Martine B Powell
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 4126511 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Martine B Powell |
| NOMBRES | Martine B |
| APELLIDO | Powell |
| FIRMA | POWELL M B |
| AFILIACIONES | Deakin University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5092-1308 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 72 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 79 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 72 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1991 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
Psychological Outcomes for Investigators of Online Child Sexual Exploitation
Child sexual exploitation (CSE) investigators are required to view thousands of sexually graphic images involving children as part of their daily work, raising concerns about possible harmful occupational health effects. We administered a battery of 24 psychological scales to 141 current CSE investigators and 106 investigators engaged in other areas of policing. Fourteen scales focused on potential psychological outcomes of the investigators’ rol…
Investigating Atrocity Crimes
Criminal justice investigators of atrocity crimes work in the same space as Non-Governmental Organisations. Even if having different objectives and mandates in crisis zones, numerous NGOs are also investigating or collecting evidence in the process of pursuing their other mandates, as was observed recently in Ukraine or Rohingya refugee camps. This can cause problems for the investigators of international crimes, and their work of collecting evid…
Police Recruits’ Perceptions of the Utility of Body-Worn Cameras as a Training Tool
Concerns about police behavior, especially police use of force, necessitate the identification of training procedures that optimize learning outcomes for police. This study explored the potential of body-worn cameras (BWCs) as a feedback tool during police training. Police recruits ( N = 111) who had experienced a simulated use of force scenario and observed their BWC footage of that event were asked open-ended questions about their experiences o…
Interviewers’ and intermediaries’ perceptions of problematic interview questions and their proposed solutions
Witness intermediaries facilitate communication between legal actors and children or other vulnerable populations, and sometimes intermediaries assist in investigative interviews. This research explored the skills of investigative interviewers and intermediaries (who either had experience acting in that role or were eligible to do so) in identifying problematic questions during interviews. Forty-one participants (18 interviewers, 23 eligible or e…
Police recruits’ perceptions of the utility of viewing body-worn camera footage following use-of-force incidents
Early childhood memories of individuals convicted of sexual offences
This study used innovative transdisciplinary methods to describe the nature and extent of early childhood memories recalled by 84 adults convicted of sexual offences. The timing of the memories, level of detail recalled and way memories were recollected were largely consistent with extant memory research. One important finding, however, was that more than 30% of our participants recalled particularly traumatic and distressing childhood experience…
Effectiveness and efficacy of a culturally adapted training program for child interviewers in Chile
Effectiveness and efficacy of a culturally adapted training program for child interviewers in Chile
The influence of self-assessment practices on online training for investigative interviewing skills
This paper investigates how 192 trainees’ self-assessment practices and personal attributes related to their success in an online interview training program. Performance was measured pre- and post-training by evaluating the use of open-ended questions and positive interviewing behaviors. Personal data and a pre-training survey on self-assessment practices (i.e., SEFI, seeking external feedback through inquiry; SEFM, seeking external feedback thro…
Technology in the courtroom
Legislation permits or requires the use of audio-visual recordings and closed-circuit television where child witnesses give evidence in certain matters. Since its introduction, problems with the technology have been reported, such as poor audio-visual quality and connectivity issues, causing trial delays and exacerbating witness anxiety. This study analyses the perceptions of 18 professionals (n = 18) across 5 Australian jurisdictions (Queensland…
To what extent can tomorrow’s doctors prevent organisational failure by speaking up
Usefulness of an e-Simulation in improving social work student knowledge of best-practice questions
Computer-based simulations provide an opportunity for social work students to learn effective communication skills that sit at the core of social work practice. The current study describes a best practice interviewing protocol that promotes the use of open-ended questions (i.e. that elicit elaborate responses without dictating expected content) taught using a computer-generated child avatar. Utilising a mixed method design, quantitative analysis …
An examination of implementation of special measures in child sexual assault trials and the problems that arise
