Defense Attorneys’ Implicit Questioning of Minor Complainants in CSA Trials

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Description
ABSTRACT It is unclear how often defense attorneys ask child complainants questions with implied meanings. The present study examined the frequency and content of implied questions asked to 6- to 17-year-old children and analyzed how often children rebutted…

ABSTRACT It is unclear how often defense attorneys ask child complainants questions with implied meanings. The present study examined the frequency and content of implied questions asked to 6- to 17-year-old children and analyzed how often children rebutted these questions. This study focused on cross-examinations (N = 122) of child complainants in Child Sexual Assault (CSA) trials. Content analysis revealed prevalent themes of implicit questions that alluded to child complainants having ulterior motives, having been coached, being untruthful, missing disclosure opportunities, having poor memory, and other credibility issues. Implicit questions were posed in 63% of cases, with children rebutting only 11% of implied inquiries. No significant correlations were found between the age of the child testifying and the frequency of implicit questions or rebuttals. However, as children age they are more frequently asked questions related to truthfulness and credibility issues and are less frequently asked implicit inquiries about coaching. These findings present novel evidence that children are frequently asked difficult to answer implicit questions that imply the child has ulterior motives, and that attorneys change the focus of the content of their implicit questions by age.
Date Created
2024
Agent

Anaphoric Language and Children’s Developing Abilities to Backwards Reference in Criminal Cases of Alleged Child Sexual Abuse

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Description
When questioning children during courtroom testimony, attorneys are instructed to use questions that are short and simple to address children’s cognitive abilities; however, this typically leads to anaphora. Anaphora occurs when a word is substituted for a previously mentioned word,…

When questioning children during courtroom testimony, attorneys are instructed to use questions that are short and simple to address children’s cognitive abilities; however, this typically leads to anaphora. Anaphora occurs when a word is substituted for a previously mentioned word, phrase, or concept. For example, the pronoun “he” in “Bill is moving to New York. He is very excited.” indicates an anaphora since the word “he” replaces the name Bill. When asked a question that includes a pronoun-specific anaphora, the respondent must use cognitive skills to refer back to the initial referent. This likely means that as the number of conversational turns between the initial referent and the end of the reference increases, there will be more probable miscommunications between children and attorneys in cases of alleged Child Sexual Abuse (CSA). In this thesis, I analyzed 40 testimonies from cases of alleged child sexual abuse (5-10 years old, 90% female), located attorney use of pronoun anaphora, backward reference distances, and identified probable misunderstandings. I identified 137 probable misunderstandings within 2,940 question-answer pairs that included pronoun anaphora. Attorneys averaged 4.1 questions before clarifying the referent (SD = 10.14), sometimes extending up to 146 lines, leading to considerable backwards referencing. The distance between the anaphora and referent had a significant effect on misunderstandings, where each additional Q-A pair made misunderstandings more likely to occur. To reduce misunderstanding, attorneys should avoid pronoun anaphora of excessive length that require children to backward reference.
Date Created
2023
Agent

Examining the Importance of Teachers in Attitudes Towards the Law

Description
Legal socialization examines how people acquire their views about the law. A key tenet within this field is that fair interactions with nonlegal authorities, such as teachers, influence people’s legal values (i.e., the ubiquity hypothesis) which subsequently influences how people…

Legal socialization examines how people acquire their views about the law. A key tenet within this field is that fair interactions with nonlegal authorities, such as teachers, influence people’s legal values (i.e., the ubiquity hypothesis) which subsequently influences how people judge legal authority later in life. This study uses data from the New Hampshire Youth Survey to test the ubiquity hypothesis. Participants completed measures of how procedurally just their teachers were in general, as well as the procedural justice of their least and favorite teachers. Approximately 45 days later, they participated in an experiment where they read a vignette describing an interaction between a police officer and a young adult. Participants read vignettes where the officer either did or did not give a voice to the young adult and did or did not behave in a neutral manner. After reading the vignette, participants were asked to judge the procedural justice and legitimacy of the officer. The results indicated students’ judgments of the officer’s procedural justice were not influenced by prior experiences with teacher procedural justice. Judgments of officer legitimacy, on the other hand, were associated with teacher procedural justice, specifically participant’s least favorite teacher. These results indicate a more nuanced view of the ubiquity hypothesis than has been portrayed by legal socialization scholars whereby prior experiences with nonlegal authority affect some legal judgments but not others.
Date Created
2023-05
Agent

Relationships and the Self-Efficacy of Youth on Probation

Description

Justice involved youth are an extremely important and vulnerable population. This alone makes understanding the systems they interact with even more vital due to the power those systems may have in the development of youth’s lives. Research suggests that social…

Justice involved youth are an extremely important and vulnerable population. This alone makes understanding the systems they interact with even more vital due to the power those systems may have in the development of youth’s lives. Research suggests that social relationships impact youth development (Bronfenbrenner, 1977), including for justice-involved youth (Drake et al., 2014). However, gaps in literature exist in assessing multiple adult relationships for youth and measuring self-efficacy rather than probational success. The current study addresses these gaps in the literature with a sample of youth on probation (N = 889). Data came from two sources: self-report surveys from youth and official record data from the jurisdiction’s risk/needs assessment tools. Paired t-tests were administered to test the comparative levels of support between youth and the adults in their lives. It was found that youth and probation officer support had the strongest correlation. Then, linear regressions were utilized to assess relationship quality and youth self-efficacy. It was found that probation officer relationship quality was strongest in correlating to youth self-efficacy. Multiple regressions were also administered to analyze the moderation impact of probationary officer relationship quality and school employee relationship quality in relation to parent relationship quality. No statistically significant results were found. Findings suggest the importance of proximal relationships to youth and the critical importance of the probationary officer relationship to youth who are on probation.

