Interview methods for children as eyewitnesses - Essay Example

?Interview Methods for Children as Eyewitnesses Introduction Increasingly, children are being asked to testify in court as eyewitnesses in criminal cases. The special circumstances under which children may be interviewed such that their testimony yields credible, admissible evidence requires special support in recent legal reforms. For this reason, advances in legislation in many countries have greatly improved the manner in which children are interviewed in court.1 This is because young children above the age of 5 are highly susceptible to suggestive influences that may affect the credibility of their testimony in court. Suggestibility of very young children Bruck, Ceci, Francoeur & Barr 2 studied the influence of postevent suggestion on children’s accounts of their visit to the doctor. After their DPT shots, children were given one of three types of feedback: (1) that the shot hurt (pain affirming); (2) that it did not hurt (pain denying); and (3) that the shot is over (neutral). One year after, the children were again visited, and were again given either pain denying or neutral feedback in three separate visits. They were also given either misleading or non-misleading information about the actions of the nurse and doctor. Children given pain denying feedback reported that they did not cry or hardly at all, and said the shot did not hurt, or at least hurt less than the children who received neutral feedback. Also, children who were given misleading information about the actions of the nurse and doctor made more false allegations about their actions than children not given misleading information. This study’s findings challenged the prevailing view then, that suggestibility effects are confined to nonaction, peripheral events; the study showed that the children’s feedback were influenced by suggestibility, although they were reporting about important and relevant actions that involve their own bodies in stressful conditions. Roberts &Powell 3 conducted a study on the effect of the timing of interviews on children’s memories of events that are repeated, and events that are unique. Children five to six years old were made to participate in anywhere from 1 or 4 events, and misinformed either 3 or 21 days after the only event (if they participated only once), or the last event (if they participated 4 times). The study showed that timing of the misinformation affected the memories of single and repeated events, depending on the combination of event-misinformation and misinformation-test delays rather than overall retention interval. In the study by Milne and Bull,4 and that of Holliday,5 the objective was to examine if the cognitive interview would enhance the recall of events when used with children, and whether the cognitive interview increased children’s resistance to suggestive questions. (The cognitive interview focuses on the cognitive processes respondents use to answer survey questions, and the interview is held in some private location such as a laboratory environment.6) In the experiment, eight to ten year old children were shown a video recording of a magic show. The following day they were interviewed individually, some using cognitive interview and some using structured interview. A pre-set list of leading or suggestive questions was given to the children either before or after the interview. The findings were that the children who were interviewed using the cognitive interview had a better and more accurate recall of significantly more details. They were also more resistant to suggestive questions subsequently asked. The study established that the cognitive interview was found to comprise a reliable interviewing technique that enhance recall and enables children to be more resistant to the influence of misleading and suggestive questions. There were implications in other studies. For instance, it was found that both true and false memories tended to increase with age, but did not differ for children who were maltreated as against those who were not.7 Also, suggestibility effects were also found in the false accusations by children of alleged sexual abuse, but hypothesis testing proved that the rate of false accusations cannot be reduced without increasing the rate of false negatives (denials); in light of the possibility of leaving a child in a repeatedly abusive situation, “the cost of false negatives are substantially greater than the costs of false positives.”8 Recommended techniques in interviewing children Children’s suggestibility has been a subject matter of research since the early 20th century,9 thus studies have sought to discover ways by which risks of suggestibility may be minimized. Pipe, et al.10 suggested that photographs may be used in triggering children’s memory. Empirical evidence found that photographs can act as effective retrieval cues in interviewing small children after a delay, whether short or long. It was also determined that law enforcers, lawyers and court officials should speak to children in age appropriate language; also lawyers should not resort to intimidation of children in the courtroom. In order to effectively address children, policemen, lawyers and judges should all be informed by relevant psychological knowledge.11 Furthermore, Yuille et al.12 recommended a method called the “Stepwise Interview,” a non-suggestive method of interviewing which would be suited for young children. Lastly, Ceci and Bruck 13 found that the following set of circumstances reduce the possibility of suggestibility effects: 1. That the report relied on be that which is retrieved from a child after a single interview rather than multiple interviews; 2. That the child be asked non-leading questions 3. That the interviewer did not blindly follow only one hypothesis (i.e., confirmatory bias) 4. That the closed-ended, yes/no questions not be repeated during the same or different interviews with the child; and 5. That the interviewer was patient and non-judgmental, and that he did not try to bias a child to answer yes or no in any particular way. Conclusion As Pezdek14 observed, while there are inroads to psychological studies about minimizing the suggestibility influence in children interviewees, children’s innate vulnerability tends to resist its complete elimination. Legal reforms have so far been in the right direction for Western and developed countries, while the initiative has still to be adopted in developing countries. It is well that Academic studies continue to inform this particular application in legal practice. Bibliography Bruck,M;Ceci, S.J;Francouer, E and Barr, R (1995) " I hardly cried when I got my shot!" Influencing children's reports about a visit to their pediatrician. Child development, 66, 193-208 Ceci, S. J., & Bruck, M. (1993). The suggestibility of the child witness: A historical review and synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 113, 403-440. Holliday, R E (2003) “Reducing Misinformation Effects in Children with Cognitive Interviews: Dissociating Recollection and Familiarity”. Child Development, May 1, 2003, Vol. 74, Issue 3 Howe, M L; Cicchetti, D; Toth, S L; & Cerrito, B M (2004) “True and False Memories in Maltreated Children.” Child Development, vol. 75, no. 5, pp. 1402-1417 Kapardis, A. (2010) Psychology and Law: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge University Press. Milne,R and Bull, R (2003) " Does the cognitive interview help children to resist the effects of suggestive questioning?" Legal and Criminological Psychology , 8(1), 21-2 Pezdek, K (1994) “Avoiding False Claims of Child Sexual Abuse: Empty Promises” Family Relations, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 258-260. Roberts, K P & Powell, M B (2007) “The Roles of Prior Experience and the Timing of Misinformation Presentation on Young Children's Event Memories”. Child Development, vol 78 no 4 p1137-1152 Jul-Aug 2007. (EJ769846) Yuille, J.C., Hunter, R., Joffe, R., & Zaparniuk, J. (1993). Interviewing children in sexual abuse cases. In G. Goodman & B. Bottoms (Eds.), Understanding and Improving Children’s Testimony: Clinical, Developmental and Legal Implications. New York: Guilford Press. Read More