ERIC Number: EJ843715
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2003
Pages: 4
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1053-8712
EISSN: N/A
The Overlapping Problems of Prosecution Sample Bias and Systematic Exclusion of Familial Child Sex Abuse Victims from the Criminal Justice System
Murphy, Wendy J.
Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, v12 n2 p129-132 2003
Jennifer Freyd's (2003) comment on Goodman et al. (2003) makes at least two essential observations: First, that Goodman's characterization of their findings as not supporting the position that CSA is "commonly" repressed or forgotten by the victim is curious. Second, that Goodman et al. understate the limited value of their study in that a prosecution sample is not generalizable to a non-prosecution population. Freyd's critique, which focuses not on the way the data was measured, but the narrative explanation of the significance of the findings, raises interesting questions. In this article, the authors state that rather than characterizing this finding as not supportive of the idea that repressing or forgetting CSA is "common", Goodman et al. should have argued that such a high number in a prosecution sample is surprising and worthy of further inquiry regarding the impact of the criminal justice system on the memory of traumatized children. The authors of the study, rather than Freyd (2003), should have raised these questions. That they failed to do so raises even more questions.
Descriptors: Criminals, Juvenile Justice, Child Abuse, Victims of Crime, Court Litigation, Law Enforcement, Criticism, Memory, Emotional Disturbances
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Opinion Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A