Child Abuse and the Law - Problems For The Prosecutor

For the prosecutor's office, child abuse can present many problems. The foremost is that the victim is a child. This becomes an even greater problem when the victim is very young (from birth to age six), since the question of competency arises. More and more studies have examined children's reliability in recalling and retelling past events. Researchers have found that different settings and interview techniques may result in children remembering different details at different times.

The prosecutor may also worry about the possible harm the child may suffer in having to relive the abuse and in being interrogated by adversarial defense attorneys. If the child is an adolescent making accusations of sexual abuse, the defendant's attorney may accuse the teenage victim of seducing the defendant or having willingly taken part in the acts.

Other factors that prosecutors must consider include the slowness of the court process and the possibility that the case may be delayed, not just once, but several times. This is hard enough for adults to tolerate, but it is particularly difficult for children. The delay prolongs the child's pain. Children may become more reluctant to testify or may no longer be able to retell their stories accurately. There is a far greater difference between a thirty-one-year-old testifying about something that happened when he or she was twenty-six and an eleven-year-old retelling an event that happened at six years of age. Prosecutors are also obliged to keep the child's best interests in mind and to try and preserve the family.

Prosecuting Child Sexual Abuse

Prosecuting a child sexual abuse case is particularly challenging. A child who has been physically abused will often display unmistakable signs of the abuse, such as broken bones. Sexual abuse does not necessarily leave such visible marks. So the abuse is less likely to have been noticed by others and is more difficult to verify once an accusation has been made.

Many other difficulties exist. For example, physical abusers will sometimes admit to having "disciplined" their children by striking them, or have actually been seen committing abusive acts in public. Sexual abusers almost never admit to their actions when confronted, and their abuse always takes place in secret. Another major difficulty is that young children who have little or no knowledge of sex may have trouble understanding, let alone explaining in a courtroom, what was done to them.