Wrongful Acquittals of Child Sexual Abuse

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dc.contributor.authorLyon, T. D., Stolzenberg, S. N., & McWilliams, K.
dc.date.accessioned2015-11-13T15:35:24Z
dc.date.available2015-11-13T15:35:24Z
dc.date.issued2015
dc.description.abstractRoss Cheit’s book The Witch-Hunt Narrative highlights the difficulties of prosecuting child sexual abuse. Drawing examples from a single case, Alex A., we examine the ways in which false acquittals of sexual abuse are likely to occur. First, prosecutors tend to question children in ways that undermine their productivity and credibility. Second, prosecutors have difficulty in explaining to juries the dynamics of sexual abuse and disclosure, making children’s acquiescence to abuse and their failure to disclose when abuse first occurs incredible. Third, attorneys undermine children’s credibility by pushing them to provide difficult to estimate temporal and numerical information. A postscript to the Alex A. case illustrates the costs of wrongful acquittals.en_US
dc.identifier.citationLyon, T. D., Stolzenberg, S. N., & McWilliams, K. (2015). Wrongful Acquittals of Child Sexual Abuse. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Forthcoming, 15-37.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2686730
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11212/2641
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherJournal of Interpersonal Violenceen_US
dc.subjectchild sexual abuseen_US
dc.subjectprosecutionen_US
dc.subjectwrongful aquittalen_US
dc.subjectchildren's credibilityen_US
dc.titleWrongful Acquittals of Child Sexual Abuseen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

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