Giving evidence from the witness stand is often distressing for complainants of child sexual abuse. Technology-based special measures (eg, CCTV/AV link) enable complainants to give evidence from a location outside the courtroom, making the process less intimidating for complainants, which in turn enhances the quality of their evidence. Although the implementation of these measures has increased in prevalence over the preceding decades, little is …
Police Investigators’ Perceptions of the Challenges Associated With Interviewing Adult Sexual Assault Complainants
Although police organizations have devoted considerable effort to training investigators in evidence-based witness interviewing techniques, there is some suggestion that current practices do not meet the multifaceted requirements of sexual assault cases. Here, we assessed the specific challenges inherent in conducting interviews with adult sexual assault complainants, by conducting in-depth interviews with 21 experienced investigators from both A…
When good intentions are not enough
Children and other vulnerable parties such as those with a cognitive, social or communication impairment frequently struggle to understand, and be understood in, the criminal justice environment. One way this has been addressed in jurisdictions around Australia and overseas is through the introduction of intermediary (or communication partner) schemes, whereby an independent third party assists vulnerable witnesses, and in some cases, defendants,…
The influence of transition prompt wording on response informativeness and rapidity of disclosure in child forensic interviews
Investigators hope to elicit disclosure or other case-related (informative) responses quickly when transitioning to the substantive phase of forensic interviews. Interviewing protocols suggest directly asking the child about the purpose of the interview to obtain early disclosure. However, interviewers sometimes rephrase scripted transition prompts, which has unknown consequences. The present study examined the effects that the first transition p…
Teaching child investigative interviewing skills
Successful interview training includes components beyond content learning (e.g., coding question types, practicing skills in simulated interviews), but the advantages conferred by adding components are unclear. The present research evaluated best practice questioning and behavior following the addition of a series of training components delivered in a logical order. In Study 1, randomly assigned treatment (n = 34) and control (n = 41) participant…
Discussions about child witness interviews during Australian trials of child sexual abuse
In many jurisdictions, child witness interviews are pre-recorded and played in court as complainants’ evidence-in-chief in cases of child sexual abuse (CSA). The present study examined whether and how legal professionals discuss child witness interviews in the course of CSA trials. The trial transcripts of a sample of 85 child sexual abuse complainants (aged 6–17 years; 19 males) from three Australian jurisdictions were examined. Thematic analysi…
Online child sexual offenders' language use in real-time chats
We analysed chat log communications between 38 adult males and children who were accessed by the men via social media for sexually exploitative purposes. Our goal was to understand how sexual offenders engage with children online and the dialogue they use to elicit compliance with sexual requests. Results revealed 72 discrete linguistic tactics, contained within eight overarching dialogue-based ‘moves’. Tactics were non-sequential (ie dynamic) an…
Legal decision making about (child) sexual assault complaints
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 dem…
Are all complainants of sexual assault vulnerable? Views of Australian criminal justice professionals on the evidence-sharing process
Cases of historic child assault typically rely on the complainant's narrative due to lack of corroborating evidence. Although it is important that complainants give their best evidence, concern has been expressed that evidence-sharing procedures are suboptimal. This study explored criminal justice professionals’ perspectives on the utility of introducing reforms to the evidence-sharing process. We interviewed judges, prosecutors, defence counsel …
A test of three refresher modalities on child forensic interviewers’ posttraining performance
This study aims to advance the field of child forensic interviewing by assessing the impact of different refresher training modalities on police officers’ abilities to adhere to the steps of an interview protocol and on the types of questions used. Previously trained police officers (N = 46) were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: (1) supervision with an expert, (2) peer group supervision, and (3) computer-assisted exercis…
Special measures in child sexual abuse cases
We explored Australian criminal justice professionals’ views on how well special measures for child complainants of sexual abuse are working in practice. We interviewed judges, prosecutors, defence counsel and witness assistance officers (n = 43) from four Australian jurisdictions, using a qualitative, non-directive approach. Overall, professionals perceived that special measures had improved evidence-giving processes for child complainants, but …
