The Theory and Methodology of Big Data: A Criminological-Epistemological Perspective

Digital technologies have changed the ways of searching and producing information. An urgent question today is the ability of social, socio-legal sciences to provide an adequate reaction to the digitization of society, technological changes and the spread of information-telecommunication technologies, virtual environment, big data. It also concerns the practical value and the possibilities of developing instruments for using big data in socio-humanitarian research. The problem of big data epistemology contributes to the emergence of an enormous stream of structured and unstructured data, actively used in scientific research, in predictive analytics. It is the problem of understanding the nature of modern knowledge. Big data is not a completely new research parameter for criminological cognition and its applications. There are mechanisms, used in law enforcement but not universally widespread, of applying big data to measuring and establishing correlations between various factors relevant for counteracting unlawful behavior and developing predictive solutions. Within the framework of the current research, the author examines the methodological aspect of the problem of using big data from the standpoint of possibility, expediency and reliability. It is a problem of “methodological purity” and scientific integrity of their interpretation for the purpose of developing scientifically grounded solutions. Machine learning as a variety of intellectual analysis of big data is a powerful and effective instrument of research analysis requiring a constant improvement of the used algorithms. The philosophical interpretation of the problems of using big data consists in forming a post-classical epistemological paradigm with the central idea of causal relationships as a necessary element of any research project. Information costs, technical difficulties of data structuring and integration, the prospects and trends of monetizing big data, the difficulties of creating data storages and selecting the storage format are inalienable companions of the technology of using data mining in social and criminological studies. The transformation of the whole system of analytical and predictive work in the sphere of crime counteraction, as well as the psychological adjustment of researchers and law enforcement employees themselves is a strategically paramount task in the development of criminology.