Date Created
2023-05
Agent

Honors Thesis:
An Analysis on Violence, Adverse Childhood Experiences, and Stress Perception

Description

Background: ACEs has been associated with stress and violence in prior research. More research is needed to set up gender differences between males and females displaying violence and stress in response to ACEs. Objectives: This study investigated the effects of…

Background: ACEs has been associated with stress and violence in prior research. More research is needed to set up gender differences between males and females displaying violence and stress in response to ACEs. Objectives: This study investigated the effects of ACEs and gender on exhibited frequencies of violence and stress within youth. Methods: This study used descriptive statistics and regression to examine the relationships between gender and aces on violence and stress using data from the Arizona Youth Survey (AYS). Interactions were included to evaluate if gender moderated the effect of ACEs. Results: Analyses showed that ACEs significantly impacted youths’ engagement in violence and experiences of stress. Additionally, boys engaged in more violence while girls experienced increased stress. Interaction effects were not substantial as compared to the main effects of ACEs and gender. Conclusion: Given the results, youth interventions should focus on the overall impact of ACEs, regardless of gender.

Date Created
2023-05
Agent

Reassessing the Nature of Fairness Judgments of Police Officers: The Importance of Autonomy and Bounded Authority

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Description
This thesis expands on Procedural Justice Theory (PJT), which argues that all else equal, judgments of fairness are most strongly motivated by process and relational factors of an interaction. This includes neutral, consistent, and transparent decision-making as well as respectful…

This thesis expands on Procedural Justice Theory (PJT), which argues that all else equal, judgments of fairness are most strongly motivated by process and relational factors of an interaction. This includes neutral, consistent, and transparent decision-making as well as respectful and dignified interpersonal treatment. The bounded authority perspective argues that judgments of fairness are also influenced by evaluations of police respecting the boundaries of their authority and not overstepping into domains under personal jurisdiction. This study tests this argument using an online convenience sample (n =1048) recruited from Prolific Academic. Respondents completed surveys at three time points between April and June of 2020 that included measures of procedural justice, distributive justice, bounded authority, and overall fairness judgments of the police. Across all three waves, results showed that procedural justice, distributive justice, and bounded authority had strong positive associations with police fairness. Procedural justice had a significantly stronger association than either distributive justice or bounded authority, while the latter factors were not significantly different. I discuss the implications for our criminal justice and directions for future research as well the need for a representative sample and use of experimental design to clarify the impact of bounded authority concerns.
Date Created
2022-12
Agent

Mental Illness, Substance Use, & Treatment: An Examination of Gender-related Differences in Juvenile Delinquency

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Description
The number of girls in the juvenile justice system is rising; they make up the fastest-growing demographic within the juvenile justice system. Yet regardless of their rising numbers, current treatment plans, screening tools, and diversion programs do not adequately address…

The number of girls in the juvenile justice system is rising; they make up the fastest-growing demographic within the juvenile justice system. Yet regardless of their rising numbers, current treatment plans, screening tools, and diversion programs do not adequately address the mental health problems that girls are six times more likely to experience than boys. Internalized suffering in the form of depression, mood disorders, and anxiety are significantly more prevalent for girls than for boys. Girls are also more likely to be suicidal and at risk of sexual exploitation and abuse. Despite the need for interventions and treatment options that consider these gender-related differences, there is limited research on this subject. The present study explores whether mental illness, substance use, and treatment influence criminal activity. Further, it examines how gender influences these relationships. Through use of logistic regression and data from the 2004 National Household Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), the present study finds that mental illness, substance use, and treatment influences criminal activity. Furthermore, gender influences these relationships. The present study's findings indicate elevated risks of criminal involvement for youths using alcohol and marijuana, especially for males. Further, there are higher risk factors for becoming criminally involved for males who get into a serious fight at school or work. Therefore, those caring for youths, especially male youths, need to pay attention to any signs of alcohol and or marijuana use and intervene sooner rather than later.
Date Created
2022
Agent

Public Perceptions of Life Without Parole for Juvenile Offenders

Description

This study will research public perceptions of life without parole (LWOP) for juvenile offenders by gauging levels of support for juvenile LWOP adult LWOP. It will also focus on if there is a certain age that the public feels are…

This study will research public perceptions of life without parole (LWOP) for juvenile offenders by gauging levels of support for juvenile LWOP adult LWOP. It will also focus on if there is a certain age that the public feels are appropriate to sentence a juvenile to LWOP. A nationally representative sample of adult and youth will be used to gauge opinions using a randomized controlled vignette study design to measure support or lack thereof for juvenile LWOP. Results will identify how much the public supports LWOP for adult and juvenile offenders, as well as the youngest age person can be before receiving and LWOP sentence. Furthermore, the results will indicate if individuals believe these specific factors are enough to eliminate juvenile LWOP.

Date Created
2022-05
Agent
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