Criminal Investigation Aspects of Child Sexual Abuse Evidence Detection and Collection.

摘要

Sexual violence against children is a problem of society and of individuals. In spite of modern society's growing detection sensitivity to child sexual abuse, children are still often victims of such criminal offenses. Qualitative and quantitative research methods used in examining the research question of this doctoral thesis focusing on criminal investigation aspects of child sexual abuse evidence detection and collection provided a more comprehensive insight into the research problem and increased the validity and reliability of the data. The study conducted in 2010 and 2011 in Slovenia was divided into two parts. The first, a review of 70 randomly selected cases from 2003, focused on examining police, prosecution and court records pertaining to all the stages of the procedure, from the detection to the conclusion in a pre-trial or trial procedure, provided a broader insight into this problem and helped identify the key problems and dilemmas in detection, investigation and providing of evidence of child sexual abuse. In the second part, a focus group interview with prosecutors and criminal investigators of child sexual abuse cases was conducted to gain insight into the practice of investigating and proving child sexual abuse, as well as to learn, through their experience, about the problems they encounter in their work. The study limitations were mainly the lack of data in some police, prosecutors' and court records, and the absence of judges in the focus group interview.;The study indicated that the suspects are mostly men aged 34.7 years at the beginning of the abuse and 36.6 years at the disclosure, on the average. The victims, mostly females, were between 7 and 13 years of age. The most common place of child sexual abuse was a closed site in domestic settings. Most of the abuse spanned three or more episodes, which indicates that child sexual abuse is a process in which the victims are sexually abused over a longer period of time. Some 84 percent of child sexual abuse suspects were familiar with the child before the abuse. However, child sexual abuse within the family was detected in 39 per cent of cases. The most frequent form of child sexual abuse was touching. Physical force was used in 19 percent of all cases, but in 61 percent of the cases the victims did not show any physical signs of abuse. Child sexual abuse was most often disclosed by the victims themselves, and they most often disclosed the abuse also in the cases where the reporters were adults. The findings indicated that child sexual abuse victims are more comfortable to disclose abuse when the alleged perpetrators are not family members. In criminal proceedings, it is important to determine credibility of the victim's testimony because in most cases physical evidence is not present. The reasons for a lack of evidence lie primarily in the fact that such offenses are not reported immediately after the abuse and that the great majority of them occur within closed sites of domestic settings, which additionally obstructs evidence detection and collection. The judgement of conviction is influenced by a victim's testimony on the particular instance of sexual abuse, an expert's opinion on the child's alleged sexual abuse, as well as on the presence of any material, personal and circumstantial evidence. The research indicated that the presence of material evidence influences the outcome of the trial, because in most cases not ending with a conviction criminal charges are based only on personal evidence. However, the data confirm the hypothesis that in most cases ending with a suspended judgment material evidence is not present. Further, a defendant's guilty plea and a child's age have no effect on the outcome of the trial. Nevertheless, the expertise and expert witnesses' solid testimony in court did prove to bear important impact on the trial outcome, especially in the cases where no other evidence is available and when it is necessary to determine whether the child was sexually abused or not. Also important is the persistence of judges, as they have the responsibility to examine the various opinions of experts, victims, defendants, and others, and to provide a high quality service even in the cases that last several years.;In Slovenia, a study on criminal investigation aspects of child sexual abuse evidence detection and collection has not yet been made until now. Abroad, such studies are very rare as well, which is why this study is an important contribution to the field of criminal investigation as a science. . (Abstract shortened by UMI.).