CHAPTER 6

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

6.1 :
The aim of the study was to complete dissertation on perception of highly enlightened
members of society from different disciplines, to collect their opinions on important
components of Restorative Justice. The present chapter describes in details of methodology
used to conduct the research, which started with identification of problem, formulation of
hypothesis, research methods, sampling, tools employed, procedure for collection of data.

:
After going through extensive literature on criminal justice administration, in our country and
across the globe, thereafter studying many books, articles and reports on Restorative Justice.
And criminal justice administration, Many problems existing in present justice system is
identified. The research primarily focus on problems like long period of criminal trial, non-
involvement of victim and offender in decision of their cases, trial more oriented to find the
fact and not the truth, overcrowding of prison becoming major problem for criminal justice
system, non-fulfillment of major goal of criminal justice system that is reform of society on
the whole.

After identifying the problems. Hypothesis was formulated to test whether Restorative Justice
is an alternative system to criminal justice administration, whether incorporation of
Restorative Justice in criminal justice system can be beneficial to Victim, offender, and the
society. Following Hypothesis were tested:

H1: Community would endorse Positively counseling and negotiation as important

component in the justice delivery system.

H2: Community would Positively perceive role of civil society, family, in the process of
justice delivery.

H3: Community members from different groups would not differ significantly in their

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opinions /perception regarding inclusion of key components of Restorative Justice ie.
Negotiation, counseling, realization, involvement of family members and, role of civil society
, welfare of victim offender and society.

H4: Different groups would not possess same degree of perception towards ideas fitting into
the features of Restorative Justice.

The research mainly is qualitative in nature to find out the acceptance of alternative ways to
respond criminal cases. Research is diagnostic (empirical).where questioner is filled by
people from different backgrounds, respondents were selected from medical, legal, post
graduate, researcher, and miscellaneous346 backgrounds.

Empirical work has been completed in two Parts. Part I was survey questionnaire, prepared
after extensive review of literature, 21 conceptual questions addressing salient feature of
Restorative Justice has been formulated. This is an on-line questionnaire using foureye.com,
after formulating questionnaire it was circulated among 200 legal professionals via e-mail,
and -app, all the respondents belongs to legal background including legal Practitioner

The Part two had focus on capturing the perceptions of Non-Legal professionals, and Legal
Professionals , the Non Legal Professionals included medical professionals, engineering,
humanities, who represents highly enlightened section of society, so their perception,
opinions matters phenomenally, in any society and country.

Methodology of generating empirical data follows extensive review of literature, for the
purpose of getting the salient features, of Restorative Justice. With discussion and
consultation, only five types of criminal cases were selected. The details of the cases are at
Annexure1.

This questionnaire gives legal situation to the respondents, and test applicability of salient
features of Restorative Justice, by suggesting various alternatives, re

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Miscellaneous: Included Engineers,Officials,Professionals.

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alternative of existing procedure of each type of criminal case is also recorded. The reason for
restricting only to five type of case is the time that each case demands from the respondents,
who is supposed to read each case and existing procedure of justice delivery. Which, is
followed, by gain and loss of victim and offender, families of both and community at large?

Part I of survey and Part II of survey have significant co-relation. Part I purely tests
acceptability of the cardinal principles, and salient features of Restorative Justice. However
Part II is problem based testing of acceptability of principle of Restorative Justice.

While analysing the results of both the surveys, it can be significantly observed that most of
the cardinal principles of Restorative Justice, are accepted by most of the people. However,
when situation is specifically given and thereby principles are asked, a different trend can be
seen.

:
After extensive review of literature, Present questionnaires347 were developed.

PartI was survey questionnaire, prepared after extensive review of literature, 21 conceptual
questions addressing salient feature of Restorative Justice has been formulated. This is an on-
line questionnaire using foureye.com, after formulating questionnaire it was circulated among
200 legal professionals via e-mail, and -app, all the respondents belongs to legal
background including legal Practitioner and legal researchers. All the questions are followed
by two
respondents.

Part II questionnaire contains five cases depicting different types of criminal cases. Against
each criminal case existing criminal procedure was written. Under the existing criminal
procedure how and in what way offender, victim and family members are affected, was
documented against each. Keeping the perspective of how offender, victim and family are
affected and what could be alternatives for better justice delivery system, structured questions
in unequal number against five cases were formulated. Thereafter opinion of respondent was
obtained on alternatives which can be adopted in justice delivery system. The scale used is
normative in which the answers were sought in form of yes and no. The details of description
of research tool are as follow:

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Annexed on page

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 :

PART I of the questionnaire contains 21 questions featuring salient, features of

Restorative Justice.

Q1. Are you aware of the term Restorative Justice?

