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Legal decision making about (child) sexual assault complaints: the importance of the information-gathering process
Current Issues in Criminal Justice Pub Date : 2021-10-04 , DOI: 10.1080/10345329.2021.1978213
Natalie Martschuk 1 , Martine B. Powell 2 , Robyn Blewer 3 , Jane Goodman-Delahunty 4
Affiliation  

ABSTRACT

For over a century, changes have been implemented in the way the evidence of adult and child sexual assault complainants is received during the common-law adversarial trial process. Could the fact that reforms have rarely affected the way information is gathered at the initial stages of investigation be a reason why legal systems still struggle with prosecuting sexual offences, but particularly those against children? An abundance of research demonstrates how question types influence the accuracy and detail of reported information. Few studies, however, have focused on the (downstream) impact on legal decisions. This paper begins with a brief overview of reforms to the information-gathering process across the twentieth century that indicate how fraught the issue of information gathering has been; it then reviews contemporary information-gathering strategies and proposes reforms to better align contemporary procedures with sound evidence-based practice. We argue that decision makers, including police, lawyers, clinical and forensic practitioners and judiciary need to better understand the science to bring about overdue change.



中文翻译:

关于(儿童)性侵犯投诉的法律决策:信息收集过程的重要性

摘要

一个多世纪以来,在普通法对抗性审判过程中接收成人和儿童性侵犯投诉人证据的方式发生了变化。改革很少影响在调查初始阶段收集信息的方式这一事实是否是法律体系仍在努力起诉性犯罪,尤其是针对儿童的性犯罪的原因?大量研究表明问题类型如何影响报告信息的准确性和细节。然而,很少有研究关注对法律决定的(下游)影响。本文首先简要概述了 20 世纪对信息收集过程的改革,这表明信息收集问题是多么令人担忧;然后,它审查当代信息收集战略并提出改革建议,以更好地将当代程序与可靠的循证实践相结合。我们认为,包括警察、律师、临床和法医从业者和司法机构在内的决策者需要更好地理解科学,才能带来迟到的改变。

更新日期:2021-10-04
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