CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION AND SEXUAL ABUSE

From a criminal justice perspective, crimes referred to as “sexual assault” or “sex crimes” are improperly named. In reality, they have little to do with sex except that genitals were involved or the male genital was the weapon of choice.

If you read Private Pain: Public Domain (Gail’s story) you will understand how little childhood sexual abuse has to do with sex. It is about violence, abuse and violation. It is more about terror and torture.

Investigating childhood sexual abuse, molestation, and incest  can create problems for law enforcement. There is often little physical evidence and a lot of suspicion. There is also great difficulty interviewing the victim and the perpetrator because, most times, they are related. 

Mothers are sometimes the biggest obstacle in a CSA case. There is usually great reluctance from family members to cooperate and this brings on one of the greatest challenges.

It is also sometimes difficult to interview the victim/child:

• children between 18 and 22 months of age engage in only brief and sparse statements
• preschoolers often cannot answer why, when, or how questions, have difficulty with yes-or-no questions and have limited understanding of auxillary verbs
• children between 5 and 10 years are conversational but sometimes misinterpret the meaning of words
• prior to the age of 7 few children have mastered time, calendar dates, frequency, or sequence, and usually have difficulty piecing together all the details of the sexual abuse
• they also have difficulty answering why questions, children just dont have those powers of analysis

Therefore, when interviewing children who are victims of sexual assault or sex abuse, it is important to:

• make sure the child understands all the concepts
• such as who, what, where, when, how, how many times, time of the day, position of clothing, and position of bodies
• use open-ended questions (e.g., what did daddy do that was not nice, or what are pee-pees for (you will be quite surprised how such a simple question can bring a most shocking answer when the child responds “licking”, when you licked uncle’s pee-pee what room where you in?)
• stay away from overly directive questions or leading questions which are coercive, making it clear to the child the response you want (e.g., “your daddy made you touch his thing didn’t he?
• build rapport, this is so important, because the interview is not a one-shot deal and you may have to re-interview the child
• use sexually anatomically correct dolls (if available, these are widely available and can be purchased online from a variety of vendors and manufactures)
• these dolls are very useful in helping younger children express themselves on sexually explicit topics
• however, I would advise that only skillful police, social workers, clinicians, psychologists use these dolls when conducting interviews since the dolls don’t come with instructions
• neither the doll or its use are standardised or accompanied by any normative data
• there are no uniform standards of conducting interviews with an anatomical doll (just years of experience interviewing) 

Physical evidence is often minimal in CSA cases. But there are some tell tale signs that lead parents and the authorities to a suspicion of CSA:

• nightmares
• bed-wetting 
• urinary tract infections
• sexually transmitted diseases

THE PHYSICIAN

• is key in a CSA case
• the physician’s ability to examine the victim
• and document findings of sexual abuse are of critical importance 
• it is sometimes very difficult for children to testify
• there is often an unwilligness of family members to support the investigation
• there is a tendency of CSA victims to retract accusations
• so physical evidence and medical testimony are particulary important in building a case 

CHILD PSYCHOLOGIST

• also play a critical role in a CSA case
• they assist the investigation by pointing out specific behaviour patterns associated with this type of crime (defense/coping mechanisms, psycological collusion, the phases of CSA, the M.O. of the perpetrator, etc.)
• they conduct the forensic assessment/interview of the child which is critical to court proceedings
• provide expert psychological testimony on the stand

Interesting Note:

There have been incest cases where the child/victim got pregnant and the pregnancy was terminated to hide the sexual abuse but the fetus became a source of DNA to identify the perpetrator.

This issue is handled here only in brief, it is very extensive, however, if you are particularly interested in CSI for CSA, or CSI, in general, email Renee Cummings

therapeuticjurisprudence@hotmail.com probonotherapy@earthlink.net