Abstract
Children appear in court following trauma in both adversarial and inquisitorial legal systems. Although some countries (e.g., Israel) spare children the necessity of appearing at trial by questioning specially trained youth investigators in their stead, most systems require that, absent special circumstances, when a case proceeds to trial children provide testimony following victimization. In addition, children who allege that they have been victimized must be questioned at some point during legal proceedings, whether during criminal investigations, depositions, and/or at trial. It is important, therefore, to investigate children’s comprehension of the various types of question forms they are likely to encounter during legal proceedings. The purpose of this section is to integrate legal policy, clinical practice and empirical findings regarding the questioning of child witnesses following trauma.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC). (1990). Guidelines for psychosocial evaluation of suspected sexual abuse in young children. Chicago: Author.
California Codes, §765(b).
Lamb, M. E., Herschkowitz, I., Sternberg, K. J., Esplin, P. W., Hovav, M., Manor, T., Yudilevitch, L. (in press). Effects of investigative utterance types on Israeli children’s reponses. International Journal of Behavioral Development.
Minnesota Statutes, §592.02(m).
Pennsylvania Statutes, §42-5983(a).
People v. Buckey, No. A750900 (filed Mar. 22, 1984 ).
Perry, N. S., McAuliff, B. D., Tam, P., Claycomb, L., Dostal, C., Flanagan, C. (1995). When lawyers question children: Is justice served? Law and Human Behavior, 19, 609 - 629.
State v. Michaels, 625 A.2d 489 (N.J. App. 1993), aff’d, 1994 WL 278424 ( N.J. Sup. 1994 ).
Walker, N. E., Hunt, J. S. (in press). Interviewing child victim-witnesses: What you ask is what you get. In C. P. Thompson, D. Herrmann, J. D. Read, D. Bruce, D. Payne, M. Toglia (Eds)., Eyewitness Memory: Theoretical and Applied Perspectives. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Walker N. E., Nguyen, M. (1996). Interviewing the child witness: The do’s and the don’t’s, the how’s and the why’s. Creighton Law Review, 29, 1587 – 1617.
Warren, A. R., Woodall, C. E., Hunt, J. S., Perry, N. W. (1996). “It sounds good in theory, but... ”: Do investigative interviewers follow guidelines based on memory research? Child Maltreatment, 1,231-245. Washington Revised Code Annotated, §7.69A.030(1).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Walker, N.E. (1997). Should We Question How We Question Children?. In: Read, J.D., Lindsay, D.S. (eds) Recollections of Trauma. NATO ASI Series, vol 291. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2672-5_34
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2672-5_34
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-2674-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-2672-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive