Children's Memory And Testimony example essay topic

Over the last thirty years, the idea of children as witnesses and the accuracy of their testimony has been widely debated. People are asking themselves if the memories of young children, specifically between the ages of five and ten, can be accurate and in return trusted. So, can children's memory and testimony be accurate? Prolific amounts of research have been conducted in an attempt to answer this question. Most of the research suggests that unfortunately we can not rely on their accurate recall in testimony. I would have to say I agree with the findings.

The current anxiety about the validity of children's testimony in court stems mostly from heavily publicized cases of child molestation during the 1980's (Meyer, 1997). As a result of society's reaction to dramatic increases in reports of abuse and neglect, children increasingly are being admitted as witnesses in juvenile and criminal proceedings (Ceci & de Bruyn, 1993). Each year hundreds of thousands of children in North America become entangled in the legal system. Often these children testify about the alleged actions of a parent, teacher, baby-sitter, relative or neighbor. And when this happens, the case is often decided on the basis of the relative credibility of the child versus the defendant.

Regardless of whether such testimony is made in forensic interviews, during preliminary hearings, or at trial, it may result in life altering decisions for all involved (Ceci & Bruck, 1995). The issue of children's veracity is not new to the courtroom. There were cases in Puritan times in which youngsters' testimony was responsible for the imprisonment and execution of a number of individuals accused of being witches (Meyer, 1997). Because of this, for both theoretical and practical reasons, many child psychologists, legal professionals, and others have long sought to understand more fully the extent to which young children are able to recall their experiences and to report on them accurately.

As part of this effort, there has also been a great interest in learning more about the developmental course through which young children acquire the capacity (Stern, Stern, & Lamiell, 1999). To thoroughly understand the subject, we must look closely at several aspects and effects of children as witnesses in the legal system. First, we must look at the cognition of children. We have to understand their mental development and comprehension, as well as their memory and recall abilities. Second, we must look at the affects of being a witness not only on the legal system but also on the child as an individual. Children could be further traumatized emotionally and physically by involvement as a witness.

Finally, we need to closely look at how the legal system is set up and how well children fit into this system. Are witness procedures set up in a way that children can understand and accurately give their testimony? These are the things that need to be looked at closely to determine if children can be reliable and credible witnesses in court. Because of the greater involvement of child witnesses in legal settings, it is important to know whether their recollections of an event can be trusted (Koriat et. al, 2001). This is a question that obviously can not be answered with a simple yes or no answer.

However we can look at the way in which children develop cognitively to help us better understand the way in which children think and understand the world around them. We know that children are lacking in experience as compared to adults. A four year old just has much less life experience than a 16 year old. Younger children are not able to detect subtle differences like, implications and sarcasm in conversation.

In addition, children being less cognitively developed have immature and less concrete schemes. These schemes may change constantly through your life, but they change at an even more accelerated rate as a child. Jean Piaget the leader in research on children's mental development said the half-century he spent with children convinced him that the child's mind is not a miniature model of the adult's. Young children understand the world in radically different ways than adults do, a fact we sometimes overlook (Myers, 1996). Piaget found people have mental structures that determine how data and new information are perceived.

He found that from birth to adulthood we mentally develop in stages. Children from birth to about age 12 go through the stages of self-orientation, and have an egocentric view. Children can use these skills only to view the world from their own perspective. They are not yet able to perform on abstract problems. They do not consider all possible outcomes. If we consider this development, it could have serious effects on a child's testimony.

The child may not be intentionally lying in giving false testimony, but has not yet developed the mental skills needed to understand what they are specifically saying and its ramifications. Children only understand things in the context of their world. They cannot comprehend what affect their words could have on the defendant's future. Which makes them much less of a credible witness than an adult. Children's comprehension is at a different level than that of adults, so children can also have problems understanding the questions asked in a courtroom. Because they do not completely understand subtleties in things like conversations, or questions like those that might be asked of them when they are testifying in a courtroom.

This can lead to further skewing of the testimony. When children do not fully understand a question they typically answer the bit they do, usually the beginning or end, which can lead to inaccuracies. Furthermore, children are prone to comprehension failure, since they do not have the developmental capacity to be able to determine when they do not fully understand a question, and therefore request clarification. It should also be remembered that at school children are encouraged to guess answers, a practice which in the forensic context can have serious consequences (S attar & Bull, 1996).

As discussed before, it is questionable whether children are fully capable of understanding what is meant in the oath when it is said, "the truth the whole truth and noting but the truth". Because of their lack of development and schemes they might unknowingly lie. Also, because of their lack of development as compared to adults, they may not fully understand what their duty is, as a witness. Younger children do not have the capacity to see and understand all that being a witness encompasses. For example answering each question clearly and directly. Moreover, because they are still in an egocentric place in development it is hard for them to grasp the consequences of their testimony, which can lead to false reports.

It is difficult for them to see the big picture as previously discussed, and how much weight their testimony carries, and the ramifications of false or altered testimony. Sine the cognitive abilities of a child and their comprehension levels are not fully developed they do not make good witnesses. Unlike adults, they cannot accurately understand what is being asked of them. And this combination of lower level comprehension and mental development can lead to memory and recall errors. Because an ever-growing number of victims and eyewitnesses are children, the increasingly volatile issue becomes the accuracy or dependability of children's memory. So far, however, research has failed to yield a consistent picture regarding the presumed inferiority of children's memory (Koriat et al, 2001).

