CR method. They
include the following:
1. CR is more
costly and more time consuming.
2. CR can rarely use random sampling. The small number
of cases usually studied creates a situation where
generalization is limited.
3. CR
can apply theory, but not test it.
Four Types of CR
• According to Kohn (1987), there are
four types of
CR.
• The first two are a distinct HC approach.
• The third is an extension of a positivist approach.
• And the fourth is unique in its own.
Four Types of CR, Cont’d
1. Case-Study CR: This is comparing societies or cultural
units and without intent of making broad
generalizations. Such as, “How do Canada and the US
differ?”
2. Cultural-Context Research: Study cases that are
surrogates for types of societies or units. Such as,
examining three different types of racial systems from
three different countries to show differences between
the systems. Each country provides a different kind of
cultural context.
Four Types of CR, Cont’d
3. Cross-National Research: The nation is the unit of
analysis here. Researchers measure variables across
many nations, usually quantitatively.
4. Transnational Research: The researcher uses a multination unit (for example, a region of the globe such as
the Third World) and focuses on the relations among
blocks of nations as units. The researchers sees
nations as parts of an international system (instead of
individual isolated entities).
Units Being Compared
• Culture versus Nation: Usually it is a nation-state as
the unit of analysis.
• The nation-state is the major unit used in thinking about
the divisions of people across the globe today.
• It is socially and politically defined unit.
• In a nation-state, one government has sovereignty (i.e.,
military control and political authority) over the populated
territory.
Units Being Compared, Cont’d
• In nation-states, economic relations, transportation
•
•
•
•
routes, and communication systems are integrated within
territorial boundaries.
There may usually be a common language and customs
and a common educational system, legal system, and set
of political symbols.
The nation-state often also serves as a surrogate for
culture.
Culture refers to a common identity among people based
on shared social relations, beliefs, and technology.
Often (but not always) cultural differences follow national
line.
Units Being Compared, Cont’d
• If the nation-state is not the best unit for comparative
•
•
•
•
research, what else can be examined?
A small region within a nation, or across national lines, or
a subculture can be used.
Regardless, these boundaries between cultures or
subcultures are difficult to operationalize.
Cultures are constantly evolving and have boundaries
that blend into each other.
There is no easy solution here for the HC/CR researcher.
• The issue of the appropriate unit of analysis
remains a serious one.
Galton’s Problem
• The issue of the units of
comparison is related to a
problem named after Sir
Francis Galton (1822-1911),
who raised an issue at the Royal
Anthropological Institute in 1889
regarding a paper by E. B.
Taylor.
Photo of sir Francis Galton.
Galton’s Problem, Cont’d
• When researchers compare units or their
characteristics, they want the units to be distinct and
separate from each other. If the units are not
different, but are actually the subparts of a larger unit,
then researchers will find spurious relationships.
• This is referred to as
“Galton’s Problem.”
Galton’s Problem, Cont’d
• For example, the units are the states and provinces in
Canada, France, and the US. The researcher discovers a
strong association between speaking English, and having
the dollar as currency, or speaking French and using the
euro as currency.
• Obviously the association exists because the units of
analysis are subparts of the larger units.
• In other words, using the dollar is not associated with
speaking English. Instead, using the dollar and speaking
English is the result of being in the US or Canada, just as
speaking French and using the euro would be a
consequence of living in France.
Galton’s Problem, Cont’d
• This is an important issue because cultures rarely have
fixed boundaries.
• It is hard to say where one culture ends and another
begins, whether one culture is distinct from another, or
whether the feature of one culture has diffused to another
over time.
• Galton’s problem occurs when the
relationship between two variables in two
different units is actually due to a common
origin, and they are not truly distinct units.
Data in Comparative Research
• Cross-cultural research
is a form of
comparative research.
• Researchers will do field work to collect data.
• Cross-cultural field researchers may use field
research and participant observation in cultures other
than their own.
• Field research in a different culture is usually more difficult
and places more requirements on the researcher.
Data in Comparative Research, Cont’d
• Researchers may rely on
existing sources of data
to do their research.
• For example, a comparative study of the Brazilian,
Canadian and Japanese educational systems can be
done by reading studies by researchers from many
countries, including Brazil, Canada, and Japan, which
describe the educational systems in these nations.
Data in Comparative Research, Cont’d
• There may have been about 5,000 different cultures
throughout human history, and about 1,000 have been
studied by social researchers.
• One source of ethnographic data on different
cultures is the Human Relations Area Files and
related Ethnographic Atlas (HRAF).
