I was at the American Association for Crimonology conference the latter part of last week. I cannot say most of the research there grabbed my attention, but the experience was very thought-provoking.

I see parallels as well as massive disconnects between Education and Criminology. Education and Crime both involve institutionalized protocols of behavior. Education, at least ostensibly, should expand opportunity, at least an ideal model of it; whereas action against criminals amounts to limiting their opportunity. I notice that even in this paragraph, I have to keep changing my terminology about criminology & crime, because the object of this field amounts not to committing crime, but….what? That is a critical question that I’m not sure all criminologists would answer in the same way, though to be fair, educators would not all have the same answers about the mission of education.

Another disconnect is the impact that the academic field can have over real-world practice in the field. In Education, a School of Education educates future teachers, thus having a fair amount of influence of the forming of minds of those headed into the classroom. It is also feasible that academic researchers can be involved in policy making (though with No Child Left Behind, one has to wonder). However the practitioner level of Criminology is what? A prison guard, police officer, parole officer? Do all of these jobs *require* completion of a criminal justice degree?

These questions are maybe not fair; after all, I only have been indoctrinated into criminal justice for 3 days. But while I was a poster session, and evaluating a research poster, suddenly the inherent bias in the research design hit me over the head like I was hit by a 2′x4′. The whole study was designed with the intent to gather information to guide defense attorneys in how to present evidence to avoid a death penalty sentencing. I do not disagree with the bias, but it made me stop and wonder if I looked at education research with an outsider’s eye, how much bias would I find seeping through. How much blatantly technologically deterministic (viewing expanding technology as an inevitability) research would I see? How often would the researcher’s views of the world be glaringly obvious to me as I looked at their research?

In fact, I do not see a huge problem with data, qualitative or quantitative, being used to answer a biased question. But I guess I expect if that is the case a developed and blatant argument for why it has been done this way.

When the poster’s research bias struck me, I ran off to test this on other presentations. Other presentations I looked at did not have such an activist nature to them that grabbed me in the same way.

Does activism belong in research? When one is an activist, do we have a responsibility to explain a deeper philosophical rationale for why we believe as we do? I feel like only qualitative researchers are asked to do this; but positivist researchers have as much, if not more responsibility to do this.

“Habermas suggests that the pressure of thinking and evaluating data quickly has a political import, because it facilitates an experience of politics based on the persona of the actors rather than the ideas that each of them defends” (p. 57 in Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Habermas and Derrida)

Isn’t this exactly the problem with the selection of our president currently. We evaluate how they’re standing, whether they’re sweating, if their smile is crooked, eyes beady. The language that comes out of their mouths exists for only a moment as an idea, or in the presidential debates, it lingers for up to 90 minutes before the mass media spin machine re-packages the message and spurts out the one or two phrases they want the passively imbibing audience to remember.

“For Habermas, mass consumption and its ideology, consumerism, not only silences rational-critical consensus but imposes itself on the most vulnerable participants in the public sphere: those who level of wealth is greater than their level of education.” (p. 58)

I would even disagree with this because I don’t think the “level” of education is the most important. It is whether or not the people being targeted have been given the tools to evaluate the messages critically. And unfortunately, it seems to be that our education system—-particularly today with Channel One and Coke machines in the hallways and using corporate sponsorship to fund public education—more than ever reproduces the the culture of consumerism and leaves our students unable to defend themselves against prepackaged, slick media messages.

But the fact that we are spreading our culture of consumerism and that is our mobilizing force in the global war on terror, is evidenced by the American people being called to action against terrorism on 9/11 by…SPENDING MONEY. This stands in stark contrast to the sacrifices called upon from the American public during World War II where goods were rationed and people were asked to give up their luxuries.

I love this term. It sounds so clinical. No moral responsiblity there. In fact it sounds justified, with the use of the word “collateral: ” a security pledged for the repayment of a loan . In other words, it’s a mechanism of repayment.

Damage, too, is fairly benign. Damage is certainly less extreme than annihilation, murder, or ruin. One definition is: any reduction in the intended use or value of a biological or physical resource. Reduction but not dissolution, for example, is operative here.

But collateral damage is certainly not the sum of its parts: Inadvertent casualties and destruction inflicted on civilians in the course of military operations. A euphemism for our hand in the death of innocent civilians.

As our soliders battled in Samarra and prepare for a bloody battle in Fallujah, the irony and meaninglessness of these battles struck me. American soldiers, who have no emotional investment in the land they are fighting for, will be shooting at, blowing up, destroying, and murdering people to take over some land because we disagree with the people who claim to be the leaders there. We will advocate for a democratic election, so long as the Iraqi people choose someone that we agree would be a worthy leader. And thousands of Iraqi civilians will die in order for us to make them free. But what kind of freedom is this? How can you be “free” if your friends and family are killed? How can you be free if you live in fear that at any time, it all could start up again and you will have to dodge bombs and bullets in going about your everyday life? I would have more sympathy for this military maneuver if US incompetence and arrogance were not the reasons for the strong insurgency in Iraq.

A part of humanity dies when a democracy defies the principles of freedom and democracy and murders innocent people in order to free them.