The origin, experimental basis, and application of the standard interview method
ObjectivesThe standard interview method (SIM) is a guidance framework for information gathering interviews. This article describes the purpose, scope, origin, experimental basis, and practical application of the SIM. It provides an informative overview of developments to date for psychologists and researchers within the behavioural sciences, as well as for practitioners who might use the SIM. The SIM contains core evidence‐based components but is…
Attentional difficulty is a risk factor for interrogative suggestibility in preschoolers
Trial of three investigative interview techniques with minimally verbal adults reporting about occurrences of a staged repeated event
The current study explored the effectiveness of three interview protocols on the number and specificity of details provided by minimally verbal adults about a staged repeated event. Eighty adults (with expressive sentence length of around 5 words, matched on measures of expressive language and intellectual functioning) participated in 3 live events and were pseudorandomly assigned to receive 1 of 3 interviews. The narrative-first protocol exhaust…
Guide to questioning children during the free-narrative phase of an investigative interview
The inability of professionals to maintain the use of open-ended questions in the free-narrative phase of investigative interviews with children has been a major problem around the globe. The current paper addresses this concern by describing the key principles underlying the elicitation of free-narrative accounts and practical suggestions for formulating questions. The paper focuses on interviewing children in the early- and middle-childhood yea…
Prosecutors’ perceptions of how to improve the quality of evidence in domestic violence cases
Limited evidence in domestic violence prosecutions is a persistent problem. Focus groups with 13 prosecutors from across Australia and New Zealand were used to explore how to improve the quality of evidence collected and presented in these cases. A thematic analysis identified three main strategies: improving the quality of investigations by initial police responders, supporting the complainant and tailoring the trial process to the domestic viol…
The effects of repeated experience on children's suggestibility
The effect of suggestive questions on 3- to 5-year-old and 6- to 8-year-old children's recall of the final occurrence of a repeated event was examined. The event included fixed (identical) items as well as variable items where a new instantiation represented the item in each occurrence of the series. Relative to reports of children who participated in a single occurrence, children's reports about fixed items of the repeated event were more accura…
Retrieval of episodic versus generic information
Children (N = 157) 4 to 8 years old participated 1 time (single) or 4 times (repeated) in an interactive event. Across each condition, half were questioned a week later about the only or a specific occurrence of the event (depth first) and then about what usually happens. Half were prompted in the reverse order (breadth first). Children with repeated experience who first were asked about what usually happens reported more event-related informatio…
Effects of practicing episodic versus scripted recall on children's subsequent narratives of a repeated event
Children (N = 240) ages 5 to 8 years participated in 1 or 4 activity sessions involving interactive tasks (e.g., completing a puzzle); children with single-event participation served as a control group. One week after their last/only session, all children were practiced in episodic recall of unrelated experiences by asking about either the (a) a single-experience event, (b) a specific instance of a repeated event, or (c) scripted recall of a seri…
Evaluation of a comprehensive interactive training system for investigative interviewers of children
This article reports on the evaluation of an interactive interviewer training system with a large, heterogeneous sample of investigative interviewers of children. The system, delivered predominantly through computer-assisted learning activities, focused on how to elicit important evidential details from child witnesses in a narrative format. Two studies are reported, each adopting a pre-versus posttraining design. Study 1 examined the effect of t…
Recommendations for interviewing children about repeated experiences
For just over 2 decades, researchers have been conducting empirical studies devoted to understanding children's memory for, and ability to describe, individual occurrences of events they have experienced repeatedly. This knowledge is critical because children making allegations of repeated abuse are required to provide details particular to an individual incident in many jurisdictions internationally. Much of this work has thus far been conducted…
Improving child investigative interviewer performance through computer-based learning activities
