Conduction of a covert observation PDF

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Covert observation research in a Crown Court and findings. With feedback....

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_________________________________________________________________________ Section 1 What has been done well (in relation to the assessment criteria)  You have selected an interesting and unusual location to observe in.  You demonstrate that you were actively observing and very engaged with what was happening in the site.  You have made an attempt to carefully record the behaviour and activities within the courtroom. _________________________________________________________________________ Section 2 How you may strengthen future work: advice for improvement  One of the key problems with the observation is that you did not identify a specific theme that you were observing. In other words what were you looking at, as an academic researcher in the courthouse? As a consequence your observations are not sufficiently detailed and focussed.  You needed to provide much more information and description about the nature of the observation location, the people in it, the atmosphere, what people were doing etc. This detail then needs to be related to research theme – i.e. discuss how what you have seen helps understand your research theme.  There is almost no literature here at all – you need to connect your observation to the methods literature and to literature that relates to your research theme.  Your comments about being representative show that you have misunderstood the nature of observation – remember qualitative research does not aim to make generalisations.  Do make sure you have followed all the guidance and requirements in the module handbook. ___________________________________________________________________ ______ Section 3 AT A GLANCE SUMMARY The information provided in this table is for general guidance only. The criteria do not necessarily carry equal weight, nor are they exhaustive in determining the final mark. exceptional

Level of understanding Quality of analysis/argument Use of literature and other sources Relevance to question/objectives Structure and organisation Insight, creativity & originality Presentation/expression Referencing

excellent

very good

good

adequate

poor

very poor

x x x x x x x x

General comments: See above. Do make sure you have taken the time to read through all the assignment requirements. _________________________________________________________________________ Marker’s name:

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extremely poor

Second marker’s comment (where applicable): _______________________________________________________________________ Section 4 Student response to comments

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Observation of a social space

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For this assignment I chose a court room hearing as the social space I would observe. A court is a place where justice is carried out and which serves as a symbol of justice. I made sure I would go to a hearing where there would be a witness present by looking at the court listings. There is no problem of access in a court as it is a public space and I can freely take any notes I want, although I am not allowed to record or to take pictures. I directed this covert observation towards everyone present – judge, prosecutor, defence attorney, jury, witness, court officials and the public. Some of these people are neutral players in the carriage of justice whereas others defend a point of view and I wanted to see how this appeared: Do neutral players keep a neutral attitude at all times or do they take sides? How do the others defend their position? To what extent are they willing to concede things to the opposite party? Do people show their feelings and emotions or do they keep a more neutral and “professional” look? What are people’s attitudes towards this particular case and towards the criminal justice system (CJS)? The CJS is an important part of society, and people’s opinions on it can greatly influence the view they have of society in general, which can in turn influence political opinion and voting. Sparks et al. (1977:177) found that the perception of justice influences someone’s decision to call the police, which could mean that a society with a more favourable view of the CJS is more likely to contribute to justice. The CJS is crucial as a whole, but it is too vast to cover in this single observation. A trial can take several days, and a single hearing several hours. Because of this, I planned an observation of at least an hour, as I thought I would not necessarily have the luck to find relevant information quickly. After developing an interest for the case and my surroundings, I ended up stayed in the courtroom for two hours and fifteen minutes.

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After walking in the court room, I sat down behind the only person who was sitting in the public area, a black man in a suit who looked around 40-years-old (who will now be called Alexander). I took a few minutes to get used to my surroundings before I started taking notes. The defence attorney was questioning a witness, who was in this case also the victim. It later became obvious that he was trying to discredit her. The defence attorney paced around when interviewing the witness. At first he looked mainly at her, but when he was moving towards his conclusions, when people started seeing the intention behind his questions, he increasingly looked at the jury as well. The defence attorney was interrogating the witness very loudly, with long and elaborated questions as well as vast movements of hands, which contrasted greatly with the witness’ vague and quiet answers. The witness was visibly shaken and seemed on the verge of crying throughout the hearing. The prosecutor’s rare interventions mostly consisted of noting that the defence attorney was making an affirmation instead of asking the witness a question. The judge always agreed, and the defence attorney always apologised. The judge was taking notes on his computer, but seemed so passive that he looked like he might secretly have been on social media or making online purchases, but when the prosecutor intervened, the judge showed by what he said that he had followed what was happening. The witness had said several times she could not remember particular events, or made doubtful approximations. She was told she was being vague several times. After a question by the defence attorney, and before the witness could answer, the judge said that the defence attorney should make his questions more to the point (“The questions are getting hard to follow. The longer the question, the more the witness will be confused”). The defence attorney apologised, and explained he felt the need to over explain things because of the witness’ vagueness.

