Definición y operacionalización de la variable

As the ethnographer becomes more and more assimilated into the setting, research participants will lower their guard and the quality of the data is significantly improved. Van Maanen distinguishes between ‘operational data’ ‘which documents the running stream of spontaneous conversations and activities engaged in and observed by the ethnographer while in the field’167 _{and ‘presentational data’ ‘which concern those}

appearances that informants strive to maintain (or enhance) in the eyes of the fieldworker, outsiders and strangers in general, work colleagues, close and intimate associates, and to varying degrees, themselves’.168 _{Over time, research participants}

tend to feed less ‘presentational data’ to the researcher because a rapport of trust has been established, but the researcher also has more experience to detect ‘presentational data’, being able to confront new data with previously collected information.

In England and Wales, because of the way things were done in the CPS office, I had to move between teams. Thus, I spent a month with charging lawyers in the office, then another month going to court with Associate Prosecutors before spending another four weeks with the magistrates’ court team. Finally, the last month of my fieldwork was divided between the Crown Court team, the Rape and Serious Sexual Assaults

167 _ibid. 168 _ibid.

(RASSO) team and the Crown Advocates team. Some people rotated between several teams and, the office being open plan, people got used to seeing me in the office, even when I was not observing them directly. Nevertheless, it meant that I had to go through the same adaptation period several times during the fieldwork, gaining the trust of new participants each time. I spent half the amount of time in France, but I was based within a small team with only nine procureurs, two trainee magistrats and three clerks. This meant that they quickly got to know me. Furthermore, I was located in the same office throughout the fieldwork, which was the heart of the parquet: all procureurs were in and out of this office throughout the day, reading the daily local newspaper, coming back from court and reporting back to their colleagues who worked over the phone with the police. This particular office was the communication hub of the parquet, as almost all information transited through it. Over time, staff became used to me sitting in this office. So, although I only spent two months observing French prosecutors, rather than the four months during which I observed English prosecutors, the data collected in France was richer and probably of better quality, as I was immersed with the same group for the whole two months.

Direct observation also allows for informal discussions, for example, when I went to court with Associate Prosecutors or when I accompanied a procureur to the juge d’instruction’s chamber or to a meeting. These short, informal discussions often offered useful snippets of information, such as reflections on the job. Participants are often more inclined to answer questions in these situations, as they have a bit of time to dedicate to the researcher. As I became more aware of the way cases were handled, I was also able to increase the relevance of my questions and to have more control over the range of data I collected. Participants started seeing me as a colleague, rather

than an external person, and therefore entrusted me with new information. There were jokes, both in France and in England, about me being able to take calls from the police. Collecting rich and reliable data is not only contingent on increased integration in the field. Open-endedness is one of the characteristics of ethnography and the researcher can find a very important piece of information simply by chance. After three weeks in the field in France, I found out that the parquet had weekly meetings on Mondays. I had always been told that the parquet was a very hierarchical structure and that

procureurs had to follow instructions by the Procureur de la République, head of their local parquet. During the meeting I was very surprised to see how many debates there actually were. It was not a meeting where the Procureur de la République simply went through a list of instructions, which were noted down by lower-ranking staff; there were heated debates, in particular with regards to matters of criminal policy. For example, the head of the parquet said: ‘I’m going to forbid recommendations for prison sentences below six months!169 _{(…) You might not have realised but we have}

a new government who clearly indicated that they didn’t want short prison sentences to be requested.’ She was simply reiterating what the circular of the Minister of Justice had said a few months earlier.170 _{There was, however, a debate between procureurs}

on this issue, with the majority of them clearly disagreeing with the head’s position and making it known. In the end, the Procureur de la République had to retreat: ‘Okay, I don’t care what you say at the hearing (...) I respect the Constitution: as long as your written recommendations comply with this, I don’t mind’.171

169 _{In France, procureurs make recommendations to the court as to which sentence would be most}

appropriate for the defendant.

