ABSTRACT
Research design was created to allow an in-depth and systematic study of violent-crime victims. This chapter signifies the particular objectives being sought by adopting compensation plans. Among those various objectives, most existing compensation programs emphasize the following: restoration seeks to restore crime victims to a status similar to that existing before the victimization, crime prevention seeks to control crime, and social stability depends on compensation's impact on public attitudes. The chapter describes how and where the research data were collected, what criteria were used for sampling and study location, and the characteristics of the interviews and questionnaires used to collect information for the project. The questionnaires were carefully designed to elicit certain kinds of information from crime victims. The study and questions were structured to evaluate victim-compensation's success in achieving its objectives, as well as to assess its overall impact on crime victims, the criminal-justice process, and government generally.
