Overcoming the challenges of researching ‘young offenders’: using assisted questionnaires – a research note

Abstract

This short research note discusses some of the challenges involved when undertaking qualitative research with ‘young offenders’, a neglected area within the methodological literature. By drawing on previous research with ‘young offenders’, the author discusses how the use of traditional face‐to‐face interviews produced a number of research challenges which are specific to the psychosocial, biographical and institutional contexts of this particular population. In attempting to overcome some of these challenges in her current research, the author developed a specific research tool – the assisted questionnaire (AQ) – and the remainder of this article describes how its use with ‘young offenders’ helped to overcome some of the methodological challenges which had earlier been identified.

Keywords:

• young offenders
• qualitative interviewing
• assisted questionnaires

Notes

1. Quotation marks around the term ‘young offenders’ are used throughout this article to acknowledge the problematic nature of this term. However, it was nevertheless felt appropriate to use the term since the article is directly addressing the complexities of researching young people who have experience of offending – an experience which is both the topic of the research interviews and the key contextualising focus of this article.

2. For example, first they are interviewed about their alleged offending, and then, when under YOT supervision, they must attend regular meetings to discuss their alleged rehabilitation.

3. It should perhaps be pointed out at this point that verbatim quotations were handwritten by the researchers during the interviews, with the participants’ consent.

4. Aged 12–17 and, again, recruited through a local YOT.