An analysis of police officers' decisions about whether to refer cases of child abuse for prosecution

Facial composite research has mainly focused on their investigative value. No. comparable attention was drawn to their probative value – the extent to which a composite image may serve as incriminating or exonerating evidence against a defendant. The existing data resulting from mock-juror research allow only cautious conclusions and applies solely to the common law system. Therefore an experiment was conducted involving laypeople (N = 74) and prosecutor apprentices (N = 72). All participants received case materials of a robbery committed by a young male, including the victim's and defendant's testimonies and other evidence. In both samples, the facial composite evidence was manipulated so that participants viewed a composite image that was either a good or a poor match to the defendant. A facial composite that bore a strong resemblance to the defendant influenced the assessment of the eyewitness' credibility in the apprentices sample, but failed to affect other dependent variables. Surprisingly, laypeople ignored the facial composite no matter how well it resembled the defendant. Significant differences in the assessment of eyewitness' credibility, the strength of the defense case, the credibility of the defendant's alibi, and his culpability were found between the prosecutor apprentices and laypeople. The practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

The association between investigative interviewers' knowledge of question type and adherence to best‐practice interviewing

It is well established that not all investigative interviewers adhere to ‘best‐practice’ interview guidelines (i.e., the use of open‐ended questions) when interviewing child witnesses about abuse. However, little research has examined the sub skills associated with open question usage. In this article, we examined the association between investigative interviewers' ability to identify various types of questions and adherence to open‐ended questions in a standardized mock interview. Study 1 , incorporating 27 trainee police interviewers, revealed positive associations between open‐ended question usage and two tasks; a recognition task where trainees used a structured protocol to guide their response and a recall task where they generated examples of open‐ended questions from memory. In Study 2 , incorporating a more heterogeneous sample of 40 professionals and a different training format and range of tests, positive relationships between interviewers' identification of questions and adherence to best‐practice interviewing was consistently revealed. A measure of interviewer knowledge about what constitutes best‐practice investigative (as opposed to knowledge of question types) showed no association with interviewer performance. The implications of these findings for interviewer training programs are discussed.     

PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES AND THEIR SEXUAL,REPRODUCTIVE, AND PARENTING RIGHTS: AN INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Despite important gains in human rights, persons with disabilities — and in particular women and girls with disabilities — continue to experience significant inequalities in the areas of sexual, reproductive, and parenting rights. Persons with disabilities are sterilized at alarming rates; have decreased access to reproductive health care services and information; and experience denial of parenthood. Precipitating these inequities are substantial and instantiated stereotypes of persons with disabilities as either asexual or unable to engage in sexual or reproductive activities, and as incapable of performing parental duties. The article begins with an overview of sexual, reproductive, and parenting rights regarding persons with disabilities. Because most formal adjudications of these related rights have centered on the issue of sterilization, the article analyzes commonly presented rationales used to justify these procedures over time and across jurisdictions. Next, the article examines the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the attendant obligations of States Parties regarding rights to personal integrity, access to reproductive health care services and information, parenting, and the exercise of legal capacity. Finally, the article highlights fundamental and complex issues requiring future research and consideration.     

Differential effects of general versus cued invitations on children’s reports of a repeated event episode

The ability to describe individual episodes of repeated events (such as ongoing abuse) can enhance children’s testimony and assist the progression of their cases through the legal system. Open-ended prompts have been advocated as a means to assist children in accurately retrieving information about individual episodes. In the current study, two subtypes of open-ended prompts (cued and general invitations) were compared for their effects on five- to nine-year-olds’ (n?=?203) reports about individual episodes of a repeated event. Interviews occurred 1–2 weeks after the last of 4 event sessions. Cued invitations assisted children to provide specific details about individual episodes of a repeated event, while general invitations were useful to elicit more broad happenings of the episodes. The accuracy of responses to general invitations was similar for children of all ages up to one week after the event, but at a longer interview delay younger children were less accurate than older children. There were no differences in the accuracy of responses to cued invitations as a function of age or interview delay. Results suggest that interviewers tasked with eliciting accounts of individual episodes from a repeated event, such as ongoing abuse, should consider the differential efficacy of each prompt-type on children’s reports.