ABSTRACT

This preregistered experiment aimed to investigate the impact of background information regarding an alleged victim of child sexual abuse on police investigators’ perception of the credibility of the victim’s statement, expected case outcome, and the type of questions police investigators plan to ask the victim in an investigative interview. We expected that the age and the description of the alleged victim’s character would affect perceived credibility, prediction of case prosecution and the use of biased questions in the interview plan. Indonesian police investigators (N = 369) read a case vignette of either a 5- or a 15-year-old female victim of child sexual abuse, including either a good character, bad character, or no character information. Participants receiving the story of the 15-year-old alleged victim perceived the victim as having contributed more to the crime, predicted the case as more likely to be withdrawn and included more biased questions in their interview plans than those who received the story of a 5-year-old alleged victim. Moreover, participants being told that the alleged victim had a bad character perceived her statement as less reliable, having contributed more to the crime, predicted the case as more likely to be withdrawn or dropped-out than those who received information about the alleged victim with a good character. We did not find any effect of our background information manipulation on the perception of suspect guilt, and on the estimated likelihood of the allegation being confirmed by corroborative evidence or being prosecuted. The current findings suggest that background information can negatively affect police investigators’ judgment and decision-making when working on a child sexual abuse case.

摘要

这项预先注册的实验旨在调查关于涉嫌儿童性虐待受害者的背景信息对警方调查人员对受害者陈述的可信度、预期案件结果的看法以及警方调查人员计划在调查中询问受害者的问题类型的影响。调查性采访。我们预计，据称受害者的年龄和对性格的描述会影响对可信度的感知、对案件起诉的预测以及在采访计划中使用有偏见的问题。印尼警方调查员（N= 369) 阅读了一个 5 岁或 15 岁儿童性虐待女性受害者的案例小插曲，包括好性格、坏性格或没有性格信息。与收到 15 岁据称受害者故事的参与者相比，收到受害者故事的参与者认为受害者对犯罪的贡献更大，预测案件更有可能被撤回，并且在他们的采访计划中包含更多有偏见的问题。 5岁的据称受害者。此外，被告知所谓的受害者性格不好的参与者认为她的陈述不太可靠，对犯罪的贡献更大，他们预测案件比那些收到有关所谓受害者的信息的人更有可能被撤回或退出。一个好的性格。我们没有发现我们的背景信息操纵对嫌疑人有罪的感知以及指控被确凿证据证实或被起诉的估计可能性有任何影响。目前的调查结果表明，在处理儿童性虐待案件时，背景信息会对警方调查人员的判断和决策产生负面影响。