A multidisciplinary empirical study of how juvenile justice standards were operationalised by the state and UNICEF in post-genocide Rwanda.

This book, the first to examine the experience of child victims & their families who attempt to seek justice in America's courts, offers practical reforms that would bring greater sensitivity & justice to the legal process. Reviewing American legal history & the equivocal treatment of children & sex crimes, Dziech & Schudson explain how current courtroom procedures often fail to acknowledge a child's abilities & needs, & how child witnesses are often re-victimized by the legal system that is supposed to help them. They argue that there is no justification for subjecting abused children to a second round of trauma -- in court. This important book recommends sweeping changes to assure justice for children, their families, & those accused of harming them.

On August 12, 1983, Judy Johnson called the police and told them her two-year-old son had been sexually abused at Virginia McMartin''s Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California. Mrs. Johnson accused a teacher, Raymond Buckey. After searching the school and the homes of the owners and teachers, police distributed a letter to parents of children attending the McMartin Preschool urging them to ask their children if they had witnessed any acts of sexual molestation by Buckey. The result was mass hysteria.Although the children denied being molested or witnessing any molestations, the D.A.''s office began sending them to a private clinic to be interviewed by "evaluators" and examined by pediatricians. Parents were then informed that every child who had attended the McMartin Preschool had been sexually abused, which led to charges being filed against Virginia McMartin, Peggy McMartin Buckey, Raymond and Peggy Ann Buckey and three other teachers at the school. During the hearings, children described how teachers had raped them, forced them to engage in satanic rituals, and slaughtered animals before their eyes. The ensuing trial triggered a nationwide epidemic of child sexual abuse cases with allegations of infants being raped by devil worshippers and of blood sacrifices. The McMartin trial itself clogged the courts for over seven years and cost taxpayers over sixteen million dollars.None of the allegations were true. Investigative journalists Paul and Shirley Eberle witnessed the McMartin Trial and uncovered stunning amounts of prosecutorial misconduct, all revealed in this disturbing book.

The Great Terror (1937-38) in the Soviet Union occupies a central role in the history of twentieth-century mass violence. During a sixteen-month period, the Stalin regime arrested over 1.5 million people, mostly on trumped-up charges of "counterrevolutionary" and "anti-Soviet" activity, of whom about half were summarily executed and the rest were sent to the Gulag. While we now know a great deal about the experience of victims, we know almost nothing about the perpetrators. One explanation for this lacuna is that there were no public trials-no equivalent of the postwar prosecution of Nazi war criminals-of Soviet perpetrators. Yet there were secret trials of NKVD (secret police) officials, the subject of this new book by eminent Soviet historian Lynne Viola. In what has been dubbed "the purge of the purgers," almost one thousand secret police officers were prosecuted by Soviet military courts for violations of Soviet criminal procedure. They were charged with multiple counts of fabrication of evidence, falsification of interrogation protocols, use of torture to secure "confessions," and murders during pre-trial detention of "suspects."0.

Grounded in the latest clinical and developmental knowledge, this book brings together leading authorities to examine the critical issues that arise when children and adolescents become involved in the justice system. Chapters explore young people’s capacities, competencies, and special vulnerabilities as victims, witnesses, and defendants. Key topics include the reliability of children’s abuse disclosures, eyewitness testimony, interviews, and confessions; the evolving role of the expert witness; the psychological impact of trauma and of legal involvement; factors that shape jurors’ perceptions of children; and what works in rehabilitating juvenile offenders. Policies and practices that are not supported by science are identified, and approaches to improving them are discussed.

Childhood Sexual Abuse critically reviews research into and provides a concise and clear guide to our current knowledge on the topic. The issues covered include: the prevalence of child sexual abuse; who molests children; the effects of such abuse, both immediate and long-term; the risk factors for abuse; and the influences and interventions that may amplify or ameliorate the impact of child sexual abuse on the victim. Areas of debate, such as the false memory syndrome, are approached in terms of the research data relevant to their resolution. This volume sets out to inform rather than advocate, discusses the methodologies of research as well as their results, highlights the limitations and the extent of current information, and points out how we can learn more about child sexual abuse.

To assist investigators and prosecutors, APRI's National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse—the nation's premiere trainer of child abuse prosecutors and investigators—presents the Investigation and Prosecution of Child Abuse, Third Edition. Readers of this manual will receive practical, common sense assistance in handling child abuse cases from the initial report to the closing argument at trial. Appendices on the enclosed CD-ROM include hundreds of sample motions and other legal documents that can be adapted to the jurisdiction of individual readers. Now in its Third Edition, the manual contains the latest in case law and research on nearly every facet of child sexual abuse, physical abuse and neglect. This is the only book on the market specifically geared to investigators and prosecutors called upon to handle abuse cases.