Should Children Be Allowed to Testify in Court?

One of the most interesting parts of this chapter was the section regarding child testimony in court. It mentioned a study by Myers et. al (1999) that questioned 248 jurors regarding child testimony and adult hearsay testimony. Jurors tend to find adult hearsay witnesses more consistent and credible than the child witnesses, most likely because adults can give more thorough, confident responses to questions asked of them by attorneys. This makes sense to me because most people understand that a child does not always fully comprehend their situation or understand what is being asked of them, especially in a legal setting. It can be hard to have them relive these traumatic experiences and expect the children to provide

Throughout the history of the United States more and more teenagers and children have been put in situations where they have been tried as adults.All of these teenagers and children made a mistake which may have been because of their lack of knowledge or their curiosity as a child.

When do children lose their innocence? It’s a question that has been pondered by many throughout the years. Especially, by criminal psychologists when it comes to whether to try a child as an adult or as a minor. Obviously, this is an argument that involves two sides. The two articles presented had very different views as to whether or not children should be tried as adults or not. The article written by J. Steven Smith “Adult prisons: no place for kids” addresses how children should not be tried as adults because of various reasons. Meanwhile, Jessica Reaves “Should the law treat kids and adults differently?” believes in that it should be the crime that matters not the criminals age. The two

The research that is present on the topic of allowing children to testify in court or being against that idea is persuasive. The literature makes taking a stance in favor of not allowing children to testify in court both easy to come by and provides an insightful knowledge base. There seems to be more evidence in favor of not allowing children to testify in court as it has been shown to have adverse effects on children who do so (Lipovsky & Stern, 1997). The amount of research that is presented is across a variety of differencing samples and differing techniques including interviews, surveys, and general observational techniques. However, one aspect of the research against allowing children to testify that does not help contribute to why

Teenagers in today’s society are getting tried and sentenced as an adult for committing a crime. Many people say that it is wrong to try them as an adult, but others say differently. Being a teenager in today’s society if I were to commit a crime I feel that I should not get tried as an adult. Trying teens as an adult is wrong for many reasons they would be living their entire lives within a cell block, by locking a teen up without teaching them they aren’t gonna learn anything, and finally teens brains aren’t fully developed to the point of rationalism. Students/Teens make many mistakes while growing up, by punishing them to life in prison they won’t be able to learn anything from what they did wrong.

In the last part of the 18th century, children under the age of seven were regarded as being incapable of

This research paper investigates children’s testimony in judicial proceedings throughout the past few decades. An increase in child abuse allegations in the 1980s resulted in mass allegations throughout the United States. As a result, a child is interviewed by law enforcement and social workers regarding what happened during specific incidents. Tactics to acquire the testimony of the children has been up for debate by the judicial system and psychologists. These tactics include suggestibility, repeated questions, or stereotyping that may alter the testimony of children to accommodate interviewers biases, knowingly and unknowingly, resulting in false arrests and imprisonments. Psychological research has initiated a growing concern

after being charged with the rape and beating of a twenty eight year old woman who was jogging in Central Park in New York around 1989. They were interrogated using the Reid technique, all being minors, with no legal counsel present, and after being held for thirty hours in a small, and dim interrogation room. Pressured, intimidated, and exhausted the young teens confessed and were found guilty sentence to forty-one years in prison for a crime they did not commit. Victims or racial conflicts in the 1990 law enforcement, judges, and jury were fast to sentence them and jailed without any proper evidence allowed in the hearing. They were sentenced as adults, being adolescent, becoming nervous by being in jail, and intimidated by police; they

Children under 16 years old, who have committed violent crimes, should not be tried as adults in the United States. Children under 16 should be put in a juvenile court no matter what crime they have committed. The child may know right from wrong, but they shouldn’t be sentenced years in a prison if they are younger than 16. However, they do deserve consequences for their actions, just not as harsh as adult court would make it for the juvenile. The U.S. Government should make a law to keep children under 16 out of adult court.

Throughout time children have been sole witnesses of crimes either committed to them or in their presence. Leaving forensic interviewers with the burden of withdrawing reliable information in the hopes that these children can remember. Forensic interviewers are not completely aware of children’s capacities and limitations when it comes to communication, and therefore are faced to try to withhold as much information through techniques that will elicit testimony.

Over the past 100 years juvenile crime has had its ups and downs and has changed quite a bit. Not only has the types of common crimes changed over the years but also as the type of punishment teens are receiving. Juvenile crime has slowly shifted from theft and petty crimes to being much more violent, children are quick to imitate things they see from television and video games and in todays society where violence is one click away it is easy to see why this is the case. In 2008 about 60% of children who were surveyed in the United States were exposed to violence either through crime, or abuse in their homes, schools, and communities, and approximately 46% of these children were assaulted at least once in the past year (Crimesolutions.gov).

In the court case of every minor, a judge must decide whether or not the minor should be tried as an adult or as a minor, but should this even be an option? James Backstrom argues that minors should be tried as adults to prove that violence in our society will not be tolerated, no matter the age of the perpetrator. However, in my opinion, children are immature, held hostage in toxic environments, and minors are treated differently in other aspects, so it should stay that way when it comes to breaking the law.

Kids seem to be growing up earlier as the years go by. Serious crimes committed by juveniles have stayed pretty much the same in the last twenty years, but that is not to say people have not concluded differently. A thanks to laws passed in the ninety’s and more specifically between ninety two and ninety seven, It is easier to try juveniles as adults in the court system. There are multiple pros and cons to juveniles being tried as adult. These arguments range from a crime is a crime to they are not mentally developed enough to understand completely. These are just a couple of the things to consider when asking if a juvenile should be tried as an adult.

Should people less than eighteen years old (minors/juveniles/adolescents) ever be tried and sentenced as adults?

The Retrieval-induced Forgetting in an Eyewitness Paradigm article is based on an experiment done to test retrieval- induced forgetting. Even though research was done on this topic before, the authors took it one step forward to either prove or deny the theory of retrieval-induced forgetting. They wanted to see if repeated questioning would impact a witnesses’ ability to recall certain events or even specific details. This was done by showing subjects different slides of the aftermath of theft. They were then asked to recall selected details of what they saw several different times. Previous experiments have proven that there are both positive and negative effects to addressing