CHILD TESTIMONY

Child Eyewitness Testimony

Child Eyewitness Testimony

In the last forty years, there was a change in the court room. Lawyers are not only concentrated their data on the scientific aspects of the event, but also to those who may be witnessing the actual event as well. In recent years, the number of eyewitness statements in the courtroom rose when it comes to crime or the events that occurred in their presence. But what about the courtroom to decide who is a legitimate witness to the events? Too often, age, race, education and socio-economic issues play an important role in this decision. Here we will discuss the age aspect of this problem from the viewpoint of the child eyewitness testimony and its implications in the courtroom.

More than 200,000 children could be involved in the legal system in a given year, and 13,000 of these children of preschool age. Often with these cases involving young children, there are questions concerning trust, vulnerability, and memory search. Studies have shown that preschool children are quite capable to provide accurate readings, but they are also more prone to distort the memory and testimony (Garraghan, pp. 61). Public and professional opinion on the reliability of children as witnesses in court cases is sharply divided. On the one hand, it is argued that when children disclose details of circumstances, they must believe, no matter what methods were used to prepare this disclosure. The other side depicts the children as helpless sponges, which "absorb" the interviewer's suggestions and retell these provisions in court.

Child is capable under the influence of multiple factors that adults can not. Factors such as: emotional dilemmas, physical circumstances, authoritative input, underdeveloped strategies for encoding, which is not yet ripe, childish familiarity with the situation, as well as the strategies that children use are not ...