The current study adopted a pre- versus post-training design and a standardised measure of performance to evaluate the effectiveness of a series of online computerbased learning activities designed to encourage open-ended question usage among investigative interviewers of children. Participants included 61 social workers, police and psychologists. The learning activities, organised into 12 modules of approximately 3 hours duration each, focused p…
Prosecutors' recommendations for improving child witness statements about sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse cases are often not prosecuted because of poor evidential quality. The aim of this study was to elicit suggestions from prosecutors as to how investigative interviews with child witnesses (the main form of evidence in child abuse cases) could be improved. Thirty-six in-depth phone interviews were held with 19 trial prosecutors shortly before and after trials. For each case, prosecutors were asked to provide feedback about the s…
Guidelines for teachers to elicit detailed and accurate narrative accounts from children
This paper provides interview strategies for teachers who talk to children about serious events, including bullying, truancy, and suspected maltreatment. With regard to the latter, teachers are among the largest group of professionals reporting child abuse, but also tend to evince low substantiation rates. We review research on best practice interviewing, with a focus on its application in school settings. Interview phases are described chronolog…
Family Functioning, Parental Psychological Distress and Child Behaviours
We examined, using data from the 2006 Victorian Child Health and Wellbeing Study (VCHWS), whether family functioning is associated with parental psychological distress and children's behavioural difficulties. The VCHWS was a statewide cross‐sectional telephone survey to 5,000 randomly selected primary caregivers of 0‐ to 12‐year‐old children between October 2005 and March 2006. Only parents or guardians of children aged 4–12-years (n = 3,370) wer…
Teaching child investigative interviewing skills
Successful interview training includes components beyond content learning (e.g., coding question types, practicing skills in simulated interviews), but the advantages conferred by adding components are unclear. The present research evaluated best practice questioning and behavior following the addition of a series of training components delivered in a logical order. In Study 1, randomly assigned treatment (n = 34) and control (n = 41) participant…
Prosecutors' Perspectives on Clarifying Terms for Genitalia in Child Sexual Abuse Interviews
In investigative interviews with alleged victims of child sexual abuse, professionals must establish the nature of the alleged abuse by determining what body parts were involved in the offending. This can be difficult, however, because children often use colloquial (non‐anatomical) terms to describe genitalia, and there has been little direction for interviewers about clarifying these terms sufficiently to establish the charge. The aim of this st…
Australian police officers' perceptions of sex offender registries
Sex offender registration schemes exist in most English speaking countries to assist police in the investigation of new crimes and to deter known offenders. To date, however, very little research has examined the efficacy of these registers. This study addresses this issue by providing the first qualitative analysis of police officers' perceptions of registration schemes. Twenty-four Australian police professionals (whose jobs were primarily asso…
Police Perceptions of Interviews Involving Children with Intellectual Disabilities
This study employed a qualitative method to explore the experiences of 20 police officers when interviewing children with intellectual disabilities. Three main themes were interpreted as representing challenges to the officers when interviewing special‐needs children: police organizational culture, participants' perceptions of these children as interviewees, and prior information. Participants in this inquiry mentioned poor organizational priorit…
Guidelines for interviewing children during child custody evaluations
This paper offers a brief review of the current literature related to the interviewing of children during child custody evaluations. In particular, the paper highlights several key issues and concerns, and provides a series of recommendations for professionals working in this area. These recommendations (which apply to children aged 3 to 12 years) are organised under the following headings: (a) establish rapport using broad open-ended questions, …
A Guide to Interviewing Children
n\t\t\t\t\tThis book has been written by two people who really understand children. [They show how to] create opportunities to reduce the trauma of the interview and significantly improve the quality of the information obtained. Chief Constable A.J. Butler Gloucestershire Constabulary A few years ago, a Chief Justice said that it was unnecessary to educate lawyers and judges in the techniques of interviewing children because it was 'just common s…
A test of three refresher modalities on child forensic interviewers’ posttraining performance