• Browse the sites below if you wish for more information:
See: https://hraf.yale.edu/
Also see: https://hraf.yale.edu/resources/reference/ea-cases-in-ehraf/
Data in Comparative Research, Cont’d
• The
HRAF is a collection of field research reports
that Anthropologist George Murdock began to gather
and organize in 1938.
• It brings together information from ethnographic studies
on various cultures, most which are primitive or small
tribal groups.
• Extensive info on nearly 300 cultures has been organized
by social characteristics (infant feeding, suicide,
childbirth).
• A study on a particular culture is divided up and its
information on a characteristic is grouped with that from
other studies. This makes it easy to compare many
cultures on the same characteristics.
Data in Comparative Research, Cont’d
• Cross-national survey research
is
another form of comparative research.
• Surveys are conducted in other cultures to collect
data.
• Doing this requires the researcher to possess an in-depth
knowledge of the other culture’s norms, practices, and
customs.
• If not, it is easy to make serious errors in procedure and
interpretation. The culture must be known in depth.
Data in Comparative Research, Cont’d
• Question writing (wording) must be tailored to the
culture in which it is conducted so that respondents
from that culture correctly interpret the questions
meanings.
• Sampling for a survey is also affected by the cultural
context.
• Are accurate sampling frames available?
• What is the quality of mail or telephone service?
• Transportation to remote rural areas?
• This kind of information is valuable when conducting
survey research in a vastly different culture than our own
Data in Comparative Research, Cont’d
• Also, survey researchers must be aware of a version of
social desirability bias, called courtesy
bias.
• This occurs when strong cultural norms cause
respondents to hide anything unpleasant or give answers
that the respondent thinks that the interviewer wants.
• In other words, respondents may seriously understate or
overstate characteristics.
Data in Comparative Research, Cont’d
• There are also other places for
existing sources of
quantitative data.
• Quantitative data for many variables are available
for different nations (e.g., in newspaper articles,
official government stats, United Nations reports).
• One source, the World Handbook of Political
and Social Indicators (Taylor and Jodice 1983),
has dozens of indicators for 156 countries for 35
years.
• Indicators include such variables as the literacy
rate, the number of medical doctors, the degree of
urbanization, the number of people, etc.
Equivalence in Comparative Research
• Equivalence is similar to
measurement validity for the quantitative
researcher.
• It involves the issue of making comparisons across
different contexts, or whether a researcher, living in a
specific time period and culture, correctly reads,
understands, or conceptualizes data about people from
different time periods or cultures.
• Without equivalence, a researcher cannot use the
same concepts or measures in different cultures or
historical periods, and this makes comparison
difficult or even impossible.
Equivalence, Cont’d
• Equivalence varies on a continuum.
• In one extreme, it happens when the researcher
discovers something that is totally foreign to his or her
experience or that is unique to a particular time or culture.
• On the other extreme, there may be only subtle
differences, which are easily overlooked but could affect
comparisons.
Equivalence, Cont’d
• For example, and noted by Elder (1973), is the problem
of translating the term “friend” across three European
languages:
• Friend (English); Freund (German); and Amigo
(Spanish)
• Technically, all three translate identically. But the German
Freund refers to a few deep, personal associates. The
English Friend refers to a somewhat less intense and
wider range of acquaintances. And the Spanish Amigo
refers to a very wide range of persons, some of whom
might have been met only that day.
Equivalence, Cont’d
• So the question, “how many friends do you have” is
asking something very different in all three languages
(English, German, and Spanish).
Friend
Amigo
Freund
Four Subtypes of Equivalence
• 1. Lexicon Equivalence: The correct
translation of words and phrases, or finding a word that
means the same thing as another word. (For example
using the word “friend”).
• To improve lexicon equivalence, researchers use a
process of back translation.
• The way this is achieved, is a translating the words or
phrases into one language by one person, and then
translating it back again by a different person. The first
and second translations are compared. The closer they
are, more equivalence is demonstrated.
Four Subtypes of Equivalence, Cont’d
• In historical research, translations are interesting,
especially since the
meaning of words often
change over time.
• For example the word “weed” refers to unwanted plants or
to marijuana, but in Shakespeare’s era, it meant clothing.
• What are some other words that have changed? “Boss”
meant “cool” in the 1970s, and today it only refers to a
supervisor or manager.
• “Gay” was happy in the 1960s, and today it refers to
homosexuality.