Q2. Is Indian Criminal Justice Procedure too long to provide justice in time?
Q3. Do you believe Victim shall be made part of deciding the punishments for accused?
Q4. Do you believe many cases in court are false at the time of FIR, and they take long time
and resource of court system?
Q5. Are you aware of the term Alternative Punishments?
Q6. Do you believe Indian judicial system has seriously taken the concept of Plea
Bargaining?
Q7. Do you believe a lot of under-trails, in India are behind prison because of faulty criminal
justice administration?
Q8. Do you believe, purpose of criminal law is to punish crime and not criminal.
Q9. Thus it high-time, that alternative to imprisonment in punishments shall be introduced.
Q10. Are you aware of term victim offender mediation?
Q11. Are you aware of the term family group conferencing?
Q12. Are you aware of concept of Remorse Letters by accused to victims?
Q13 Do you believe there can be expansion of compensatory jurisprudence in criminal law
also?
Q14. Have you ever heard of community service as punishment?
Q15. Have you heard term community justice?
Q16. Do you believe pre-litigation mediation shall expand its jurisdiction in Criminal Cases?
Q17. Do you believe rehabilitative punishments shall be expanded in Indian criminal justice
system?
Q18. Do you believe retributive punishment can also be considered as Restorative Justice?
Q19. Do you believe Indian Criminal Justice system shall be changed from fact finding
inquiry to truth finding enquiry?
Q20. Do you believe purpose of criminal law, is to provide what is beneficial for victim?
Q21. Do you believe Indian criminal justice system shall not remain purely adversarial, and
shall also have ingredient of inquisitorial?

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PART II Questionnaire contains four components:

1. Case- Real life cases, where identity of victim and offender is not disclosed.

2. Existing criminal law provision in response to it.

3. Parties Effected-Victim, offender, society

4. Statements to get opinion of respondent in form of (yes) and (no).

The questionnaire consists of five cases, describing real life cases, based on the case response
by criminal justice system is given, thereafter certain response are proposed, which the
respondents have to respond in yes or no. The descriptions of cases are given below.

CASE-1:

Juvenile offender

Anuj of 16 years, had rivalry with Ramu of same age. One day they had heated
conversation, which resulted in fight, Anuj hitted Ramu very hardly on head, which led to
death. Anuj never intended to kill Ramu .After incident Anuj burst into tear for his act,
and went in depression.

13 Questions Depicting Different Alternatives Were Developed In This Case Which

Respondents Had To Answer After Carefully Reading The Case

CASE-2:

A Works in a jewelers shop, A is a poor fellow with lots of responsibility in home, A thought
to take pair of earnings from shop with intention that he would pay shopkeeper on installment
basis, A is caught. Shopkeeper unexpected declared him thief and called the police.

9 statements are to be answered by respondents.

CASE-3:

A boy of 16 years was married to B girl of 12 years, A never wanted to marry at that time
and feels the marriage as burden. A decides to go to Delhi for higher studies. He conceals the
fact that he is married from every one. There he meets C girl as classmate, A and C starts
liking each other, A considering this goes to his house and makes a clear opposition of his

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marriage with B, on bad response of family A decides to marry C concealing the fact that he
was married. A and C marry in Court . B family after knowing fact brings case of bigamy
against A.

8 Statements Are To Be Answered By Respondents

CASE-4:

Arun and Naina maternal cousins belonging to same gotra marry, which is considered to be
crime in their culture. father vijay becomes furious and kills Arun and Naina.
Popularly known as Honour Killing.

10 Statements to be Answered by Respondents

CASE-5:

Anita is co worker with Binod (boss) , They are into intemate relationship which is known
to whole office. Most of the time they accompany each other, in official tours . Anita is not
satisfied with her professional progress, for which she ask Binod to do something, binod
promises to try his level best, Anita to get quicker result try to come more close to Binod,
which Binod entertains. On non-fulfillment ,of promise of one day she files case of rape
against Binod.

4 Statements Are To Be Answered By Respondents

In total 44 statements are to be answered by the respondents.

After intensive review of literature on Restorative Justice this questionnaire was developed.

PRE- :

Prior to finalizing questionnaire, it was given to five people of different categories. On their
response many of the questions were eliminated considering them to be difficult for general
people, thereafter questionnaire was finalized.

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PARTI-Data is collected, 21 conceptual questions addressing salient feature of Restorative
Justice has been formulated. This is an on-line questionnaire using foureye.com, after
formulating questionnaire it was circulated among 200 legal professionals via e-mail, and
-app, all the respondents belongs to legal background including legal Practitioner and
legal researchers. All the questions are followed by two responses categorized

PARTII-Data is collected by respondents belonging to following categories: Legal ,and other

highly educated professionals, Miscellaneous.

PART I- It took on average 5 minutes to fill the online questionnaire , the data was collected
over the time of 30 days, from 148 respondents belonging to legal field.

PART II- It took on an average 30 minutes to fill the questionnaire. I was able to collect
information from 70 respondents in different categories .In time of 50 days. After completion
of data collection, data is interpreted which is dealt in next chapter.

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