Eye Witnesses In Criminal Cases

In criminal cases there are many people, tools, and techniques used to determine who the culprit of the crime actually is. One of most difficult, but useful thing to actually use in criminal cases are eye witnesses. Witnesses are those who were part the crime scene somehow, whether it be just seeing the crime occur or actually experiencing it. One would think that having a witness means that the case is automatically solved because someone was there to identify the criminal and in some cases this is true. However, when a cases actually has an eye witness they have to make sure that the person is telling the truth and is a valid source of information. This is one of major reasons why people think children don’t make proper eye witnesses. They believe that they are not capable of providing such vital information, solely on the fact that they are a child. It is true that maturity does play a vital role when determining if a witness is valid or not , but there have been many studies that have point out how some children can be as

capable of being an eye witness as anyone else.
When determining if the child witness is actually viable we first have too at the age of the individual. Under the law a child is an individual under the age of 18 this means there is a quite a range of ages in which one can be considered still a child. The younger the individual is the more likely they will have trouble recalling certain pieces of information. So ideally the older the individual the better chance they will provided information. This is because a child’s working memory contain much less information than those of an adult, the younger the individual the less information they can reliably retain. However if a child provided with certain cues or information about the actual event they found that they will more likely be remember details of what actually happened (Pipe, 1996). This is one technique that can easily be used to allow a child to testify in a court.
Another important thing to look at is the type of case the child is testifying in and the actual involvement of the child in the case.

The majority of cases that involve children witnesses are cases that are prosecuting domestic or sexual abuse (Thomson, 1991). This means that the child could either be a person who simply witnessed the crime or someone who was affected by it. This is important because in previous studies people have measured the accuracy of children who just witnessed a crime and those who were involved in it and found that children who had some involvement in it provided more accurate statements (The citation that can be found on your MAC). This is because the child feels some sort of attachment to the case and what actually occurs the culprit of the crime. So when determining whether a child is capable of testifying in a case, looking at the case in whole can let you know if the child qualified to provide a

testimony.
Another thing that can influence the child’s ability to accurate provide information is the way the interviewers questions the individual. In certain studies it was found that the interviewer has an effect on whether the child provides false or accurate information. If the interviewer questions the child using open ended questions then the child will be able to freely speak and provide more information on the case accurately (Howie, 2004). On the other hand if the interviewer askes yes or no questions ,then the child will most likely provide false information and conflict with previous statements. The tone of the interview also chances whether the child tells accurate information or not. If the interviewer has angry or accusatory tone then the child will more likely change their response. This idea is basically influenced by compliance and suggestibility. Compliance in this case is the idea that the child will give answers that they think the interviewer wants to hear and suggestibility refers to how the child’s memory can be altered because of the stress of the interview (Gufjonsson, 2003). The interview has a lot say on whether they get accurate information or not, and when trying to get information from children interviewers should keep this idea in consideration.
In every court case witness are question on whether or not they can provide accurate information of the case at hand, this is especially true for children witnesses. Many people believe that children are incapable of providing accurate testimonies, however this is wrong. There are certain techniques such as providing memory cues or proper questioning that will aid the child in remembering. These aids help children recover accurate information about the case and show us that they can recall information just as well as some adults.