Empirical Research on Child Maltreatment and the Law

Treating Children Like People: A Framework for Research and Advocacy

Issues in child policy are often obscured by symbolic debates about the nature of child development and family life. There is a need for greater care in the identification of the interests at stake and articulation of the normative foundation for various policies and programs. The Convention on the Rights of the Child carries an implicit rights-focused agenda for social science research. Building on that agenda, this article presents topics that should be examined more closely by psychologists, and it also provides rights-grounded principles for design, conduct, analysis, and reporting of research. Although rights talk, especially the vocabulary of children's rights, is controversial, thoughtful application of such a framework leads to consensual adoption of policies and programs that are both more rational and more humane.

Comparisons of three different investigative interview techniques with young children

After viewing a film of a mother hitting her son, a film not seen by the college student interviewers, children were misinformed about a detail (via exposure to a misleading question) as well as explicitly coached to disclose 3 false details. The children were then interviewed by interviewers who had previously learned 1 of 3 different interviewing procedures: the Yuille Step-Wise Interview developed by J. C. Yuille, R. Hunter, R. Joffe, & J. Zapamiuk (1993); a doll play interview developed by Action for Child Protection Inc. (1994); or the Modified Structured Interview developed for this study. The Modified Structured Interview yielded more "where" information and was better at detecting if coaching had occurred. However, the interviewers were not very good at discriminating suggested versus coached versus correct witnessed information. The authors found that the deeper one digs for memories, the more one uncovers incorrect versus correct items. They concluded that although the Modified Structured Interview was superior to the techniques currently in use, cautions are necessary.

Chronic neglect of family violence: more than a decade of reports to guide US policy

For more than a decade, several boards and committees have reviewed the state of policy, research, and services on child maltreatment and other forms of family violence in the US. Although these efforts have resulted in a redefinition of the tasks involved in protecting people within their homes, this new conceptualization has yet to have a substantial effect on policy, research, and services. Some positive steps have been taken, but most are still modest in scope. They may be dwarfed by the growing challenges in family and community life.