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26 J. Res. Crime & Delinquency 3 (1989)

handle is hein.journals/jrcd26 and id is 1 raw text is: EDITOR'S COMMENTS The first two articles in this edition of the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency are in sharp contrast to those most often published here. Neither depends on the type of statistical analysis that most often characterizes articles appearing in the journal. It is a deviation that we hope will occur more often. We welcome the opportunity to publish studies that employ techniques, such as these qualitative approaches, that are appropriate to the questions that given writers seek to address. The first of these articles by Lynch et al., involves a cross-cultural study focused on the tragic events in 1984 at Bhopal, India, where a chemical gas leak resulted in 2,500 deaths and tens of thousands of injuries. This research examines how that tragedy was perceived among various groups in India, in the United States, and between the two nations. Its underlying aim was to learn more about how an event that may be described as a crime can be measured. For a number of years, a widely used device for scaling perception of crimes' seriousness across cultures, as well as within cultures, was a simple rating scale that expressed the relative seriousness of a given crime as compared to others (e.g., rape vs. murder vs. theft). Critics have argued that such scales oversimplify cultural perceptions and do not measure the variety of behavior that might be called criminal in various societies. Imposed surface uniformities hid important differences was the assertion. To engage these issues, Lynch and his colleagues employ a method of content analysis of various newspapers and journals in India and the United States to discover the extent to which accounts conflict or agree in their interpretation of events at Bhopal in each of the countries, as well as across the two cultures. The authors argue that the results of the research have implications for criminology in general and specific implications for those who would seek to measure crime seriousness across cultures. What is most interesting about the article, beyond the substantive issues raised, is the innovative way in which the methodology was employed. It is a fine example of the creative imagination that is needed to address issues for which the more conventional statistical analyses are difficult to employ effectively. 3 from the SAGE Social Science Collections. All Rights Reserved.

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