Memory Accuracy After 20 Years for Interviews About Child Maltreatment

When adults allege childhood victimization, their long-term memory comes under scrutiny. This scrutiny can extend to the adults’ memory of childhood interviews. The concerns raise important theoretical and applied issues regarding memory for long-past discussions of child maltreatment and trauma. In this longitudinal study, 104 adults, who as children (ages 3–15 years) were interviewed in child maltreatment investigations (Time 1), were questioned 20 years later (Time 2) about the Time 1 interviews. Verbatim documentation from Time 1 permitted scoring of memory accuracy. A subset of the participants (36%) reported no memory for the Time 1 interviews. Of the 64% who remembered being interviewed at Time 1, those who had been adolescents at Time 1 remembered the forensic interview discussion about abuse incidents better than discussion about general psychological issues. Adult trauma symptoms were associated with more accurate memory for interview content that directly concerned abuse experiences but not for non–abuse-specific information. Findings indicate that the veracity of adults’ long-term memory for clinical/forensic conversations about childhood maltreatment depends on age at interview, interview content, and traumatization factors. Implications are discussed.

Ground Rules in Forensic Interviews: Should We Make Practice More Applied?

<p>Introducing ground rules is recommended in many forensic interview best-practice protocols, but children do not always use them when they should. There is not yet a consensus in the literature on the best way to teach the rules, and many of the practice methods researched are not feasible for practitioners. Additionally, increased intensity of practice can lead to adverse effects on other aspects of child testimony too. We draw on cognitive learning literature to understand how to better facilitate ground rule use amongst children in forensic interviews. Ninety-three children between the ages of 5-12 from Greater Wellington region, New Zealand, participated in a staged event at their school and were interviewed using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Protocol (Lamb et al., 2018) 2-3 weeks later. At the interview, children practised the ground rules ‘I don’t know’ (IDK), ‘I don’t understand’ (IDU) and ‘Correct me’ (CM) in one of four ways which varied by the degree of match between the practice and interview context. Children were asked difficult questions designed to elicit the rules throughout the interview, and coding children’s accuracy of reporting also examined the broader effects of practice method and rule use. No significant effects were found between the practice method and responses to difficult questions for the IDK and CM rules. The Control condition, which received no ground rules instruction or practice, was significantly different to the other practice conditions for the IDU rule. In addition to this, there was no significant effect of practice method or competency at using ground rules on children’s general accuracy about the event. Several possible explanations for this pattern of results are explored in the discussion section.</p>

Ground Rules in Forensic Interviews: Should We Make Practice More Applied?

<p>Introducing ground rules is recommended in many forensic interview best-practice protocols, but children do not always use them when they should. There is not yet a consensus in the literature on the best way to teach the rules, and many of the practice methods researched are not feasible for practitioners. Additionally, increased intensity of practice can lead to adverse effects on other aspects of child testimony too. We draw on cognitive learning literature to understand how to better facilitate ground rule use amongst children in forensic interviews. Ninety-three children between the ages of 5-12 from Greater Wellington region, New Zealand, participated in a staged event at their school and were interviewed using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Protocol (Lamb et al., 2018) 2-3 weeks later. At the interview, children practised the ground rules ‘I don’t know’ (IDK), ‘I don’t understand’ (IDU) and ‘Correct me’ (CM) in one of four ways which varied by the degree of match between the practice and interview context. Children were asked difficult questions designed to elicit the rules throughout the interview, and coding children’s accuracy of reporting also examined the broader effects of practice method and rule use. No significant effects were found between the practice method and responses to difficult questions for the IDK and CM rules. The Control condition, which received no ground rules instruction or practice, was significantly different to the other practice conditions for the IDU rule. In addition to this, there was no significant effect of practice method or competency at using ground rules on children’s general accuracy about the event. Several possible explanations for this pattern of results are explored in the discussion section.</p>

Statutory Rape: Case Characteristics When Offenders are Younger Than 21 Years of Age Versus Older

Statutory rape laws are intended to protect adolescents from harm as a result of sexual activity with older individuals. In this pursuit, many, but far from all, states’ statutory rape laws differentiate younger and older offenders. In effect, many of these states differentiate offenders who are 21 and older from those who are under 21. It is unknown, however, whether and how the dynamics of statutory rape vary depending on the age of the offender. To explore the contribution of offender age to the dynamics of statutory rape, data were collected from the records of 105 statutory rape cases referred to a child abuse assessment center over a 63-month period. Records included detailed reports on case history and victims’ family history, mental health and health-risking behaviors, medical examination results, and forensic interview summaries. Cases of offenders 1 1. Because these cases are under investigation, “offenders” here refers to “suspects.” For ease of reading, we use “offenders” to be consistent with prior research terminology. under 21 were compared to the cases of offenders 21 years and older. Compared to cases of younger offenders, cases of offenders 21 years and older more often involved slightly older adolescent victims. Independent of age, victims with offenders 21 and over compared with offenders under 21 were over six times as likely to have a prior history of a high, versus low, number of psychosocial problems and were seven times more likely to experience multiple forms of coercion versus no coercion by the offender. Findings suggest that statutory rape prevention, policy and response strategies should consider the critical ways that case characteristics and victims differ according to this key offender attribute.

Forensic Interview of Sexually Abused Children: The Case of Three Selected Child Protection and Investigation Units in Addis Ababa

This study examines the application of forensic interview methods used in police investigations to gather evidence from sexually abused children. The investigating police officers need a range of skills related to interviewing victims, helpful in the course of detecting suspects. An effective interview is therefore a milestone to the investigating officers, plan a new way of eliciting relevant information from additional sources. Typically, interviewing requires the police to attempt to identify the type of sex crime considering the phases of pre, present, and post crime acts. The study used a qualitative method to explore the opinions of informants in depth. Seventeen participants were drawn from seven investigating police officers, three public prosecutors, three social workers, and four administrators selected using a purposive sampling technique. Data pertinent to the study were gathered using unstructured and key-informant interview techniques. Besides, observation and document reviews were employed to complement the data solicited from both sources. Thematic analysis was applied to give a thick description of data opinionated by informants. The study shows that investigating police officers are poorly acquainted with the interview techniques established by the Federal Supreme Court Interview Techniques Guideline. The guideline explicitly advocates the police officers' use of free narrative open-ended questions implying ample room to the child to describe the situation of the abuse in his/her own words. The study conveys the message that the police officers should take a series of training on forensic interviews and design the landscape where regular feedback, supervision, and stress management mechanisms will regularly be exchanged.

Sexual Abuse Disclosure Mediates the Effect of an Abuse Prevention Program on Substantiation

Although abuse prevention programs have proliferated, little research has explored the direct effects of such programs on actual child sexual abuse disclosure rates, and no research has explored the effects of such programs on child sexual abuse substantiation. Employing a quasi-experimental design, the present research reflects an exploration of the effects of exposure to the Think First and Stay Safe™ abuse prevention program on abuse disclosure rates of 319 children who underwent a child forensic interview within 2015–2018 in a Midwestern child advocacy center. Supporting our mediational hypotheses, children exposed (vs. not exposed) to the Think First and Stay Safe™ program were significantly more likely to disclose abuse during the forensic interview, which in turn predicted significantly increased abuse substantiation likelihood.