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Meanwhile, Alexander faced the judge, who was also the half-way point between the defence attorney and the witness. He never changed the direction he was facing, although he did change posture, sometimes standing straight, sometimes bending over with his elbows on his knees. He checked his phone once, and it looked as if he could have changed a setting, such as putting the phone on silent which he might have forgotten to do before. He never gave me any attention whatsoever. After a while a woman (Fabrice) came in and sat two seats to my right. Because of her I had to change position to conceal my notebook better and it became quite uncomfortable to write. Fabrice was probably in her fifties, was wearing a scarf, a coat and “Beatles boots”. She looked over towards me regularly, especially when I looked at the clock that was immediately above her. At some point, the defence attorney said that the next question was going to take some time, and the judge decided to take a break. During that time, most people in the courtroom left, the judge and the jury through their own door, and the others through the public door. The prosecutor stayed and chatted and exchanged papers with two court officials, and I stayed as well as Fabrice. After a while, she started a conversation with me by asking me whether I studied Law. She told me she felt sorry for the witness as she thought she look distressed, and she also said that the witness was being vague and that that was not going to her favour. Fabrice also told me about the court hearing she had been in before, where she felt sorry for the defendant, as she said he looked as if he did not understand English and was not really understanding what was happening to him. I noticed that Fabrice’s accent was not mother tongue English, although it was impossible to tell where she was from, so I decided to try to get her to tell me her nationality by talking about mine. I found out she was French, and since I am also from a country that speaks French, we continued the conversation in French. She became more and more curious about my notes (how could

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I possibly be writing so much about the case?) and asked me whether I was writing them in French or English, precisely when I was taking notes on her. I said it was mostly in Portuguese (since I’m also Portuguese), hoping she would lose interest, and then actually tried to switch the language of my notes to Portuguese. She did not ask anything more about my notes. After the break, the formality came back and everything went back to how it was before, with the exception that the jury who had been very passive, or even sleepy (some members of the jury had their heads resting on their hands with their eyes closed) were more alert for the first fifteen minutes, but it did not last long before they went back to passivity. When the judge walked in and people stood, Fabrice said in a possibly critical tone “it’s only for him that people stand up”. She continued to punctually make comments to me when the hearing resumed. I left court when the lunch break arrived, and so did Fabrice, saying she would not come back in the afternoon. With this experience, I learnt that observation as a research method can rely highly on luck. I was very lucky that someone started talking to me about what they thought of two different cases, and I was lucky there was even a public at all! I was also lucky to not have much difficulties, apart from concealing my notes. It is true I got some odd looks, as I was visibly the only person around who was under 40, but I imagine people used their imagina tion to find out what I was doing there (either I was a Law student or a criminal, presumably). I also learnt that it is very easy to get carried away with noting things that are ultimately irrelevant for what I was trying to find out, but this meant that I quickly had to develop a system of abbreviations that became very effective. However I did have to lie about what language my notes were in, and I wonder if how I got Fabrice to tell me her nationality was not some sort of manipulation… However, I think it is clear that I did not harm anyone in

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any way, and I would not even have a way of breaking their anonymity, as I don’t know their identities. I found that both attorneys were playing their role of defending their point of view vigorously, and the witness was defending hers in a less heroic fashion, as well as she could. Neutral players did remain mostly neutral, and did not show many signs of engagement, as if it was “just another day at the job”. Alexander seemed interested and engaged enough to have chosen a side, and seemed like he was attending to see if things were going his way. Fabrice told me she was attending for no particular reason, and while not having picked a side in the sense of guilt or innocence, she did feel compassionate for the witness. My findings are of course very limited. The total of 21 people that I observed can in no way represent the rest of the country, and I did not even manage to get the full story of these 21 people. There are many more people who do not work or attend court and who also have their opinions on the matter. As the hearing was during a weekday it is more improbable to find people who have a full-time job, meaning I could not get a full demographic view. The people I observed were by themselves, and it would have been interesting to see how a group who had come together would have acted, for example.

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References Bryman, A. (2012), Social Research Methods, 4th edition, New York: Oxford University Press Sparks, R., Genn, H. & Dodd, D.J. (1977), Surveying victims: a study of the measurement of criminal victimization, perceptions of crime, and attitudes to criminal justice, Wiley, Chichester

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