Capturing the voice of young people involved in violent crime with design-led, digital methodologies

• In Event: Authentic Voices: Young people and Violence. Being heard as well as being seen.

Abstract

A legacy perhaps of early studies into youth offending conducted by the Chicago School of Sociology, where understanding the lifeworlds of marginalised others was prioritised, many investigations into youth crime rely upon traditional social science methodologies, such as interviewing, collecting self-narratives and ethnographic work, where the face-to-face encounter is prioritised as conduit for the generation of rich qualitative data. This paper seeks to demonstrate the value of digital methods in uncovering detailed narratives of pathways into and out of crime and violence for young people. It presents findings from a study adopting a design-led methodological approach, utilised during the COVID-19 pandemic to facilitate research with young people (aged 15–17) who had been involved in crime and violence in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK. The development of an original digital workshop using interactive methods engaged criminalised youths online and gathered rich qualitative data regarding their experiences of crime and violence. The research demonstrated how digital methods can be used to empower participants, by transferring ownership of the research encounter to the participant. Furthermore, digital methods can help move away from a traditional one-directional ‘interview’ experience that young people involved in crime and violence might associate with unpleasant encounters with professionals (such as police, teachers, social workers) creating a safer space for more genuine accounts and narratives. Ultimately, this paper suggests that the extent to which young people have become embedded in a virtual world and the role this plays in pathways into crime and violence cannot be ignored. If researchers of youth crime and deviance wish therefore to engage with and understand the lifeworlds of the latest generations of participants it may be pertinent that they develop methods that can help uncover the virtual, rather than the ‘street corner’ societies to which they belong.

Author

• Rebecca Oswald, Northumbria University