When it comes to looking at children in the criminal justice system, they could very easily be considered vulnerable, particularly as witnesses. This is most apparent during the process of giving evidence. Lamb (1999) identified factors that can affect the quality and subsequent understanding of a child’s input.
One of the factors stated that children are most likely to be psychologically vulnerable in interviews. This is because interviewers are more prone to using language that a child would find difficult to discern because their speech and language skills aren’t as developed as an adults would be. This leaves the child vulnerable to misunderstanding of the questions and resultant misinformation provided for the professional conducting interview.
It was also identified that the interviewer’s personal characteristics and how they actually deal with the child in question could have an effect on how the child responds to the interviewers enquiries. Cleary, Mechanic and Weiss (1981) indicated in their research that variants in interviewers characteristics such as; attitudes towards the person in question, could have an effect on the responses they receive from them. Despite the fact this research isn’t specific to children in interviews, the underlying point it makes; that there is an effect on responses, does make it justifiably applicable to the subject of vulnerable witnesses in the criminal justice system.
Lamb (1999) also listed suggestibility as a factor, which is supported by Baxter’s research (1990). Baxter found that high suggestibility and a lack of direct questions leads to bias information provided by child witnesses. This has led to the notion that suggestive questioning during interviews with vulnerable witnesses i...
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...sful interviewing process in the criminal justice system.
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References
Bull, R, 2010, The Investigative Interviewing of Children and other Vulnerable witnesses: Psychological Research and Working/Professional Practice, Legal and Criminological Psychology, volume 15 (Pages 5-23)
Cleary P D, Mechanic D and Weiss N, 1981, The Effect of Interviewer Characteristics on Responses to a Mental Health Interview, Journal of Health and Social Behaviour, Volume 22 (pages 183-193)
Newburn, T, 2013, Criminology (Second Edition) Oxfordshire, UK, Page 888
Poole D, Lamb M E, 1998, Investigative Interviews of Children: A Guide for Helping Professionals, Washington US, American Psychological Association (pages 179-80)
Sternberg K J, Lamb M, Davies G, Westcott H, 2001, The Memorandum of Good Practice: Theory versus Application, Child Abuse & Neglect
McCoy, M. L., & Keen, S. M., (2009). Child abuse and neglect. New York: Psychology Press.
This paper will consider eye witness testimony and its place in convicting accused criminals. Psychology online (2013) defines “eye witness testimony” as a statement from a person who has witnessed a crime, and is capable of communicating what they have seen, to a court of law under oath. Eye witness testimonies are used to convict accused criminals due to the first hand nature of the eye witnesses’ observations. There are however many faults within this system of identification. Characteristics of the crime is the first issue that will be discussed in this paper, and the flaws that have been identified. The second issue to be discussed will be the stress impact and the inability to correctly identify the accused in a violent or weapon focused crime. The third issue to be discussed is inter racial identification and the problems faced when this becomes a prominent issue. The fourth issue will be time lapse, meaning, the time between the crime and the eye witness making a statement and how the memory can be misconstrued in this time frame. To follow this will be the issue of how much trust jurors-who have no legal training-put on to the eye witness testimony, which may be faltered. This paper references the works of primarily Wells and Olsen (2003) and Rodin (1987) and Schmechel et al. (2006) it will be argued that eye witness testimony is not always accurate, due to many features; inter racial identification, characteristics of the crime, response latency, and line up procedures therefore this paper will confirm that eyewitness testimonies should not be utilised in the criminal ju...
“With the language in J.D.B. as a guide, there is now an open door that litigators can walk through to make a variety of challenges when a seasoned law enforcement officer questions an immature child” (Tepfer). Even Justice Samuel Alito agreed with the previous statement, adding that in future cases dealing with children the court should consider age and additional characteristics that could affect the person under interrogation. Because there is not a written rule that can be applied to all cases, there have still been many issues dealing with children subjected to police questioning. In the case People v. White, the primary focus was whether the officer should have known that the suspect was at an understanding of the Miranda warnings or if the suspect was in a position to make a self-incriminating
...actice in social work interviewing – keeping the child in mind”. Milton Keynes. The Open University.
