ISSN : 2093-3843
Focusing on actual behaviors that occurred during sexual abuse, the present study hypothesized that variations in offending behavior distinctively affect victims of child sexual abuse. Based on the previous literature, a two-way behavioral thematic structure in child sexual abuse is suggested, namely Coercion and Involvement. Differences in offending behavior are expected to distinctively affect victims’ symptoms (e.g., PTSD-type symptoms, behavioral problems, self-esteem, sexualized behavior). Finally, moderating variables affecting victims’ symptoms, such as victim’s age at the time of offense and abuser-victim relationships, are explored.
This study examined the effects of question types and several individual differences on children’s remembering of a stressful experience. 63 children ranging in age from 4 to 10 years who had visited a private dental clinic and undergone a minor operative dental procedure were evaluated through hierarchically structured interview protocol. Overall, older children showed superior total recall and provided more information than younger children particularly in response to general probes. More interestingly, some individual characteristics specific to each child, namely negative dental history, parents preparation for the event and children’s social emotional behavior characteristics were strongly associated with children’s recall by open-ended questions much more than closed and yes-no questions both for older and younger children. Finally, the importance of questions types and individual differences for further understanding of children's reliable testimony in forensic context were discussed in depth.
As modern society become more complicated and science are developing, proper and timely dispute resolutions are demanded for specialized litigations such as construction litigation, health care litigation, and intellectual property litigation. Full trial of such litigations are demanded as well. However, it is difficult to have expertise and experience in all area of litigation by judges in reality. For that reason, the court indicates experts for the related area to obtain their specialized knowledge and experience which is called expert commissioner system. In this study, literature research has been performed to understand the influence of professional opinion on sentencing in real criminal cases by judges after introducing psychology area out of expert commissioner system in criminal justice in Korea. First, introduction of expert commissioner system and related official regulation has been studied. In addition similar systems from other countries have been studied and psychological assessment tools have been introduced to explain psychological explanation by expert commissioner system in Korea. Several cases have been reviewed to understand influence of psychological explanation from the cases which expert commissioner system was applied on assessment of cases by judges. As a result, request of psychological explanation by expert commissioner system have been increased during year 2008 when first time the system has been introduced and 2009, but the request has been plunged in year 2010. Even if the cases apply this system, no psychological explanation was recorded for the reason of sentencing by judicial decision. Therefore, it is impossible to detect whether psychological explanation by expert commissioner system has effect on sentencing or not. Consequently, judges still have some freedom of sentencing even if psychological explanation by expert commissioner system has been requested still after expert commissioner system has been introduced to offer objective standard for sentencing by presenting professional knowledge and interpretation.
The indecent exposure crime is rarely reported by the victims. The identified indecent exposure crime by police statistic is very small part of actual state. For this reason, questionnaires have been given to the victims in this study. The questionnaires have been analyzed to understand characteristics of the crime, the experience at the time of crime, the crime analyses of offenders’. Effective prevention of indecent exposure crime has been pursued from the analyses. 216 people from student victims in University, and random victims were participated in the study from January to October 2011. As a results, the victims of indecent exposure crime answered as “trauma was serious” the most. However, the victims show little awareness of the crime. Streets are the most common place of the crime in this study. However, combining the rate of crime in school area and playground is higher than those in streets. Summer shows highest rate of the crime out of four season. Afternoon shows highest rate of the crime over the time result. Teenagers are the most common victims from the research by the age. The crime rate was highest when the victim was alone. Walking on a street was the most common situation just before the crime. Only 5.6% of the crime has been reported to police. Evening or night is the most common time of the crime and streets are the most common place of the crime in Y. S. Kim and J. S. Park’s (2011) study. One third of the victims of indecent exposure crime are under 20. The differences of previous study of Y. S Kim and J. S. Park (2011) are as following; First, school area and playground show higher rate of crime. Second, Evening has higher rate of the crime. Third, the highest crime rate has been shown when the victim was alone. At last, teenagers are the most common victims. The crime against teenager victims near school have been rarely reported and it is concerned based on this study. Lastly, the limitation of this study and future work have been discussed in the study.