Criminal Investigations

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Criminal Investigations

• Crimes Against Children
• Chapter 11

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Objectives

• What crimes against children are frequently
  committed
• What the Child Protection Act involves
• What effects child abuse can have
• What challenges are involved in investigating
  crimes against children
• When a child should be taken into protective
  custody

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Objectives Cont.

• What factors to consider in interviewing child
  victims
• Whether children are generally truthful when
  talking about abuse
• What a multidisciplinary team is
• Who usually reports crimes against children
• Types of evidence
• What things can indicate neglect or abuse

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Objectives Cont.

• What a pedophile is
• What types of sex rings exist in the United
  States
• How pedophile might typically react to being
  discovered
• How crimes against children can be prevented

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Introduction

• The underreporting of abuse is a major concern
• The frequency with which children are abused by
  people they know is another concern
• A third concern is the cycle of abuse being
  documented
• A final complicating factor is the perceived
  ambiguity of what constitutes child abuse

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Classification

• Crimes against children include
• Kidnapping
• Abandonment
• Neglect
• Exploitation
• Physical abuse
• Emotional abuse
• Child sexual abuse

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Terminology

• Sexual seduction-ordinary sexual intercourse
  committed by a nonminor with a consenting minor
• Lewdness-touching a minor to arouse, appeal to or
  gratify the perpetrator's sexual desires
• Molestation-any act motivated by unnatural or
  abnormal sexual interest in minors that would
  reasonably be expected to disturb, irate or
  offend the victim

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Terminology Cont.

• Sexual exploitation-to entice a minor to engage
  in any sexually explicit conduct for the purpose
  of producing any visual medium
• Visual print-film, photograph, book, etc
• Commercial exploitation-having a direct or
  indirect goal of monetary or other material gain

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Child Protection Act

• Prohibits child pornography and greatly increases
  the penalties for adults who engage in it

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The Effects of Child Abuse

• Physical damage may involve the brain, vital
  organs, eyes, ears, arms, or legs
• Emotional damage may include impaired
  self-concept as well as increased levels of
  aggression, anxiety, and tendency toward
  self-destructiveness
• Another likely effect of child abuse is that, as
  an adult, the former victim very frequently
  becomes a perpetrator of child abuse, creating a
  circle

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Challenges to Investigation

• The need to protect the child form further harm
• The possibility of parental involvement
• The difficulty of interviewing children
• Credibility concerns
• The need to collaborate with other agencies

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Protecting the Child

• If the possibility of present or continued danger
  to the child exists, the child must be removed
  into protective custody
• Temporary custody without a hearing usually means
  24 hours

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Difficulty in Interviewing Children

• Officers should consider
• The child's age
• Ability to describe what happened
• The potential for retaliation by the suspect
  against a child who tells

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Credibility Concerns

• In the vast majority of child abuse cases,
  children tell the truth to the best of their
  ability
• People who work with child abuse cases point out
  that children will frequently lie to get out of
  trouble, but they seldom lie to get into trouble
• Investigators must approach each case and each
  victim with an open mind

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The need to Involve Other Agencies The
Multidisciplinary Team Approach

• Child welfare
• Health agencies
• Multidisciplinary team (MDT)- a group of
  professionals who work together in a coordination
  and collaborative manner to ensure an effective
  response to reports of child abuse and neglect

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The Initial Report

• Most reports of child neglect or abuse are made
  by third parties such as teachers, neighbors,
  siblings or parents
• Seldom does the victim report the offense

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The Initial Report Cont.

• Reports should include
• Age and address of the child victim
• The name and address of the childs parents or
  other persons responsible for the childs care
• The name and address of the person suspected of
  the abuse
• The nature and extent of the abuse
• Any evidence of the neglect or abuse

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The Police Response

• Be direct, honest, sympathetic, understanding,
  and professional
• Do not accuse, demand, five personal opinion
  about the situation, request information form the
  parents unrelated to the matter under discussion,
  make judgments, place blame or reveal the source
  of your information

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Interviewing Abused Children

• To assess the credibility and competence of
  children consider the following
• Does the child describe acts or experiences to
  which a child his or her age would not normally
  have been exposed
• Does the child describe circumstances and
  characteristics typical of a sexual assault
  situation

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Interviewing Abused Children Cont.