This study aims to advance the field of child forensic interviewing by assessing the impact of different refresher training modalities on police officers’ abilities to adhere to the steps of an interview protocol and on the types of questions used. Previously trained police officers (N = 46) were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: (1) supervision with an expert, (2) peer group supervision, and (3) computer-assisted exercis…
The origin, experimental basis, and application of the standard interview method
ObjectivesThe standard interview method (SIM) is a guidance framework for information gathering interviews. This article describes the purpose, scope, origin, experimental basis, and practical application of the SIM. It provides an informative overview of developments to date for psychologists and researchers within the behavioural sciences, as well as for practitioners who might use the SIM. The SIM contains core evidence‐based components but is…
Trial of three investigative interview techniques with minimally verbal adults reporting about occurrences of a staged repeated event
The current study explored the effectiveness of three interview protocols on the number and specificity of details provided by minimally verbal adults about a staged repeated event. Eighty adults (with expressive sentence length of around 5 words, matched on measures of expressive language and intellectual functioning) participated in 3 live events and were pseudorandomly assigned to receive 1 of 3 interviews. The narrative-first protocol exhaust…
Special Measures for Children in Court
Approximately 25 years ago, special measures were adopted in many jurisdictions to support child sexual assault complainants in legal proceedings. This study tracked activities of a multi-agency committee of criminal justice professionals, including social workers, in enacting those provisions. We manually reviewed 99 sets of minutes of meetings of the New South Wales Sexual Assault Review Committee, spanning over two decades. Findings identified…
Professionals' Perceptions Regarding the Suitability of Investigative Interview Protocols with Aboriginal Children
ObjectiveDespite the heterogeneity of Australian Aboriginal peoples, certain styles of relating are shared and are markedly different to the communication styles of non‐Aboriginal peoples. These differences may affect the suitability of current investigative interview protocols to Australian Aboriginal children. This study aimed to qualitatively evaluate the applicability of an investigative interview protocol to Australian Aboriginal children an…
Examination of the Subjective Well‐Being of Australian Internet Child Exploitation Investigators
ObjectiveInternet child exploitation investigation is an area of policing associated with high levels of work stress, potentially contributing to the development of mental and other health‐related problems. This study extends prior research suggesting that child abuse investigation officers have normal levels of life satisfaction using a well‐validated and more robust measure of subjective well‐being.MethodThe Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI) was s…
Evaluating police interviewing practices with suspects in child-sexual abuse cases
This article examined adherence to current best practice recommendations for police interviewing of individuals suspected of committing child-sexual offences. We analysed 81 police records of interviews (electronically recorded and then transcribed) with suspects in child-sexual abuse cases in England and Australia. Overall we found areas of skilled practice, indicating that police interviewing in Australia and England is in a far better place th…
Pride
This paper summarises the barriers faced by Aboriginal people when participating in an interview in the English language, conducted as part of an investigation or assessment for the courts. The paper also outlines the critical elements of interviews with Aboriginal children and adults, where the primary goal is to obtain relevant and accurate information about a person or event. These elements which form the acronym PRIDE include Prior knowledge …
Investigating and reporting child sexual abuse
Two problems that are frequently referred to in the child sexual abuse literature are the underreporting among professionals who work with children and the high frequency of unsubstantiated reports, some of which are based on false accusations. The present paper highlights the problems, and offers recommendations regarding the investigation and reporting of child sexual abuse in clinical settings. It is expected that information provided in this …
The effects of repeated experience on children's suggestibility
The effect of suggestive questions on 3- to 5-year-old and 6- to 8-year-old children's recall of the final occurrence of a repeated event was examined. The event included fixed (identical) items as well as variable items where a new instantiation represented the item in each occurrence of the series. Relative to reports of children who participated in a single occurrence, children's reports about fixed items of the repeated event were more accura…
Practical Guidelines for Conducting Investigative Interviews with Aboriginal People
