Sage Publications, Inc.
2455 Teller Rd.
Thousand Oaks, CA 91320
$49.95 (p)

This book is the twenty-fifth book in the series produced by Sage Publications called Interpersonal Violence: The Practice Series.  The series is edited by Jon Conte.  For this book the author lists twenty-three individuals and a special thanks to the National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse in her acknowledgments of sources of help in writing the book.  The twenty three individuals include prosecutors, judges, attorneys, social workers, and psychologists whose names are familiar as advocates for an approach emphasizing the need to believe children who are complaining witnesses and to seek ways to support and bolster the testimony of children.

The book is a blueprint of the ways in which those committed to prosecution of child sexual abuse will seek to protect, preserve, and present through children the strongest inculpatory evidence possible in criminal trials.  The author suggests a person and a function called a court educator to prepare children for appearances in court and testimony in a trial.  There is an overlap with a victim advocate and sometimes the two terms are used interchangeably.  The book is a series of suggestions for what the court educator / victim advocate can and should do to aid children and their families in the relationship to the court and the justice system.  The underlying assumption throughout the book is that children are terrorized by the court and the justice system and further victimized and traumatized by defendants, defense attorneys, and family and friends of defendants who appear in courtrooms, hearings, and may make covert efforts to frighten, control, or influence a child who is to be a witness.  Throughout the book there are descriptions presented as actual occurrences of children who are the objects of various examples of intimidation.

An example is the discussion of control cuing.  It is represented as factual that some defendants have deliberately set out to control children by training them to respond to cues or triggers.  These are said to be subtle, innocuous behaviors such as clicking a pen, placing an object in a specific position, a gesture, or a specific fragrance.  It is asserted that when a control cue is presented, a child witness freezes, stops, will say nothing more, etc.  I suggest this may be an urban myth, shades of Clockwork Orange and The Manchurian Candidate , transferred to the environment of court and children.  It is redolent of the claims made about satanic ritual abuse and CIA involvement in plots to control minds.  There is no scientific support for this technique nor for the ability to succeed in doing it.  I know of no empirical data suggesting it has ever been actually used by anyone.  Such concepts have been falsified by the absence of any empirical, quantified support for satanic, ritualistic abuse conspiracies.

I have been dealing with sexual abuse perpetrators and victims since 1953.  I have reviewed and analyzed documents, videotapes, and transcripts in over a thousand cases in this country and around the world.  I have never encountered a documented example of the kinds of things this book presents as almost standard operating procedure for defendants.  There are numerous alleged case examples of children being intimidated, terrorized, and traumatized in court by defendants and defense attorneys.  I am forced to acknowledge a rather strong skepticism about the factual basis for these putative examples.

On the other hand, I have encountered numerous examples of behaviors and efforts of victim advocates, prosecutors and attorneys similar to those suggested in this book to prepare children for court.  Some may be understood as earnest but misguided actions while others quite clearly have a profound negative effect upon the reliability and accuracy of children as witnesses.  Although the author in a couple of places gives lip service to the justice system's pursuit of truth, on balance, what is suggested in this book as acceptable practice will most likely obfuscate and obscure truth.

An illustration of this likelihood is the suggested use of "representational dolls".  These are small dolls made of paper and other materials that are suggested for two purposes.  One is for the child to carry in a pocket or purse that is a representation of a person well liked who is a strong supporter and an emotional comfort to the child.  The child is to have this doll while in the witness stand and be able to clutch it and squeeze it at any time fear of the defendant is experienced.  To make such a device, instruct the child how and when to use it, and see to it that it is available during testimony cannot do anything but increase the probability of the child being afraid and being specifically afraid of the defendant.  It is a poorly disguised technique to generate a climate of accusation and judgment toward the defendant.

The second use of "representational dolls" is to make a doll representing the defendant and practice being able to confront the defendant, put it in a shoe box representing a jail, and learn that the defendant is powerless to harm the child.  This can only reinforce a hostile and punitive emotional stance toward the defendant.

This suggestion also is shown to be most likely ineffective with the children by the elegant series of experiments by DeLoache showing that young children cannot use one object to represent another or themselves.  It can only increase the frequency of error.

The possibility of practice in the courtroom and practice of testifying is suggested with some cautions about suggestibility and coaching.  However, the procedure suggested will not eliminate coaching, only make it a bit more subtle and less obvious but nevertheless a powerful coercive impact on a child.

The suggestions for telling parents what to do and not to do with children are simplistic and assume that you can tell people what to do and they do it.  The research evidence demonstrates that apart from videotapes and audiotapes, accounts of what adults say they did in talking to children are not reliable.  This is true of mental health professionals as well as parents.  This is the basis for the statements in the Amicus Curiae brief submitted by 40 social scientists in the Michaels' case in New Jersey that when there are undocumented questionings of children by adults, nothing after that can be accepted as reliable.

This book is something every defense attorney should study carefully.  It will tell what to ask if there has been any preparation of a child for appearance in court.  It will strengthen and increase the ability to show that there has been undue influence on a child and that the issue of admissibility must be carefully weighed and examined by the court.  It may be the basis for a demonstration that a child no longer has an independent recollection of events and can not be relied upon to recount factual knowledge.

The net effect of the practices suggested in this book will be to decrease the reliability of children's court testimony and make it more difficult for the justice system to pursue truth and reach the most accurate decisions possible.  This is not beneficial to children.  In fact, if these techniques should persuade a child who has not been abused that he/she has been abused, that itself is child abuse.  It makes the child a victim just as much as if there had been actual abuse.

Reviewed by Ralph Underwager, Institute for Psychological Therapies.