This is what sparked the use of anatomical dolls in cases of sexual abuse with children. Multiple interviews with children and other witnesses with disabilities can also result in suggestive testimony. The first interviewer may have communicated suggestions to the child which are then repeated as truth in the subsequent testimony. In the past an investigation of child abuse might have the victim interviewed by a detective, a child protective services caseworker, a physician and a prosecutor. When the research indicated a problem with suggestive interviewing, a concern began to develop that the child was parroting to the later interviewers what they believed the prior interviewers desired to hear. This has led to the development of family advocacy centers where a child is interviewed a single time by a specialist and the information provided to appropriate
Valentine, T., & Maras, K. (2011). The effect of cross-examination on the accuracy of adult eyewitness testimony. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25, 554-561. doi: 10.1002/acp.1768
When children are giving eyewitness testimony’s, the investigators techniques are a little different in terms of the repetition of questions. This is sometimes to get them to remember more information from when they asked it in the first instance. Whilst law enforcement are questioning ch...
Every day a child is called on to testify in a courtroom. Children who have to testify in open court are easily influenced by outside sources. This paper will show the reasons children should not be used as witnesses in a courtroom. I will show all the different influences that a child receives and prove them uncredible. The interview process can influence a child greatly. Ceci and Bruck (1995) found a study that shows that child witnesses may be questioned up to12 times during the course of an investigation. The questioning process can take up to a year and a half to be completed. Children are not capable of remembering exact details for that period. Their answers to questions will change each time he or she is asked. This is because they do not retain information in the same way as an adult. Most studies have shown that children start to lose their ability to recall an event accurately only 10 days after the original event has happened. Another factor in a child’s ability to recall an event is stress. A child can go into a shock stage and repress all memories of what has happened to them. These memories may not resurface for many years. This affects a child’s ability to identify the suspect in photo and live line-ups. The amount of stress a child goes through affects their ability to answer questions in an interview, if they cannot remember what has happened, how are they supposed to answer the myriad of questions the interviewer will ask them.
Working for the Washington, D.C. Public Defender’s Office in the fall of 1995, I witnessed first hand the inadequacies of our legal system with respect to juvenile offenders. I believe that juvenile justice is a worthwhile topic because of its relevance to every member of American society. If we do not help children in trouble today, they will not have the capacity to be functi...
Magnuson, Ed. “Child Abuse: The Ultimate Betrayal.” TIME for Kids. 05 Sep. 1983:7. 6 May 2011. Web.
The younger a child is, the more suggestible that child is. The Volpini study found that the total suggestibility does not differ between gender of the child. A child with an intellectual disability though, could have a higher level of suggestibility than a child without an intellectual disability. It has been found that a child’s cognitive development is not complete until adolescence (Volpini et al, 2016). This is good to keep in mind considering the majority of minor age sexual human trafficking victims are of adolescent age. Children are also more likely to lie to gain a reward or to avoid punishment (Volpini et al, 2016). Interviewers should be cognizant of claims that could possibly be false or of situations where a child may be recanting using different wording than when they alleged abuse. When children recant, their wording may be different from the wording given when they first disclosed alleged abuse (Katz, 2014) which could indicate that the answer the child is giving may not be their
Lyon, T. D., Scurich, N., Choi, K., Handmaker, S., & Blank, R. (2012). "how did you feel?": Increasing child sexual abuse witnesses' production of evaluative information. Law and Human Behavior, 36(5), 448-457.
When considering the idea of trying and sentencing juveniles as adults, it is important to know exactly what these procedures may entail. Amnesty International, a human rights group, found that Juveniles are often subjected to physical and sexual abuses while in detention (World: Americas Amnesty Says US Jails Too Many Children). An environment like this is far too hostile and dangerous for children. Not only does this environment bring on more punishment than needed, it is a major violation of human righ...
Regan, P.C. & Baker, S.J. (1998). The impact of child witness demeanor on perceived credibility and trial outcome in sexual abuse cases. Journal of Family Violence, 13(2), 187-195.
Parental permission has been verbally granted in order to perform this study and in line with the code of ethics and conduct of the British Psychological Society (BPS), with regard to safeguarding the subject in this study will be referred to as Child A. (British Psychological Society, 2009)