This paper integrates knowledge on the vulnerability of Aboriginal interviewees with research findings on investigative interviewing and eyewitness memory to offer practical guidelines for interviewing Aboriginal people. The aim of these guidelines is to maximise the reliability and relevance of the evidence obtained when interviewing Aboriginal people. A simple, flexible interview protocol is offered which consists of several key stages: (i) rap…
Pride
This paper summarises the barriers faced by Aboriginal people when participating in an interview in the English language, conducted as part of an investigation or assessment for the courts. The paper also outlines the critical elements of interviews with Aboriginal children and adults, where the primary goal is to obtain relevant and accurate information about a person or event. These elements which form the acronym PRIDE include Prior knowledge …
A Guide to Interviewing Children
n\t\t\t\t\tThis book has been written by two people who really understand children. [They show how to] create opportunities to reduce the trauma of the interview and significantly improve the quality of the information obtained. Chief Constable A.J. Butler Gloucestershire Constabulary A few years ago, a Chief Justice said that it was unnecessary to educate lawyers and judges in the techniques of interviewing children because it was 'just common s…
Guidelines for interviewing children during child custody evaluations
This paper offers a brief review of the current literature related to the interviewing of children during child custody evaluations. In particular, the paper highlights several key issues and concerns, and provides a series of recommendations for professionals working in this area. These recommendations (which apply to children aged 3 to 12 years) are organised under the following headings: (a) establish rapport using broad open-ended questions, …
‘Marvin the Mouse’; Can he Assist Police to Elicit Evidence from Young Children
This study investigated the usefulness of a computer program designed to assess young children's understanding of words that may be relevant to an investigative interview about assault. Forty‐one police officers conducted two interviews with five‐ to six‐year‐old children (one was conducted with the program and one without). The program's effectiveness was based on the interviewers' ratings of the usefulness of the program as well as three indepe…
Interviewing juvenile offenders
A police officer is interviewing a 14 year-old 'frequent flyer' in the juvenile justice system. In an effort to gauge the extent of this young man's recent exploits, the police officer poses the following question: 'So -could you have stolen upwards of twenty cars?' 'Ye-eh' replied the young offender indignantly 'Of course
Police Perceptions of Interviews Involving Children with Intellectual Disabilities
This study employed a qualitative method to explore the experiences of 20 police officers when interviewing children with intellectual disabilities. Three main themes were interpreted as representing challenges to the officers when interviewing special‐needs children: police organizational culture, participants' perceptions of these children as interviewees, and prior information. Participants in this inquiry mentioned poor organizational priorit…
Improving the reliability of child witness testimony in court
Considerable discussion during recent years has focused on ways to increase the reliability of child witness evidence, and reduce the negative impact of the courtroom environment on children's credibility and their psychological well-being. A large proportion of this discussion has focused on removing child witnesses from the courtroom and developing alternative arrangements by which children can give evidence (e.g., videotaped statements used as…
Particularisation of Child Abuse Offences
Prosecuting child abusers is often difficult due to lack of particularising details. Two possible ways of addressing this difficulty are: (a) to change the justice system to better serve prosecution for repeated offences (i.e., allow generic testimony), and (b) to bolster children's testimony. As this article has illustrated, there is still considerable potential for increasing (b). Given the low prosecution rates of child abuse offences, the nee…
Guide to questioning children during the free-narrative phase of an investigative interview
The inability of professionals to maintain the use of open-ended questions in the free-narrative phase of investigative interviews with children has been a major problem around the globe. The current paper addresses this concern by describing the key principles underlying the elicitation of free-narrative accounts and practical suggestions for formulating questions. The paper focuses on interviewing children in the early- and middle-childhood yea…
Conclusion
This chapter revisits the analytical framework of Chapter One of modernisation and orders of change in order to summarise the material presented. It examines views of the Blair legacy, summarises the evidence of the type and extent of change in the welfare state, places this material in a wider context, and concludes by considering whether we have a new political consensus of ‘Camerownism’ (Cameron/Brown).