Four Subtypes of Equivalence, Cont’d
• 2. Contextual Equivalence: This is the
correct application of terms or concepts in different
social or historical contexts.
• It is an attempt to achieve equivalence within specific
contexts.
• For example, in cultures with different dominant religions,
a religious leader can have different roles, training and
authority.
Four Subtypes of Equivalence, Cont’d
• In some contexts, “priests” for example are full-time male
professionals who are wealthy and highly esteemed
educated community leaders. They may also have a lot
of political power.
• In other contexts, a priest is anyone who rises above
others in a congregation on a temporary bases, has little
community power, and little political power.
• Thus, asking about “priests” in a context without thinking
of this could end in serious errors in interpretation.
Four Subtypes of Equivalence, Cont’d
• Context also applies historically.
• For example, “attending college” has a different meaning
today than in a historical context in which only the richest
1% attended.
Photos of a 1893 Graduating Class in the U.S. and a recent UWW graduating class.
Four Subtypes of Equivalence, Cont’d
• 3. Conceptual Equivalence:
This is the
ability to use the same concept across divergent
cultures or historical eras.
• Concepts are based on the researchers experiences and
knowledge from their own culture and era. Thus, views of
other cultures or eras get colored by one’s current life
situations.
• This creates a persistent tension and raises the question:
Can a researcher create concepts that are simultaneously
true reflections of life experiences in different cultures or
eras and that also make see to him or her?
Four Subtypes of Equivalence, Cont’d
• Concepts can be incompatible across different time
periods or cultures.
• At times, the same or a very similar concept exists across
cultures, but in different forms or degrees of strength.
• For example, in many Asian societies, there is a marked
difference between the outward public presentation and
definition of self and the private personal presentation and
the definition of self.
Four Subtypes of Equivalence, Cont’d
• What one reveals and shows externally in some Asian
cultures is often culturally detached from true, internal
feelings.
• Some languages mark this linguistically as well.
• The idea of a distinct self for public, non-family, or nonprivate situations exists in Western cultures as well, but
it is much weaker and less socially significant.
• In addition, many Western cultures assume that the inner
self is “real” and should be revealed, an assumption that
is not always shared cross-culturally.
Four Subtypes of Equivalence, Cont’d
• In a historical situation, conceptual equivalence may
be difficult.
• For example, measuring income is very different in a
historical era with a largely non-cash society, in which
most people grow their own food, make their own furniture
and clothing, or barter goods.
• So measuring income or conceptualizing income is dollars
earned will make no sense.
Four Subtypes of Equivalence, Cont’d
• 4. Measurement Equivalence:
•
•
•
•
This
means measuring the same concept in different
settings.
It may be necessary to use different indicators in different
contexts.
For example, a concept may be measured using a
survey in one culture, and field research in another.
So, can results be compared based on these different
indicators?
It depends. Using induction, some statements may be
made, but acknowledgement of differences between data
is important.
Ethics
• Comparative Research shares
ethical concerns
found in other non-reactive research techniques.
• The use of primary historical sources occasionally
raises special ethical issues.
• The researcher’s selection criteria for use of evidence
and external criticism of documents places a burden on
the integrity of the researcher.
• Errors in documentation or the failure to document
primary sources sufficiently may create an accusation of
fraud against historians, especially from opposing
historiographic schools.
Ethics, Cont’d
• The right to protect one’s privacy may
interfere with the right to gather evidence
•
•
•
•
(recall how personal diaries may be a source of data?).
A person’s descendants may want to destroy or hide
private papers or evidence of scandalous behavior.
Even major political figures (e.g., presidents) want to hide
embarrassing official documents.
Therefore, researchers must be sensitive to cultural
and political issues of cross-cultural interaction.
They must learn what is considered offensive within a
culture. This includes showing respect for traditions,
customs, and meaning of privacy in a host country.
Ethics, Cont’d
• It is important to maintain good relations with the host
country’s government.
• Researchers therefore should not take data out of the
country without giving something back (e.g., research
results).
•
More Examples of HC Research
August Comte and
“positivism?” He also introduced the term
sociologie, and saw this new discipline as the final
• (1) Remember
stage in a historical development of ideas.
• Through introducing positivism and reviewing our
evolution of thought, he took humans from a reliance on
religion to metaphysics to science.
• He portrayed science as evolving from the
development of biology and the other natural
sciences to the development of psychology and,
finally, to the development of scientific sociology.
