Institutional Review Boards and Studying Deviance

A Brief History of the IRB

Any institution accepting federal funding for research is required to have an IRB that reviews all potential and ongoing research projects. IRBs are regulated by Title 45 CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) part 46, which executes requirements from the National Research Act of 1974. The Office for Human Research Protections [Page 378]within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services oversees IRBs. An IRB is responsible for protecting the privacy, confidentiality, and rights of human subjects. The emphasis on human subjects' protection can be traced back to 1979 when the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research published The Belmont Report as a response to the abuse of subjects in studies such as the notorious Tuskegee Syphilis Study and the unethical medical experiments conducted by German physicians on concentration camp inmates as disclosed in the Nuremburg Trials following the end of World War II. It defined the obligations of research to include three major elements: (1) respect for persons, (2) beneficence, and (3) justice. The 1981 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects, or Common Rule, defined guidelines for research compliance, informed consent, and IRB committee essentials, in addition to elaborating on the protection of vulnerable groups.

Complications When Studying Deviance

The exploration of marginalized and deviant populations is often better suited to qualitative methods, such as (edge) ethnography, (participant) observation, and in-depth interviews. These methods, when employed appropriately, allow the investigator for achieve a deeper understanding of the topic. At the same time, such designs can raise red flags with a review board, making the approval process more difficult. This is so because interpreting the existing biomedical and behavioral ethical guidelines for deviance research has the potential to create complications in matters including deception, informed consent, safety, the use of vulnerable groups, and scheduling. It has been argued that qualitative methods requiring the researcher to immerse himself or herself in the deviant group under investigation can best be accomplished via covert status or as a potential participant. From this vantage point, the investigator gains access to information within deviant subcultures that is virtually unobtainable without deception. Subjects are less likely to reveal politically incorrect, socially undesirable, or criminal attitudes and behaviors when under overt study.

Deception, while helpful in some instances, nonetheless is complicated by guidelines relating to respect for the individual in obtaining the informed consent of autonomous research participants. The nature of the research must be explained in such a way that potential participants are given critical information and adequate time to understand the ramifications of their participation. Consent must be given freely and voluntarily. When deception is used, members of the IRB may question that the study meets the requirement of respect for persons and tend to deny approval of such protocols, calling on such notorious behavioral studies as Stanley Milgram's study of obedience to authority and Laud Humphrey's “tearoom trade” study as historical references. Simply waiving written informed consent is much easier to arrange if it is the only documentation that will link a subject back to his or her participation in a study. Additionally, some studies may qualify for a Certificate of Confidentiality through the National Institutes of Health or a Privacy Certificate through the National Institute of Justice that protects identifiable subject information from forced disclosure.

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