Emotional Effects of Criminal Court Testimony on Child Sexual Assault Victims: A Preliminary Report (From The Child Witness -- Do the Courts Abuse Children? P 46-54, 1988, Graham Davies and Jonquil Drinkwater, eds.

• NCJ Number: 126763
• Author(s): G S Goodman; D P H Jones; E A Pyle; L Prado-Estrada; L K Port; P England; R Mason; L Rudy
• Date Published: 1988
• Length: 9 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute of Justice (NIJ); US Dept of Justice NIJ Pub
• Sale Source: British Psychological Soc
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom
• Note: Issues in Criminological and Legal Psychology, No 13

Annotation

This study evaluates the effect of court proceedings on child abuse victims who are called to testify against the perpetrators of their abuse. A sample of 98 children, ranging in age from 4 to 16 and mostly female, is used in the study, where their testimony and reactions are observed; the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) is used to measure the children's precourt and postappearance disturbances.

Abstract

Forty-two children from the sample were interviewed at the courtroom preceding any testimony they might be required to give. While some of them expressed positive feelings about talking to the prosecutor, the majority viewed testifying and facing the alleged abuser negatively. A comparison of CBCL scores for children who testified and those who did not indicates that children who testified have a marginally significant increase in overall behavioral disturbances, but a much higher score on problem internalization. However, these results are still tentative due to the small sample size, the short-term nature of the findings, and the preliminary nature of many of the court hearings which leave the cases unresolved. 3 tables and 18 references