170 _{Circular of 19 September 2012 on general criminal policy, JUSD1235192C.}

171 _{Here, the Procureur refers to the constitutional principle ‘la plume est serve, mais la parole est}

libre’, which means that procureurs should always respect hierarchical instructions in their written

A high level of acceptance on the part of informants does not always facilitate things for the ethnographer. As they build relationships with research participants and observe events during the fieldwork, there necessarily are situations on which the researcher might have an opinion. In these circumstances, it is difficult to remain neutral. Criminal justice is an area loaded with values and I found it challenging not to express my opinion about issues that were raised over the course of the fieldwork. However, it is essential to avoid expressing a definite point of view, as it might influence future data or even antagonise the participant. I found it particularly difficult not to intervene or comment when my idea of the prosecutor’s role conflicted with theirs. For example, there were a couple of instances in France where I felt the prosecutor did not check allegations of police violence seriously enough. In one particular instance, the police reported on a suspect who they wanted to see charged with obstruction.172 _{The police officer who reported to the procureur was not the}

arresting officer and she explained that the suspect claimed that the police had hit him, adding that the suspect did have ‘kind of a bruise’ on his arm. Immediately, the prosecutor exclaimed: ‘I don’t think your colleagues would have arrested him and that he would have been placed in garde à vue173 _{for nothing! There is a presumption in}

favour of your colleagues that they are not arresting people who don’t do anything.’ He decided to charge the suspect for contempt174 _{and obstruction. In such a situation,}

I felt it would have been counter-productive to try to confront the prosecutor on this

172 _{Obstruction is defined by article 433-6 of the French criminal code as ‘opposing violent resistance}

to a person holding public authority or discharging a public service mission acting in the discharge of his office for the enforcement of laws, orders from a public authority, judicial decisions or warrants.’ It is punished by up to a year of imprisonment and a fine of €15,000 (art. 433-7).

173 _{The garde à vue (GAV) is the period of police detention of suspects in France.}

174 _{Contempt is defined by article 433-5 of the French criminal code as ‘words, gestures or threats,}

written documents or pictures of any type not released to the public, or the sending of any article addressed to a person discharging a public service mission, acting in the discharge or on the occasion of his office, and liable to undermine his dignity or the respect owed to the office that he holds.’ When it is addressed to a person holding public authority (here, police officers), contempt is punishable by up to six months’ imprisonment and a fine of €7,500.

issue and decided to remain in my role as a neutral observer. Instead, I decided to question things indirectly, for example by asking how fundamental principles, such as

procureurs’ duty to protect individual freedoms, in particular the protection of suspects, played out in practice.

Greater integration can also become a threat to the researcher’s objectivity. The term of ‘going native’ ‘implies the loss of all objectivity, complete socialisation or immersion into the culture, and probably abandonment of the [research] project’.175

Although it is of course important to understand the perspectives of participants, it is equally necessary to keep emotional distance and objectivity. The researcher must take care not to devote all their attention to a particular group of participants, for example senior prosecutors at the expense of rank-and-file staff members or vice-versa. Yet, during the fieldwork, the ethnographer will naturally spend more time with some participants and develop stronger relationships with them. Not only does this reduce the number of sources for the data collected by the researcher, but it is also likely to affect the researcher’s perception of other sources. There is a risk of identifying with these participants’ perspectives and, thus, of failing to treat these as problematic. When managing to avoid this danger of over-identification, researchers often experience some degree of discomfort, sometimes even a sense of betrayal towards their research subjects. Having built relationships with them, they find it difficult to criticise their actions. However, the comments made in this thesis should be seen within the whole context of the study, such that no critical remarks are in any way personal, but rather form part of an overview of the activity of the organisations studied. ‘The ethnographer needs to be intellectually poised between familiarity and

strangeness; and in overt participant observation, socially he or she will usually be poised between stranger and friend.’176 _{It is not an easy position to maintain, but it}

prevents a too cosy mental attitude: ‘the point is that one should never surrender oneself entirely to the setting or to the moment’.177 _{The researcher must remain}

constantly aware of the reactive effect of their presence on research participants, but also of the subconscious filtering of data by the researcher themselves. A decrease in the volume of notes taken by the researcher over time is often a telling sign of things becoming ‘normal’ for the researcher and thus not worthy of a mention anymore. To avoid all these pitfalls, constant reflexivity and regular debriefings are essential. In a PhD context, these debriefings were an opportunity for me to report to my supervisor and thus were also a chance to start making sense of the data and to open new avenues of data collection.