Investigating child abuse: how interview training really matters

Gathering evidence from children about alleged sex abuse is problematic. Research shows that when ers are trained in a protocol that favours open-ended questions more cases lead to charges and more charges lead to prosecution. The quality of forensic ing practices is of utmost importance if the right of both child victims and innocent suspects are to be protected. Professor Michael Lamb A study of the outcomes of child sex abuse cases in the US state of Utah suggests that the introduction of improved techniques for ing young victims leads to fewer cases being dropped early in the investigative process and results in a greater percentage of prosecutions. The findings support the argument for better training of police ers who have the highly sensitive task of gathering information about traumatic incidents. A paper summarising the study ('Do Case Outcomes Change When Investigative ing Practices Change?') will appear next month (May 2013) in the journal Psychology, Public Policy, and Law . The research was carried out by an international team including Michael Lamb, Professor of Psychology at Cambridge University, who is an expert on children and forensic ing.