Domestic Violence & Abuse Research

The primary concern of this study is the philosophy of science as it relates to the scientific method, particularly to scientific methods used in the criminology and criminal justice system. For example, a substantial area of the criminology research concerns domestic violence (Siegel, 2002). The question can be asked: What insights do philosophy of science provide concerning the general methods used in criminological research and in the investigation of domestic violence and abuse in particular? The purpose of this paper is to provide an answer to this question.

A good deal of the domestic violence and abuse literature has examined for relationships between abusive behavior and several key sociodemograpics. For example, Weinsheimer, Schermer, Malcoe, Balduf and Bloomfield (2005) examined for associations between alcohol and intimate partner

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ted to the relationship of sociodemographic variables and domestic violence and abuse. These conclusions, according to Vincent and Jouriles (2000) center around the idea that certain sociodemographic variables operate to increase the risk of domestic violence in a family. In other words, they make for a greater probability of domestic violence occurring. Thus, a family in which one or both partners abuse alcohol is more likely to experience domestic violence that a family where alcohol abuse is not present. Application of Philosophy of Science to the Domestic Violence/Abuse Research A key point that can be noted about the just discussed research is that these studies, like all research, are considered searches for credible explanations of observed phenomena (see: Curd & Cover, 1998). But in order for an explanation to be considered credible, the information on which it is based must be derived from methods that allow for confidence in the accuracy of the obtained information (Godfrey-Smith, 2003). In this regard, philosophy of science has pointed out that there are several problematic aspects associated with the scientific method in general and social sciences research (the nature of most criminology research) in particular.
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Approximate Word count = 1393
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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