Forensic Interviews of Children: the Components of Scientific Validity and Legal Admissibility

The problems associated with assessments of children’s reports of victimization in criminal proceedings came to national attention during the 1980s and 1990s in a series of highly publicized trials of daycare staff. In the McMartin Preschool case, more than 350 children claimed to have been molested at the preschool and a number of public locations including a market, a car wash, and a church. During interviewing, some children reported that, in addition to experiencing sexual abuse, they had been taken on plane rides and forced to drink blood and to watch animals being mutilated. Prosecutors said that the suggestive techniques used to elicit retrospective reports from such young children were appropriate, whereas the defense claimed that the interviewing and videotaping procedures were inept. When the trial ended in January of 1990, several jurors reported that they believed some of the children had in fact been molested but that the state had failed to prove the identity of the perpetrator(s).