Skip to start of content

Restorative justice

SAJJ technical report no. 2 : Research instruments in year 2 (1999) and background notes

Kathleen Daly (Project Director)
April 2001

Abstract

This technical report describes the instruments and methods used in Year 2 of the South Australia Juvenile Justice (SAJJ) Research on Conferencing Project. This report should be read in conjunction with SAJJ Technical report no. 1, which overviews the legal and organisational context of conferencing in South Australia, theoretical aims, sampling plan, and early results from the SAJJ project. Report no. 1 shows the 6 instruments used in Year 1 (March-July 1998), providing background material and notes on how each instrument was designed, the source and rationale of question items, and what problems (if any) emerged in using each instrument.

Part I of SAJJ technical report no. 2 describes features of the SAJJ sample of conferences and the people interviewed, updating and amending preliminary material that had been presented in Report no. 1, and it depicts changes that have occurred in the role of the South Australian police in the conference process. Sections in Part I describe:

Part II describes the 6 instruments used in Year 2 (March-July 1999), providing material on the source and rationale of question items. The instruments, which are shown in Appendices 1-6, are:

The aim in assembling this document is to describe the SAJJ project and to assist others who plan to conduct research on conferencing and restorative justice processes more generally. As Project Director, I was ultimately responsible for the content of the research instruments and conduct of the research. Among other responsibilities that come with directing a project, I was an active researcher, involved directly in the day-to-day work of interviewing victims and offenders. However, the research could not have gone forward and with its high degree of quality without the commitment and intelligence of members of the SAJJ research group.

Two research assistants - Michele Venables and Liz Mumford - who worked for the SAJJ project in 1998, returned in 1999 to work on it. A new research assistant, Rachel Mann, began working on the project in December 1998 and January 1999 in Brisbane, and was part of the interview team in Adelaide during March - July 1999. Venables acted as project manager, and all the researchers played key roles in establishing office procedures, preparing items for and revising the research instruments, and conducting the interviews during the1999 research period.

When citing this report, please use:

Daly, Kathleen (2001) South Australia Juvenile Justice (SAJJ) Research on Conferencing, Technical Report No. 2: Research Instruments in Year 2 (1999) and Background Notes. School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland.

Table of contents

Part I: SAJJ project, year 2 (1999)

  1. Context of the field work
  2. Sample of conferences observed
  3. Sample of the young people (offenders) and victims interviewed
  4. Interviews in 1998 and 1999: response rates, length, and elapsed time between conference and interviews
  5. Changes during 1999 and 2000
  6. Advice and assistance from others

Part II: Research instruments in 1999

  1. Young Person (YP) interview
  2. Victim interview
    • Box 1: Replacement questions in victim interview
    • Box 2: Instructions for organisational, personal-organisational-occupational victim interviews
  3. Victim "No Show" interview
  4. Other design considerations in the YP and victim interviews
  5. Police (PYO) and coordinator (YJC) end of research period interview
  6. Youth Court judge and magistrate end of research period interview

Appendices