Relations between attorney temporal structure and children's response productivity in cases of alleged child sexual abuse
Date
2016
Journal Title
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Legal and Criminological Psychology
Abstract
Previous research has demonstrated that attorney question format relates to
child witness’ response productivity. However, little work has examined the extent to
which attorneys provide temporal structure in their questions, and the effects of this
structure on children’s responding. The purpose of this study was to address this gap in
the literature to identify methods by which attorneys increase children’s response
productivity on the stand without risking objections from opposing counsel for ‘calling for
narrative answers’.
In this study, we coded criminal court transcripts involving child witnesses
(5–18 years) for narrative structure in attorney questions and productivity in children’s
responses. Half of the transcripts resulted in convictions, half in acquittals, balanced
across key variables: child age, allegation severity, the child’s relationship to the
perpetrator, and the number of allegations.
Prosecutors and defence attorneys varied substantially in their questioning
tactics. Prosecutors used more temporal structure in their questions and varied their
questioning by the age of the child. These variations had implications for children’s
response productivity.
Results indicate that temporal structure is a novel and viable method for
enhancing children’s production of case-relevant details on the witness stand.
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Keywords
temporal structure, child abuse, child witness, child neglect, response productivity, child sexual abuse
Citation
Klemfuss, J. Z., Cleveland, K. C., Quas, J. A., & Lyon, T. D. (2016). Relations between attorney temporal structure and children's response productivity in cases of alleged child sexual abuse. Legal and Criminological Psychology. Online ahead of print. DOI: 10.1111/lcrp.12096