Comment following information Although this may not be a single point in conside
ID: 3471854 • Letter: C
Question
Comment following information Although this may not be a single point in consideration of a "best practice", I think that anyone who makes contact with the child eyewitness should first start off the relationship by building rapport. Generally speaking, when rapport is built during a relationship, there is a level of greater communication anda sense of mutual trust. I feel that building rapportis especially necessary for young children who have social anxiety or have fear towards strangers. After rapport has been made, I think that free recall and nonleading questions are the best avenues of approach to preserve the integrity of the child's memory. When suggestive questions are asked or implied, I feel as if a child would agree to false statements due to their inability to understand the complexity and level of seriousness involved with the crime. Free recall questions are typically correct and when asked in an open-ended manner, children may recall a particular event. Another thing that I feel is extremely important, is to protect the vulnerability of a child by not compromising their memory through the means of suggestive information. I would expect that most children would already be uncomfortable talking to a police officer/investigator and that their little minds are already overwhelmed with emotions/confusion. Finally, one word that comes to mind throughout any type of interrogation of a child is "steamrolling" due to distractions. These distractions for the child could come from wanting to play with toys, eat ice cream, or simply being uncomfortable and this may lead to false information.Explanation / Answer
Another important factor concerning child eye witness is the delay between the incident and statement. Although events can be verbally recalled after a long delay, the overall accuracy of children's eyewitness reports will be higher when witnesses are able to present their evidence within a short time frame after the incident has occurred. In fact, the time frame should be smaller for younger children, due to the greater loss in accuracy of their reports.