Ethics, what are they? Ethics refers to the behavior of conforming to the norms or standards of a group. Why is ethics important in criminological research? The reason is that researchers follow ethical procedures to prevent physical or psychological harm occurring to the interviewee or even to the researchers themselves. Maxfield and Babbie (2015) state that ethical issues in criminal justice are particularly challenging because the nature in which they are studied often examines illegal behaviors that individuals tend to keep private. Therefore, research if not conducted in accordance with ethical guidelines will result in harm to individuals, communities and the environment. Furthermore, the three most important ethical issues explored in this work include voluntary participation, anonymity, and deception. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The first ethical principle to discuss is voluntary participation, as Israel and Hay (2006) point out, interviewees should have the legal capacity to give permission, they should be able to exercise the power of free choice without the intervention of elements of force, fraud, deception, violence or other forms of coercion. Simply put, no one should be forced to participate, participants should be informed with a set of information that includes the purpose of the study, what they expect to find from the study and any issues they should be aware of. After being informed, participation in the study must be voluntary and subjects have the right to discontinue the study at any time without being penalized for withdrawing or refusing to participate. However, researchers conduct studies without voluntary participation, for example when examining the activities of burglars, sexual victimization, and even the discriminatory functioning of criminal justice officers. Some believe that this method of research must be conducted to truly discover reliable answers as behavior is observed in its natural form. The study conducted by Laud Humphrey (1970) “Tearoom Trade” is an example of covert observation. Secret observation raised serious ethical issues, particularly studies such as Laud Humphrey which are still debated to this day. Covert observation violates all the principles of voluntary participation, subjects are able to make a decision whether they wish to participate or refuse participation, while covert observation takes away this power of freedom and puts this choice under the control of the researcher without the subject's knowledge, which is unfair and unethical, voluntary participation is an important issue regarding criminology research as it prevents harm, psychological and in some cases even physical, both of which could affect subjects and researchers. Moving on to the next ethical issue regarding research participants is anonymity, in criminological research anonymity is when a subject's identity is protected, neither the researcher nor readers of the results can identify the response given to the subject, an example of the research methods in which criminologists use anonymity are postal surveys as there is no identification number, names etc., they are to submit the questionnaire before it returns to the hands of the researchers. Confidentiality and anonymity are different things, in criminological research confidentiality is when a subject's identity is protected, but their difference from anonymity is that the researcher will be able to identify the answer given to the subject as he or she gave the answer. Anonymity can pay.