More Examples of HC Research, Cont’d
• (2) Many have
researched the progression
of
social forms over time, from the simple to the complex,
from rural – agrarian to urban – industrial societies. For
example, the anthropologist Lewis Morgan described a
social progression from "savagery" to "barbarism" to
"civilization".
• Robert Redfield, another anthropologist, described a
change from our "folk society" to an "urban society".
• Emile Durkheim, another “founder” in sociology, saw
evolution over time as a process of ever-greater divisions of
labor.
• Karl Marx (another “founder” of sociology) used
economic systems over time and described them as changing
from primitive to feudal to capitalistic forms.
More Examples of HC Research, Cont’d
• (3) Some social scientists see history more in terms of
large cycles instead of linear paths.
• The story of
Pitirim Sorokin is one example of this
cycle. He participated in the Russian Revolution of 1917,
and served as secretary to Prime Minister Kerensky. Both
of them fell from popularity, however, and Sorokin began
his second career – as a sociologist.
• Whereas Comte read history linearly from religion to
science, Sorokin suggested that societies alternate
cyclically between two perspectives.
More Examples of HC Research, Cont’d
• One, the “ideational” emphasizes spiritual and religious
factors. The other, the “sensate,” emphasizes reality in
terms of empirical evidence drawn from our senses.
• Sorokin suggested further that the cycle of ideational
and sensate was through a third point of view, which he
called the "idealistic."
• This perspective combined both elements in an
integrated, rational view of the world.
• These examples indicate some of the topics
historical/comparative researchers have examined.
EVALUATION
RESEARCH
Evaluation Research
■ Research that is conducted for a distinct purpose: to investigate the effectiveness of
programs
Key Terms
■ Inputs – the persons or units being treated by the program
– Also includes resources & staff
■ Program process – the treatment or service being delivered by the program
■ Output – the direct product produced by the program delivery process
More Key Terms
■ Outcomes – the impact of the program on the units served
■ Feedback – information about the way the program is operating
■ Stakeholders – individuals or groups who are invested in the program
Questions for Evaluation Research
■ Is the program needed?
■ Can the program be evaluated?
■ How does the program operate?
■ What is the program’s impact?
■ How efficient is the program?
Needs Assessment
■ A type of evaluation research that attempts to determine the needs of some
population that might be met with a social program
Evaluability Assessment
■ A type of evaluation research conducted to determine whether it is feasible to evaluate
a program’s effects within the available time and resources
Process Evaluation
■ A type of evaluation research that investigates what actually happens during the
process of program delivery
Impact Evaluation
■ A type of evaluation research that compares what happened after a program was
implemented with what would have happened if there wasn’t a program
Efficiency Analysis
■ A type of evaluation research that compares program costs with program effects
– Cost-benefit analysis vs. cost-effectiveness analysis
Design Decisions
■ Black box evaluation vs. theory driven evaluation
– Whether it works vs. how it works
Design Decisions
■ Social science approach vs. stakeholder approach
– Researcher autonomy vs. responsive evaluation
Design Decisions
■ Quantitative vs. qualitative methods
– Outcomes vs. process
Design Decisions
■ Simple vs. complex outcomes
– Single vs. multiple outcomes
Policy Research
■ A process in which research results are used to provide policy actors with
recommendations
Research Obstacles
■ Missing important outcomes
■ Pressure by stakeholders
■ Oversimplification for lay audience
Reading Question #1
The Impact of Victim Advocacy on the Prosecution of Domestic Violence
Offenses: Lessons from a Realistic Evaluation
■ Why have academic researchers and women’s advocates been critical of the criminal
justice response to domestic violence? How do criminal justice agencies respond to the
critiques?
Reading Question #2
The Impact of Victim Advocacy on the Prosecution of Domestic Violence
Offenses: Lessons from a Realistic Evaluation
■ What was the purpose of the study discussed in this article? What was the author
attempting to learn?
Reading Question #3
The Impact of Victim Advocacy on the Prosecution of Domestic Violence
Offenses: Lessons from a Realistic Evaluation
■ What is the goal of realistic evaluation?
Reading Question #4
The Impact of Victim Advocacy on the Prosecution of Domestic Violence
Offenses: Lessons from a Realistic Evaluation
■ What outcomes did the researchers find with regards to the amount of victim
participation and court outcomes among IDVA cases?
Reading Question #5
The Impact of Victim Advocacy on the Prosecution of Domestic Violence
Offenses: Lessons from a Realistic Evaluation
■ Explain what the term mechanism means in the context of this article, and briefly
describe the three mechanisms the authors identified with regards to how the IDVA
was successful.
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