Nicholas Bala

Children as Witnesses: Understanding Their Capacities, Needs, and Experiences

Historically the law regarded children as inherently unreliable and made it difficult for them to testify. Since 1975 awareness of child abuse has increased and research has established that children can be reliable witnesses. Governments began to recognize the needs and capacities of children and enacted legal reforms to facilitate prosecutions for child abuse. This paper reports on a survey of victim witness workers and other justice system professionals which reveals some of the continued failings of that system in dealing with children. Although relatively rare, there are cases of false allegations of abuse, usually a result of investigations by poorly trained professionals. Further legal reforms and better human supports are required to ensure that the needs of children are met and their capacities as witnesses are fully appreciated.

The Influence of Multiple Interviews on the Verbal Markers of Children's Deception

This study investigated different verbal expressive markers of children recounting both true and false events. Seventy-eight children (M age = 7.58 years) interacted with a research assistant on 3 consecutive days. All children played a game that included a touching component in which the research assistant placed stickers on the childs body. Parents were then asked to coach their children to lie during subsequent interviews occurring 1 week later. Children were interviewed over 3 consecutive days. Results indicated that verbal expressive markers (e.g., cognitive operations, spontaneous corrections, admissions of lack of knowledge, temporal markers) of true and intentionally false reports were different in the first interview. However, these differences disappeared over subsequent interviews. Results of the current study highlight the importance of recording the first interview in which children disclose, particularly when using verbal markers as indicators of deception.

How Children Report True and Fabricated Stressful and Non-Stressful Events 1

As children can be victims or witnesses to crimes and may be required to testify about their experiences in court, the ability to differentiate between childrens true and fabricated accounts of victimization is an important issue. This study used automated linguistic analysis software to detect linguistic patterns in order to differentiate between childrens true and false stressful bullying reports and reports of non-stressful events. Results revealed that children displayed different linguistic patterns when reporting true and false stressful and non-stressful stories, with non-stressful stories being more accurately discriminated based on linguistic patterns. Results suggest that it is difficult to discriminate accurately and consistently between childrens true and false stories of victimization.

Is the Truth in Your Words? Distinguishing Children’s Deceptive and Truthful Statements

Children’s (N = 48) and adults’ (N = 28) truthful and deceptive statements were compared using a linguistics-based computer software program. Children (4 to 7 years of age) and adults (18 to 25 years of age) participated in a mock courtroom experiment, in which they were asked to recount either a true or fabricated event. Testimonies were then analyzed using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count Software (LIWC; Pennebaker et al. 2007). This software has been previously used to detect adults’ deceptive statements (e.g., Bond and Lee, 2005). To date, no research has used this method on children’s narratives, nor has this software been used to compare those narratives to adult counterparts. Markers generated through the LIWC program achieved detection rates of 72.40% for samples of both children’s and adults’ narratives combined. In contrast, adult laypersons’ (N = 48) detection rates, for the same narratives (i.e., both children and adults) were close to chance. More specifically, detection rates were above chance for truth (65.00%) and below chance for lies (45.00%). Thus, the linguistic profile provided through LIWC yielded greater accuracy for evaluating the veracity of children’s and adults’ narratives compared to adult laypersons’ detection accuracy.

An historical perspective on family violence and child abuse: Comment on Moloney et al, Allegations of Family Violence, 12 June 2007

Abstract This comment discusses the historical development of social attitudes, social science research, and approaches in the justice system towards allegations of spousal and child abuse. Until relatively recently, victims of child abuse and spousal violence were largely ignored by the justice system, mental health professionals and social science researchers, and these victims rarely disclosed. In the late twentieth century, heavily influenced by feminist advocates and researchers, spousal violence and child sexual abuse were ‘discovered’; there was growing understanding and support for victims, and a great increase in reporting of child and spousal violence. The increase in reporting by genuine victims was accompanied a less frequent but serious problem – cases of false and exaggerated allegations. While a gendered basis analysis of issues of spousal and child abuse remains valuable, there is a need for development of more sophisticated and differentiated understandings of intimate partner violence and child abuse.

