{"title":"Opinions of legal professionals: Comparing child and adult witnesses’ memory report capabilities","authors":"Jens Knutsson , Carl Martin Allwood","doi":"10.1016/j.ejpal.2014.06.001","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The opinions of legal professionals about child and adult witnesses might influence the likelihood that a case is allowed to proceed through the different stages of the legal process. With the aim of knowing the opinions of legal practitioners about child and adult witnesses, 84 legal professionals (Swedish police, prosecutors, and attorneys) were surveyed about their beliefs about child and adult eyewitness memory (and metamemory) abilities. The respondents answered 27 questions relating to nine forensically relevant belief areas in which they compared the memory ability of children (ages 7 to 11 years) and adults. The results showed no differences in assessment among members of different professions and a general trend suggesting that, across the professions, children were believed to be poorer witnesses than adults regarding their memory abilities. Moreover, the professionals’ within-group consensus was very low. These results are discussed in the context of eyewitness research findings and with respect to the implications for both legal and research practice.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46030,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Psychology Applied To Legal Context","volume":"6 2","pages":"Pages 79-89"},"PeriodicalIF":7.6000,"publicationDate":"2014-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.ejpal.2014.06.001","citationCount":"15","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"European Journal of Psychology Applied To Legal Context","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S188918611400002X","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"LAW","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 15
Abstract
The opinions of legal professionals about child and adult witnesses might influence the likelihood that a case is allowed to proceed through the different stages of the legal process. With the aim of knowing the opinions of legal practitioners about child and adult witnesses, 84 legal professionals (Swedish police, prosecutors, and attorneys) were surveyed about their beliefs about child and adult eyewitness memory (and metamemory) abilities. The respondents answered 27 questions relating to nine forensically relevant belief areas in which they compared the memory ability of children (ages 7 to 11 years) and adults. The results showed no differences in assessment among members of different professions and a general trend suggesting that, across the professions, children were believed to be poorer witnesses than adults regarding their memory abilities. Moreover, the professionals’ within-group consensus was very low. These results are discussed in the context of eyewitness research findings and with respect to the implications for both legal and research practice.
期刊介绍:
The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context, the official journal of the Sociedad Española de Psicología Jurídica y Forense [Spanish Society of Forensic Psychology] and the Asociación Iberoamericana de Justicia Terapéutica [Latin-American Association of Therapeutic Jurisprudence], publishes empirical articles and meta-analytic reviews of topics dealing with psychology and law (e.g., legal decision making, eyewitness).
The journal is aimed at researchers, academics and professionals in Psychology, Law, Social Work, Forensic Sciences, Educators and, in general, people related with Social Sciences and the Law.