• How and under what circumstances did the child
  tell
• How many times has the child given the history,
  and how consistent is it regarding the basic
  facts of the assault
• How much spontaneous information does the child
  provide
• Can the child define the difference between the
  truth and a lie

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Evidence

• Evidence in child neglect or abuse cases
  includes
• The surroundings
• The home conditions
• Clothing
• Bruises or other bodily injuries
• The medical examination report
• Other observations

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Neglect Indicators

• Physical-hunger, poor hygiene, inappropriate
  dress, consistent lack of supervision, unattended
  physical problems or medical needs and
  abandonment
• Behavioral-begging, stealing food, extending
  school days, constant fatigue, alcohol or drug
  abuse, delinquency

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Emotional Abuse Indicators

• Physical- speech disorders, lags in physical
  development and general failure to thrive
• Behavioral-habit disorders, conduct disorders,
  sleep disorders, inhibitions in play, obsessions,
  compulsions, phobias, hypochondria, behavioral
  extremes and attempted suicide

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Physical Abuse Indicators

• Physical-unexplained bruises or welts, burns,
  fractures, lacerations and abrasions
• Behavioral-wary of adults, being apprehensive
  when other children cry, extreme aggressiveness
  or extreme withdrawal, being frightened of
  parents and being afraid to go home

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Sexual Abuse Indicators

• Physical-are rarely observed venereal diseases
  or pregnancy, especially in preteens
• Behavioral-unwilling to change clothes,
  withdrawal, fantasy or infantile behavior,
  bizarre sexual behavior, sexual sophistication
  beyond the childs age, poor peer relationships,
  delinquent or runaway, reports of being sexually
  assaulted
• Parental-jealousy and over protectiveness of a
  child

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The Suspect

• The suspect is one of the parents
• People who have normal behavior patterns in all
  other areas of life may have very abnormal sexual
  behavior patterns
• 35 to 50 of the offenders know their victims

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The Parent as Suspect

• Sexual abuse of one or more children in a family
  is one of the most common child sexual abuse
  problems
• Girls are more frequently victims
• Incest usually involves children under 11 and
  becomes a repeated activity, both in frequency
  and in severity

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Munchausen Syndrome and Munchausen Syndrome by
Proxy

• Munchausen Syndrome-self-induced or
  self-inflicted injuries
• MSBP-a form of child abuse in which a parent or
  adult caregiver deliberately provides false
  medical histories, manufacturers evidence and
  causes medical distress in a child

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Osteogenesis Inperfecta

• Brittle bone disease, a genetic disorder
  characterized by bones that break easily, often
  from little or no apparent cause

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Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

• condition, whose cause is uncertain that causes
  death in young children and for which parents may
  become suspected of child abuse
• Claims 3,000 to 4,000 infants every year in the
  U.S.
• Examination of the death scene is a critical
  factor in determining SIDS

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The Nonparent Suspect

• Misoped-the person who hates children, who has
  sex with them and then brutally destroys them
• Hebephile-a person who selects high-school-age
  youth as his or her sex victims

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Pedophile

• An adult who has either heterosexual or
  homosexual preferences for young boys or girls of
  a specific, limited age range
• Pedophiles are typically male, but not always
• Rarely deviate from the preferred age range
• Obtain, collect and maintain photographs of the
  children whom they are or have been involved with

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Internet

• Chicken hawk-an online pedophile who uses chat
  lines and member profiles o locate potential
  victims
• Dabbler-usually a typically adolescent searching
  for pornography, a curious adult with a newly
  found access to pornography, or a profit
  motivated criminal
• Preferred offender-usually a sexually
  indiscriminate individual with a wide variety for
  deviant sexual interests or a pedophile with a
  definite preference for children

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Child Sexual Abuse Rings

• Adults at least 10 to 15 years older than the
  victims are usually the dominant leaders
• The adult leader selectively gathers young people
  together for sexual purposes
• Ringleaders use their occupation as the major
  access route to the child victims
• Rings are formed by an adult targeting a child
• Adults status in the neighborhood sometimes helps
  to legitimize his presence with the children

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Types of Sex Rings

• Solo-primarily by the age of the child, has
  multiple children as sex objects
• Transition-experiences are exchanged
• Syndicated-a well structured organization that
  recruits children, produces pornography, delivers
  direct sexual services and establishes an
  extensive network of customers

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Types of Sex Rings Cont.

• Cults-groups that use rituals or ceremonial acts
  to draw their members together into a certain
  belief system
• Sex crimes by other children-arrests of 12-14
  year olds increased 70 for sexual offenses
• Victimology- a bond often develops between the
  offender and the victim

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Pedophiles Reactions to Being Discovered

• Begin with complete denial
• Then progress to minimizing the acts
• Justifying the acts
• Blaming the victim
• If all else fails they claim to be sick

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Difficulty in Prosecuting

• Multiple jurisdictions hamper prosecution because
  the definition of child molestation varies
• Prosecuting pedophiles is that the stigma of such
  an arrests can lead suspect's to commit suicide

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Children as Witnesses in Court

• Some courts place them ahead of other cases on
  the docket
• Permit videotaping child interviews and then
  distribute the tapes to avoid multiple interviews
• Limited medical and psychological examinations
• Use video tape of childs testimony as evidence
• Remove the accused fro the courtroom during the
  childs testimony

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Preventing Crime Against Children

• By educating them about potential danger
• By keeping the channels of communication open
• Child abusers can be of any race, age or
  occupation, they can be someone close or a
  complete stranger

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The End