Introduction
This introductory chapter first sets out the purpose of the book, which is to examine the main changes to the welfare state since New Labour came to power in 1997, updating existing accounts, as they tend to focus on the first term of government up to 2001. The main focus of the book, however, is to examine the degree of change that has occurred in the welfare state – the book’s analytical template is New Labour’s modernization of the welfare sta…
Children’s conception of police authority when responding to requests for assistance
Children (five to six and seven to eight years old) were presented with scenarios in which various adults (a police officer, a teacher, and an unspecified adult) requested assistance from a child. Six scenarios were presented (two per adult) with half involving a reasonable request (requiring little effort from the child) and the others unreasonable. For each scenario, the participants stated: (i) whether the child in the story should comply with…
Designing Effective Training Programs for Investigative Interviewers of Children
‘Best-practice’ guidelines for conducting investigative interviews with children are well established in the literature, yet few investigative interviewers actually adhere to such guidelines in the field. One of the problems is that little discussion has focused on how such guidelines are learned and sustained by professionals. To address this concern, the current article reviews the key elements of interview training programs that are known to p…
Oral Language Competence, Social Skills and High‐risk Boys
A cross‐sectional study examining the oral language abilities and social skills of male juvenile offenders is described. Fifty juvenile offenders and 50 non‐offending controls completed measures of language processing and production, and measures of social skill and IQ. Information about type of offending, substance use histories and learning/literacy problems was also gathered. Young offenders performed significantly worse on all language and so…
A qualitative examination of police officers' questioning of children about repeated events
For an offender to be convicted in relation to repeated child abuse, most jurisdictions require that each separate act be identified with reasonable precision with reference to time, place, or some other unique contextual detail (S v. R, 1989 1989. S v. R 168 CLR 266 [Google Scholar]). The current study provided a qualitative examination of the way in which police officers assist children to identify and distinguish between occurrences of a repea…
Professionals' Perceptions of Electronically Recorded Interviews with Vulnerable Witnesses
This study presents a qualitative evaluation of the Video and Audio Taped Evidence (VATE) process involving vulnerable witnesses, introduced by Victoria Police in 1996. Specifically, this study presents an analysis of individual in-depth interviews with a diverse group of 25 key Victorian stakeholders (police officers, prosecutors, solicitors, defence lawyers, and members of the judiciary). The aim of the interviews was to provide an overview of …
Improving the competency of police officers in conducting investigative interviews with children
Despite the provision of ‘best‐practice’ guidelines regarding conducting interviews with children, research indicates that most investigative interviews do not adhere to these guidelines. To date, there has been little discussion in the literature of the conditions that are needed to promote and sustain expertise in forensic interviewing. The current paper addresses this limitation by describing the main factors preventing the adoption of ‘best‐p…
Effects of practicing episodic versus scripted recall on children's subsequent narratives of a repeated event
Children (N = 240) ages 5 to 8 years participated in 1 or 4 activity sessions involving interactive tasks (e.g., completing a puzzle); children with single-event participation served as a control group. One week after their last/only session, all children were practiced in episodic recall of unrelated experiences by asking about either the (a) a single-experience event, (b) a specific instance of a repeated event, or (c) scripted recall of a seri…
Family Functioning, Parental Psychological Distress and Child Behaviours
We examined, using data from the 2006 Victorian Child Health and Wellbeing Study (VCHWS), whether family functioning is associated with parental psychological distress and children's behavioural difficulties. The VCHWS was a statewide cross‐sectional telephone survey to 5,000 randomly selected primary caregivers of 0‐ to 12‐year‐old children between October 2005 and March 2006. Only parents or guardians of children aged 4–12-years (n = 3,370) wer…
A New Child Protection Strategy for Aboriginal Communities in Western Australia
Despite numerous government inquiries and reforms, child sexual abuse in remote Aboriginal communities is a well-documented, ongoing problem. Established in Western Australia in 2009, Operation RESET is a multi-agency proactive community engagement initiative designed to improve the ability of communities and supporting agencies to detect, respond to and prevent child sexual abuse through the implementation of community engagement, capacity build…
Professionals' Perceptions of a New Model of Sexual Assault Investigation Adopted by Victoria Police
This article presents a qualitative evaluation of a new method of operation for sexual assault investigation developed by Victoria Police. The model is characterised by two core components: the establishment of specialist teams of investigators responsible for investigation and victim support; and the establishment of service sites, referred to as ‘Multidisciplinary Centres’, where all key services are located in a single building separate from p…
Retrieval of episodic versus generic information
Children (N = 157) 4 to 8 years old participated 1 time (single) or 4 times (repeated) in an interactive event. Across each condition, half were questioned a week later about the only or a specific occurrence of the event (depth first) and then about what usually happens. Half were prompted in the reverse order (breadth first). Children with repeated experience who first were asked about what usually happens reported more event-related informatio…
Psychology (66 obras) · Medicine (46 obras) · Political science (39 obras) · Law (32 obras) · Social Psychology (28 obras) · Deception detection and forensic psychology (27 obras) · Interview (27 obras) · Poison control (27 obras) · Criminology (26 obras) · Law (26 obras)