The findings on children's accuracy are conflicting. Some studies show that children's memory is less accurate than adults are and others have failed to find adequate evidence showing children's memory to be grossly inferior to adults. As far as the amount of remembered information is concerned, there does however seems to be a consensus that children are generally inferior to adults in the extent to which they can provide a complete account of past events (Kori at et al, 2001). One study performed by Karen Saywitz shows that age does make a difference in recall. Seventy-two students were chosen to participate in the study: twenty-four subjects each in third, sixth, and ninth or tenth grade.

The subjects were tested on two occasions. At the initial time of measurement, they listened to a crime episode story presented on audiotape and then received three written tasks that followed the presentation of the story. They were a free-recall task, a recognition task, and then six direct questions about a specific character. Five days later the free-recall and recognition tasks were. Subjects were then asked to describe the character in as much detail as possible. A grade related pattern of errors emerged on a number of tasks in which third graders differed significantly form sixth and ninth graders.

As expected, the free recall of third graders was less complete, and significantly more omission and fewer information was accurately recalled (Ceci, Toggle, & Ross, 1987). We know that children are not inherently liars. When asked question or to give information children overall do not tend to lie. And as anyone who has had contact with a child knows, they do have the ability to remember events accurately, but also can easily be confused about events and blend different events together. The problem does not exist so much in the actual memory of the child, as much as how it can be more easily confused and misguided than an adult can. Children can easily add details to an event.

In fact, on memory tasks involving recall, it was found that children do make more errors of commission than adults. Again, the reason for this is that young children have not yet developed the organizational strategies that adults use to aid in remembering (Brainerd & Ornstien, 1991). Children are also much more prone to errors of omission. Children can also just as easily omit details for much the same reason, lack of detailed schemes. When compared to adults, children are assumed to notice less, omit more, and forget faster (Wrights man, Neitzel, & Fortune, 1998).

Another issue that children have with their memory as compared to adults is in providing narrative description. Studies find that children are less skilled than adults in providing a free narrative description of what they observed. When children are asked to distinguish memories of their own ideas from ideas suggested to them, they were at a marked disadvantage. Also, when they are asked to "think real hard" about or to visualize events that they do not remember, children can come to "remember" and then present a detailed, coherent narrative of events that never occurred (Ceci & Bruck, 1995). These are some main factors in dealing with children's memories that can make a child an unreliable witness in a courtroom.

Because children can easily add or subtract information from perhaps a real event or memory it makes it hard to access the truth of their testimony. Then when you add to the equation that when providing narrative descriptions, children are not as accurate and are more prone to suggestibility it can lead to major problems and stress, not only for the defendant, but for the child witness. The problem with having children serve, as a witness is the fact that the legal system as it stands today is a bad fit for a child. The way that witnesses are treated, the manner in which information is elicited from them, and how questions are asked does not fit the mental capacities of a child. When cross-examining a child witness leading questions are allowed, unlike cross-examinations of adults. This makes no sense given our knowledge of how children respond to this type of questioning.

This leads to false testimony in the case of the child witness. It has been shown that children can respond to leading questions with false testimony. Misleading information in a leading question may meld with original memory and cause an altered and incorrect response. In general, research studies indicate that young children are more suggestible than adults (Ceci & Bruck, 1995). Witnesses are also subject to repeated and powerful methods of questioning. This type of questioning is likely to lead to false reports.

When young children are subjected to the repeated and powerful methods of suggestion that are often used in criminal investigations, a substantial percent can be led into making false reports of an event that never took place (Ceci & Bruck, 1995). Also this form of questioning provides information not given by the child, which can sway the child to give false testimony. This in turn leading to the jury to an incorrect verdict. It just introduces to much new information to the child that can be easily confused with the actual memory of the child.

Also used in questioning of children in the technique of guided imagery. The problem with this is that it leads to free narratives. And as discussed before free narratives can lead to false testimony. Narrative also plays on the child's imagination, or sense of fantasy. The line between fact and fantasy in a child's mind is much more blurry than in the mind of an adult (Garry & Pola snek, 2000). Although some of what they are saying in the narrative may be truthful, the very act of asking, "to imagine" leads to fantasy and may make imaginary events seem real to the child.

These techniques used in interviewing child witnesses by the legal system makes a child's testimony less accurate and credible. Studies seem to show that children as witness are not very reliable. Of course, they can remember events and tell the truth, but the stress and constraints we put them under makes it difficult to gain the complete story. This being true makes it hard for the defendant to really have a fair trial.

This has happened repeatedly in the United States. People being accused by children and parents of sexual abuse. This all seems to lead to the fact that children do not make reliable or credible witnesses in court. That is unless they were questioned under very strict guidelines that would take into consideration the many variables that can affect their testimony.

But because of the way our legal system is currently set up this is unlikely to happen, which is unfortunate for those children who really have witnesses a crime, or been victimized. It comes down to a cost benefit ratio. If you were falsely accused of such a heinous crime as child sexual abuse, would you want the child testifying given all that their memories can succumb to?

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