Canada's Juvenile Justice System: Promoting Community-Based Responses to Youth Crime

There have been profound changes in Canadas juvenile justice system during the century that it has been in existence, most recently when the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA)1 YCJA., S.C. 2002, c. 1. In force from 1 April 2003.came into force in April 2003. A major rationale for enacting the statute was to reduce Canadas high rate of custody for adolescent offenders, based on the belief that community-based responses are more effective for dealing with most young offenders. The YCJA continues to protect the legal rights of youth, such as access to counsel. This chapter discusses the evolution of Canadas juvenile justice system over the past two decades. It considers the policy concerns that led to the enactment of the YCJA and the impact that the new law is having. The new statute addresses some problems in youth justice that have been uncovered by empirical research, and is thus to a significant degree, evidence-driven. Where appropriate, we provide Canadian research findings relevant to the specific policy developments.

Canada’s First Integrated Domestic Violence Court: Examining Family and Criminal Court Outcomes at the Toronto I.D.V.C.

This is the first quantitative study to examine Canada’s only Integrated Domestic Violence Court. The methodology used a quasi-experimental design with parallel groups with baseline equivalence. Results demonstrate that when support services are provided to victims of domestic violence during family separation, children benefit from greater involvement with both parents. There was more compliance with child support in the integrated court than the comparison group and compliance in custody and access were two variables that predicted the type of final custody orders. There were fewer judges involved in the IDVC court than comparison group; however, there were no differences in the number of court appearances between groups. The IDVC demonstrates a promising intervention to address domestic violence that involves both criminal and family law courts. Future research is needed to explore the views of children, victims and offenders about their experiences with the IDVC.

Children's Recall Accuracy for Repeated Events over Multiple Interviews: Comparing Information Types

The present study examined childrens recall accuracy for a repeated event over multiple interviews. Participants took part in three play sessions and were then questioned in three separate interviews a week later. The sample included 87 children between 4 to 10 years of age. Repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted to examine total accuracy and accuracy for action (i.e., what happened during the play session) and detail (i.e., descriptions of objects, people, time, and locations) information. Older children were more accurate in their recall than were younger children, but total accuracy did not differ across interviews. Conversely, children were more accurate when recalling detail information compared to action information, and accuracy for detail information improved across the interviews, while accuracy for action information deteriorated from Interview 1 to 3. Implications for judging the accuracy of childrens witness testimony in real-world forensic contexts involving multiple events and interviews are discussed.

Does parental coaching affect children's false reports? Comparing verbal markers of deception.

The present study examined differences in childrens true and false narratives as a function of parental coaching by comparing the verbal markers associated with deception. Children (N = 65, 4-7xa0years old) played the same game with an adult stranger over three consecutive days. Parents coached their children to falsely allege that they had played a second game and to generate details for the fabricated event. One week after the last play session, children were interviewed about their experiences. For children with the least amount of parental coaching, true and false reports could be distinguished by multiple verbal markers of deception (e.g., cognitive processes, temporal information, self-references). The fabricated reports of children who spent more time being coaching by a parent resembled their truthful reports. These findings have implications for real-world forensic contexts when children have been coached to make false allegations and fabricate information at the behest of a parent.

Legal Responses to Alienation and Parent Contact Problems

This chapter addresses the issue of contact problems through the lens of the best interests of the child, an approach that is now dominant in the developed world. It begins with a discussion of the critical role of custody evaluators and mental health experts in cases involving parent-child contact problems. It then turns to a discussion of the legal responses to a postseparation rejection of a parent by a child that the court concludes is not justified—that is, to cases of alienation. The chapter concludes with a discussion of suggestions for how the family justice system should be structured to allow the most effective responses to childrens resistance to parent contact, including a discussion of case management and the need for early identification, and appropriate and effective intervention.