Are Children Reliable Witnesses?
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Beschreibung
“This is an excellent book. The book considers all aspects of children’s performance as eyewitnesses. The book explains when and why children can be accurate witnesses. It includes many relevant real life cases from police interviews and legal cases. This book is well researched and very well written so it will be accessible to anyone, and can be highly recommended to parents, and to students of developmental psychology, sociology, law and linguistics.”
—Dr Mark Blades, Senior Lecturer in Developmental Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK
"There is a nice coverage of how well children can serve as witnesses to a crime … I am recommending this book as a valuable resource for academics and students in psychology, criminology, and law because there isn’t another in the market that fully captures children’s experience ... Not only is it good for academics, but a great resource for social workers, forensic investigators and practitioners working within the Youthand Criminal Justice."
—Dr Tochukwu Onwuegbusi, Lecturer in Psychology, University of Lincoln, UK
This book explores practices and influences that can increase or decrease the accuracy of children’s testimonies. If a child falls victim to a crime, or becomes witness to it, they may well be questioned by the police. Perhaps even tasked with selecting a suspect from a line-up. But how reliable can a child be under such strenuous circumstances? Memory mechanisms and general developmental factors behind the capability of child witnesses are outlined, demonstrating their ability to describe or identify. Factors that affect jurors' perception of said children are also looked into in detail.
There have been many instances in which poor interviewing practices with children led to false imprisonments. Said occurrences demonstrate how both situational factors and individual differences can potentially compromise children’s eyewitness performance. Based upon whatwe now understand, can recommendations be made, so that, in a court of law, innocence is the key to achieving justice?
Ben F. Cotterill is lecturer in psychology at Clemson University in South Carolina, USA. He completed his doctoral dissertation on how children's temperament relates to their eyewitness performance. Dr. Cotterill's research interests include personality development, the reliability and credibility of eyewitness testimony, and testing police procedures used with children.
"If a child falls victim to a crime, or becomes witness to it, they may well be questioned by the police. Perhaps even tasked with selecting a suspect from a line-up. But how reliable can a child be under such strenuous circumstances?
In this book, Dr. Ben Cotterill explores practices and influences that can increase or decrease the accuracy of children’s testimonies. Memory mechanisms and general developmental factors behind the capability of child witnesses are outlined, demonstrating their ability to describe or identify. Factors that affect jurors' perception of said children are also looked into in detail.
There have been many instances in which poor interviewing practices with children led to false imprisonments. Said occurrences demonstrate how both situational factors and individual differences can potentially compromise children’s eyewitness performance. Based upon what we now understand, can recommendations be made, so that, in a court of law,innocence is the key to achieving justice?
Using case studies and accessible language, this book explores the reliability of children's testimonies in court It examines memory mechanisms and factors such as suggestibility to look at how reliable children are as eyewitnesses It describes the factors influencing jurors who are questioning children
Autor*in
Ben F. Cotterill
Themen in »Are Children Reliable Witnesses?«
child witness eyewitness memory police interview suggestibility courtroom testimony juror individual differences forensic psychology law social work eyewitness performace
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“This is an excellent book. The book explains when children can be relied on to give accurate eyewitness testimony and provides important insights into why children can sometimes be inaccurate. Best of all the book includes many relevant examples of real life cases in which children have had to give evidence during police interviews or in courts of law. The book is well researched with extensive references to academic research. The book is very well written, and will be accessible to anyone. This book can be highly recommended to parents and to students of developmental psychology, sociology, law and linguistics, and to everyone who is involved with children who, for whatever reason, may be involved with the police and the courts.”—Dr. Mark Blades, Senior Lecturer in Developmental Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
"I am delighted to endorse the book “Are children reliable witnesses” by Ben Cotterill. If you want to know more about how reliable children’s eyewitness accounts are, this is the book for you. There is a nice coverage of how well children can serve as witnesses to a crime with reference to social and cognitive factors that influence their accuracies. The author used a wide range of relevant high-profile cases drawn from a variety of jurisdictions and regions to anchor the development of each chapter. I am recommending this book as a valuable resource for academics and students in psychology, criminology, and law because there isn’t another in the market that fully captures children’s experience in the courtroom. Not only is it good for academics, but a great resource for social workers, forensic investigators and practitioners working within the Youth and Criminal Justice."
—Dr. Tochukwu Onwuegbusi, University of Lincoln, UK
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