NCJ Number
206733
Journal
Child Maltreatment Volume: 9 Issue: 3 Dated: August 2004 Pages: 263-276
Date Published
August 2004
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This study compared 50 children who were evaluated at a Child Abuse Assessment Center (CAAC) with 51 matched children who were not evaluated at a CAAC in terms of legal outcomes in cases of sexual abuse.
Abstract
Research has indicated that the vast majority of child sexual abuse cases and other cases of child abuse never lead to criminal prosecution. CAAC’s were established to evaluate children suspected of sustaining abuse or neglect in order to determine if the abuse occurred. Staff at CAAC’s work cooperatively with local law enforcement agencies and children’s protective services to advance legal action where abuse has occurred. However, no research has examined whether evaluating children at CAAC’s can affect the outcomes in criminal prosecution of child abuse cases. The current study compared 50 children who were assessed at CAAC’s with 51 children, matched by age and relationship to perpetrator, who had not been assessed at CAAC’s. One goal was to determine if more favorable legal outcomes could be attributed to assessment at a CAAC, while another goal was to explore variables that might mediate legal outcomes. Participants were children whose abuse cases had been forwarded to the district attorney’s office for a filing decision in a moderately sized city in the Pacific Northwest between April 1999 and December 2001. Materials examined included the CAAC database and file and the district attorney’s officer case list, database, and office files. Results of statistical analyses indicated that children assessed at CAAC’s were significantly more likely to have their cases filed, to have more counts charged in filed cases, to have more counts charged against biological and stepfather perpetrators, and to have more defendants pleading or found guilty compared with the cases of children not assessed at CAAC’s. The most significant differences between the CAAC cases and non-CAAC cases were found for 4- to 6-year olds and for children at least 12 years of age. The findings thus revealed that CAAC’s can have positive legal outcomes in sexual abuse cases. Limitations of the study include problems with generalizability. Future research should focus on determining whether the current findings remain true for other types of child abuse and neglect, as well as whether legal outcomes vary by gender of the child. Tables, figures, references