Main Reason/Idea
The main reason why the authors, Sue Bidrose and Gail S. Goodman, undertook the study titled “Testimony and Evidence: A Scientific Case Study of Memory for Child Sexual Abuse” was to evaluate the accuracy of children’s testimonies in cases in which they were the only eyewitnesses. The study was prompted by how children have become eyewitnesses in the last decade, questioning their ability to store memories. The main hypothesis in the study was that the girls’ testimony during the deposition hearing would be more accurate than the testimony in other similar cases since the victims had seen the photographs that reminded them of the events before the hearings increasing the bias in their testimonies towards the truth. Therefore, the authors used the victimized girl’s cases as the basis to examine their accuracy in remembering the various events they experienced based on their testimonies before and after seeing the photographs.
Participant Description
The main participants in the study were four children, victims of sexual exploitation. The police questioned them on how the events were executed and the description of the perpetrators of the events. The four girls were aged between 8 and 15 years, and their testimonies were compared to the photographic and audiotaped evidence in police custody after the police received information about a man prostituting. Girls were given to police and interviewed them. The participants included Ann, Sara, and Paula, aged 14, 15, and 13, respectively (Bidrose & Goodman, 2000). The girls were interrogated on the sexual trafficking allegations, and their interviews were audio-recorded and used as evidence in the case against John case. He was directly involved in the act of prostituting young girls in New Zealand.
What the Researchers Assessed and How
The researchers of the case assessed the audiotapes of the four main participants and other audiotapes that were confiscated from John’s house after the police searched his apartment for evidence. The audiotapes contained records of different older men involved in sexual acts with the girls. They could also assess the numerous photographs obtained from the house of the different girls used for prostitution, which showed the men who were involved sexually with young girls. The authors also assessed four police interviews and seven deposition hearing testimonies coded and used during the case hearing. The evidence was classified into different categories based on the sexual activity involved. The classification involved kissing, mutual oral copulation, fellatio, and intercourse. The photographs were also coded based on the nature of the activity involved.
The authors assessed a total of 70 different categories of acts, where forty-three were sexual, twenty-eight involved sexual acts, and fifteen involved older men, with the four girls who were used as witnesses in the case. Also, the researchers could assess 623 photographs linked to the case, seventy-seven audiotapes, and 11 testimonies that the police coded (Bidrose & Goodman, 2000). Such evidence and the allegations the girls made against the offenders were classified as either supported or unsupported. In circumstances where the acts were unsupported, the term omission errors was used. In contrast, in cases where the girls denied the occurrence of a specific allegation, the act was recorded as a corrected rejection. In cases where the evidence showed that a specific act occurred, an incorrect rejection was scored as part of the evidence used in the case. The researchers assessed most of the evidence about the case from police custody as they were part of the team that coded most of the evidence provided in the case. Being part of the coding team allowed the researchers to obtain most of the data in the study and undertake an effective assessment of the evidence to obtain reliable information that would answer their research question.
Main Results
The main results in the case were scored on the various types of evidence collected regarding the case. Such results were classified based on the nature of the evidence, and it entailed categories like testimonies, photographs, and audiotapes. In terms of testimonies, the reliability of the eleven testimonies used during the case was based on their accuracy. The five main testimonies have a reliability of 0.86, while the remaining six have a reliability score of 0.88. The reliability of the four police interviews was 0.88, while that of the seven court disposition hearing testimonies was 0.87 (Bidrose & Goodman, 2000). In terms of photographs, the 623 pieces of evidence were identifiable and relevant as they contained at least one of the girls, either alone or in the company of other girls. In 110 pictures, the coder could identify the girl, the man, and the act correctly where the proportion agreement was 0.92, and they were labeled by the police to be used as evidence in the case. Most of the photographs that the police labeled involved sexual activities. Most of the acts captured in the police interviews and repeated during the disposition hearings were consistent as they were supported by audio and photographic evidence.
The hundreds of audiotapes the police also seized significantly identified the sexual offenders as evidence during the case. Among them, the researchers could code 77 audiotapes as the rest were kept under police custody since they contained evidence of the illegal acts linked to the case. The reliability of the audiotapes varied based on the activities involved, where a reliability of 0.83 was obtained for sex acts, 0.86 for coercive acts, and 0.80 for preparatory actions. Based on the analysis of the evidence obtained from the girls, audiotapes, and photographs, 246 allegations were recorded during police interviews, case hearings, or both (Bidrose & Goodman, 2000). One hundred ninety-four of the allegations had supportive evidence in either audio or photographic form, while the rest of the allegations were unsupported. Categorically, 160 allegations of sexual acts, 35 alleged acts, 40 preparatory acts, and the remaining ten other acts had supportive evidence. The use of adult language was also identified in the case, and it was used to ascertain that a given act occurred.
Main Conclusions
The results obtained from the case show that children can be used to give accurate, reliable, and detailed testimony on sexual victimization. Almost 80% of the allegations the participants made and 85% of the sexual activity accusations provided supportive evidence in the case. The researchers also identified that the girls were most likely to leave out the accusations of the events that did not occur as outlined in the laboratory studies. Such activities show that the consistency in the testimonies made by children in sexual victimization cases is highly reliable. The level of accuracy in the girls’ testimonies was comparable even though the victimization was undertaken for a more extended period, leading to the existence of omission errors. This discovery shows that children’s memory is highly reliable, especially regarding abusive events, as the girls could identify with the different acts they were made to perform. The findings of the study did not support their hypothesis since the testimonies made during the police interviews was almost the same to the testimonies made during the hearing except for some minor omissions which were corrected after viewing the photographs. The results of how children perform memory tasks indicate that researchers can learn from scientific case studies to enhance their understanding of children’s memories and eyewitnesses.
Reference
Bidrose, S., & Goodman, G. (2000). Testimony and evidence: A scientific case study of memory for child sexual abuse. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 14(3), 197-213.