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Article History

Accepted: 16 February 2024

First Online: 4 March 2024

Declarations

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: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

: Given the sensitive nature of the research topic and the presence of criminal offenders within the community under study, traditional written informed consent was neither appropriate nor feasible. Instead, all participants were orally informed about the purpose, methodology, potential risks, and benefits of the research. They were assured of their right to withdraw at any time and given the opportunity to ask questions. Every participant verbally agreed to take part in the study. This chosen approach was guided by the principles of ensuring the participants’ safety and confidentiality and was conducted in line with the ethical guidelines of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and the German Anthropological Association (GAA). The collected data was coded and pseudonymized in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to safeguard individual identities (). Pseudonymization involves replacing identifiable information with unique codes, thereby maintaining the necessary context for analysis while ensuring privacy.