A new report indicates that prosecutions and convictions of sex offenders can be boosted if investigators routinely use “best practice” interview techniques with very young victims.
Researchers from the National Institute of Justice examined more than 1,200 sexual abuse cases in Salt Lake City between 1994 and 2000. When the detectives used three-part interview protocols developed by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the information they obtained resulted in prosecutors accepting approximately 10 percent more cases. Of those cases, 94 percent that went to trial resulted in conviction, compared to just 54 percent pre-protocol.
Read more about the report here.