Child Sexual Abuse and the Psychologists View

¶ … child sexual abuse and the psychologists view on how to achieve the truth from new methods rather than seeking results from tainted evidence. The article used was from the article "Getting to the truth in Child Abuse Cases: New Methods."

"Getting to the Truth in Child Abuse Cases: New Methods."

On What points do psychologists agree concerning children's reports on sexual abuse? On what points are there still debate?

Psychologists look at several views when a child reports sexual abuse to the authorities, how the report was made and arose, was this report taken through prior questioning or suggestions such as leading questions to the child and his or her family.

Moreover it has been seen that man researchers through over five hundred studies that have been conducted on a children's system of accepting statements and the extremis of how those suggestions go by form of mental implantation by interviewers as they can influence many of the recollections the child or children may have and therefore taint any information gleaned.

However there still remains the debate that argues that the accuracy of many of the children's stories and their resistance to how much information they actually release about their abuse is sometimes disjointed, many researchers agree on how the children should be interviewed to avoid this form of taint in evidence, for it was clearly seen that if a child is pushed and prodded in the wrong way he or she may give the wrong evidence just to either please the inquisitors or to stop them from he or she sees as bullying them.

Question 2.

Give an example of a leading question. Rephrase the question to fit with the guidelines set by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP).

An example of a leading question would be "Your teacher touched you on the chest didn't she?" Or to give a suggestive question " Did your teacher touch your chest?" these are leading and suggestive questions to rephrase these questions to fit in with the AACAP guidelines would make the question like this "has an adult at school ever touched you anywhere on your body?" By forming this type of question you are removing the suggestion of the teacher and therefore there is less influence upon the information gleaned.

Question 3.

Why might the AACAP argue against repeated questioning of child witnesses? What aspect of human memory makes this practice dangerous?

The AACAP might possibly argue that excessive and repeated questioning of child witnesses due to the amount of interviews and repetitious questioning couple with the many questions that could be classed as leading as they believe that a memory is not filled with imaginative acts and there may be severe tainting of evidence due to a confusion of memories.

Question 4.

What AACAP guidelines did Washington police violate in the 1994 Wenactchee sex ring case? Why do we suspect this technique to bias children's testimony more than adult's?

Within the Washington branch of the civil liberties Union they had complained that the Washington Police department in the 1994 Wenatchee sex ring case (Washington State) apparently during the investigation they violated basic rules as laid down by the AACAP, these were threatening the children with punishment if they did not tell the "truth," long periods of interviews and interrogations if the children did not say what the investigating officers wanted to hear about their sexual abuse.

These forms of questionings go against the AACAP as they state that Children should be interviewed in simple open ended ways to allow for a total recall of the events as opposed to replying to specific forms of questions, AACAP also state that interviews should be unbiased, the Washington State police were not unbiased in their questioning.

Question 5.

Geci's research shows that children's memory can be inaccurate; Goodman's shows that children's memory can be quite accurate. What conclusions would you draw given that research supports both positions? How suspicious of a child's testimony would you be if you had to serve on a jury of such a case?

Although both forms of research supports all positions of psychological profiling for investigating child sexual abuse and interviewing the children concerned, moreover with these forms of research they still tackle the question of abuse to the children head on even though the guidelines from the AACAP issue warnings against this form of questioning.

However, by breaking each style of research into its basest form we can argue that both are seeking to bring forth memories from the child when there may be no memories there both must proceed with caution when using these tactics especially around certain age groups for instance those under the age of ten.