Queering our conclusions: Understanding measurement's influence on queer criminological research

Abstract

To effectively understand how people end up in prison, criminologists need to understand who is in prison; especially given the novelty of the concept, queer criminology has yet to standardize a definition of “queer," “LGBT,” etc. In leaving these definitions up to researchers, there is no consensus on how much of the prison population is queer and, consequently, to what degree, if at all, queer individuals are differently represented in the prison system. Based on a review of the literature, and simple quantitative models, this study attempts to understand the definitions and conclusions in existing literature, to standardize how criminologists measure “queer,” and to understand to what extent, if any, this population is differently represented in prison.