Prompted by the oft-cited daycare abuse cases of the 1980s, child advocates voiced concern about investigative practices with children. In the wake of these cases, participants in the legal system were made to address inappropriate interviewing techniques common with child victims, and social scientists began to examine the range of suggestive influences that might affect children's disclosures. Over the past 25 years, researchers and practitioners have produced an impressive body of work addressing critical issues that arise when children enter the justice system as victims, witnesses, or offenders. Child forensic interviewing has evolved from a piecemeal enterprise to a remarkable clinical consensus about a range of interviewing techniques and procedural reforms. Still, answers to questions about children's varied developmental capabilities, memories, disclosure of abuse, suggestibility, and culpability are fraught with controversy.
Children as Victims, Witnesses, and Offenders offers a balanced, up-to-date review and critique of issues imperative to children's involvement in the legal system. The editors have brought together a renowned group of legal and social science scholars to address questions central in contemporary debates: When, and under what conditions, can researchers and practitioners believe children? What are children's competencies or vulnerabilities as victims, witnesses, and offenders? How are children treated within a legal context, and what accommodations are necessary? For example, when should children be protected from undue stress and harm (e.g., videotaped testimony and closed-circuit television in the courtroom) or treated as adults (e.g., traditional police interrogation techniques and the waiver of youth to adult court)? While much has been published on child abuse victims and juvenile offenders in the past two decades, the two have rarely been taken up together in this way. Equally, scholars often treat legal agencies, practices, and processes as discrete entities. The main strength of the book is its holistic approach to children and youth that present with a range of capabilities, at various points, and to a variety of agencies (often multiple) within the justice system.
Beginning with an introduction through legal cases, this comprehensive volume is organized into two parts. The first part addresses issues that arise when children enter the legal system as victims or witnesses. Pertinent themes include disclosure, denial, and recantation of abuse; children's memory and suggestibility, especially with regard to the child forensic investigative interview; children in court and the effects of legal involvement on victims; expert testimony and jurors' perceptions of child victims and witnesses; and international perspectives on child witnesses. The first part of the book closes with a summary chapter highlighting macro-level implications of research for social scientists, practitioners, and the law. Note that, for a number of reasons, much of the reviewed literature in Part I focuses on child victims of sexual abuse even though most substantiated cases of child maltreatment across the United States are physical abuse and neglect. Still, the most likely reason for children to enter the courtroom is because they have allegedly experienced sexual abuse (p. 150). As most cases of child sexual abuse lack medical or physical evidence, children's statements typically constitute the central evidence in the case. Further, there are many barriers to disclosure of sexual abuse, so the child abuse forensic interview plays a critical role. Defense attorneys often attack how the forensic interview was conducted, and considerable controversy exists over expert testimony to prove sexual abuse. The emphasis on child sexual abuse does not detract from the efficacy of this volume, which will prove indispensable to a wide audience including child maltreatment professionals, legal and mental health experts, social scientists, and attorneys.
The second part of the book turns to issues that arise when children are offenders and defendants and opens with a review of the current state of knowledge about the relationship between childhood victimization and later offending. Supporting a holistic viewpoint, the remaining chapters address youth developmental competencies such as suggestibility during legal interrogations and vulnerabilities upon waiver to adult court, special chapters on therapeutic jurisprudence and the growing number of girls entering the juvenile system that provoke questions about gender-sensitive interventions, adults' perceptions of juvenile offenders and the effect on trial outcomes, and an international perspective on juvenile justice and its influence on U.S. policy and practice. The final chapter presents four ideal visions of legal response to juvenile offenders, places preceding chapters within this framework, and compares these visions against literature in the field.
Throughout this volume, the editors deliver on their promise to support a holistic approach to research and practice with child victims and offenders. Practitioners and social scientists must work together to better understand the complex needs of children, overcome methodological issues, and provide systematic assessment of best practices. Perhaps most important, the contributors urge professionals to consider new paradigms and collaborations to create a deeper understanding of how the justice system can better serve children and youth.
