U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Witness Recall Across Repeated Interviews in a Case of Repeated Abuse

NCJ Number
246689
Journal
Child Abuse and Neglect Volume: 38 Issue: 2 Dated: February 2014 Pages: 202-211
Author(s)
Sonja P. Brubacher; David La Rooy
Date Published
February 2014
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This case study of three forensic interviews of a girl who experienced repeated sexual abuse from ages 7 to 11 provides insight into how incident-specific information can arise in the context of general statements about experienced sexual abuse.
Abstract
The case involved three forensic interviews subsequent to the victim's disclosing of her abuse after watching a television serial that contained a storyline similar to the victim's own experience. Because the case involved sexual abuse that was repeated weekly for 4 years, the analysis of the unfolding of the case focused on the child's narrative regarding specific incidents of abuse compared to general statements about what occurred. Most of the "episodic leads" (incident-specific details provided by a child that are, or could be, unique) and rare details were provided by the child in the third interview, which also contained the greatest proportion of generic information (little detail about specific abusive behaviors or actions of the perpetrator at a certain time). It may be that allowing the child to report generic information improved her ability or confidence in retrieving or sharing with the interviewer details that go beyond general descriptions of what occurred. Another explanation is that the child felt more comfortable by the third interview or with the particular interviewer, which increased her willingness to access unpleasant or shameful memories. These explanations for the patterns of this victim's response in successive interviews should be tested in future research. The information from the interviews led to a successful prosecution of the case. 5 tables and 64 references