Ethics: Muslim Prisoners

Life in prison can be a difficult experience to properly comprehend as an individual who has never been behind bars or somebody who has not been subjected under criminal law and incarcerated. Researcher Muzammil Quraishi, a British Muslim has undergone a year of research from July 2001 to July 2002 investigating Muslim prisoners in the United Kingdom. Muzammil goes through numerous challenged in his year worth of research investigating a sum of three anonymous prisons. Doing such Muzammil had gone through numerous obstacles, generic research validity, to the side effects of the field research. This paper will separate three columns of obstacles Muzammil had to go through, Technical issues, which would outline the challenges, he as a researched had to adapt to due to the setting he was investigating. The second is Political issues, which mostly stem from outside interferences; most notable would be the incident on September 11, 2001. Finally, the third is administration issues, which has the spotlight on regulations Muzammil had to abide by to get on with his research in a legitimate manner.

When conducting research, consistency is an essential part when matching several sheets of data, for the sole purpose of comparing the data sets; however the issue Muzammil clambers into is a variety of methods that must be employed. This slightly falls into administration; however, it is also a technical issue, an issue he addresses. Muzammil describes that each prison is "different not only due to geography, history and population but also in terms of its legal functioning and corresponding security classification within the prison estate (Quraishi 455)." An example of some of the issues he talks about is how some prisons allow tape recorder...

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...s apparently never informed of Muzamill's arrival (455, 456). Not only was it a nuisance for the researcher but upon seeing Muzamill being escorted by a Chaplain the respondents can potentially have a swayed view of Muzamill, something it seems he desperately tries to avoid. This is suggested because he refuses to partake in any leadership roles such as an Imam(456).

It is clear that Muzamill had many obstacles in his research, variety of techniques that were employed, confidentially, validity, Hawthorne effect, consent, anonymity, and misplaced scrutiny by officials, and administrative barriers that made it extremely difficult. As a critique, I fundamentally believe Muzamill handled himself exceptionally when faced with all these dilemmas's taking into account of how it affects everyone and making a good balance ethics and truthfulness to support his research.