{"id":8982,"date":"2017-10-11T08:00:56","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T08:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/?p=8982"},"modified":"2017-10-09T18:52:17","modified_gmt":"2017-10-09T18:52:17","slug":"how-stereotypes-discredit-childrens-testimonies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/2017\/10\/11\/how-stereotypes-discredit-childrens-testimonies\/","title":{"rendered":"How Stereotypes Discredit Children\u2019s Testimonies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n Amber Joy Powell, Heather R. Hlavka, Sameena Mulla, <\/span>“Intersectionality and Credibility in Child Sexual Assault Trials,” Gender & Society<\/em>,<\/a><\/span> 2017<\/span><\/div>\n
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Photo by verkeorg, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We often hear public outcry regarding cases of children\u2019s sexual victimization, but we rarely get to see what happens within the courtrooms. The reality is that not all of these cases face swift justice. In new <\/span>research<\/span><\/a> based on observations of seventeen jury trials, <\/span>Amber Joy Powell<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Heather R. Hlavka<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>Sameena Mulla<\/span><\/a> show that in trials where children serve as witnesses, defense attorneys often work to discredit children\u2019s testimonies by relying on racial and gendered stereotypes. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div> The children who testified in the observed trials ranged from age five to sixteen, most were Black and Latinx youth, and all but two were girls. One of the strategies defense attorneys used included emphasizing the fragility of children’s bodies, especially girls\u2019 bodies. They argued that the absence of <\/span>visible<\/span><\/i> physical or psychological injuries indicated the jury had reason to doubt the children\u2019s claims. For those who were teenagers at the time of the assault, attorneys argued that adolescents, especially adolescent girls, were rebellious, manipulative, and less trustworthy than younger children. This especially applied to Black girls\u2019 testimonies because they were often perceived as older than their ages and thus defense attorneys claimed they were more blameworthy. Attorneys also relied on stereotypes of deviant Black families, drawing on narratives about dysfunctional families, promiscuous \u201cwelfare mothers,\u201d \u201cbaby mamas,\u201d and blaming parents for having drugs in the house.\u00a0 Children of color confront cultural narratives that have the potential to produce unjust outcomes in the courtroom.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the cases where boys testified, attorneys relied on jurors\u2019 difficulty believing that men could sexually assault boys without leaving physical evidence for someone to find. In one case, the defense attorney questioned the credibility of an adolescent Latino boy based on a \u201crumor\u201d that he might be gay. In a post-trial interview, a juror proposed that \u201cLatino culture\u201d might have prevented the boy from admitting the sex was consensual. <\/span><\/p>\n

While many sexual assault survivors face doubts about their credibility, this research show how children are often discredited in these cases because of distinct assumptions about gender, sexuality, and race. In particular, children of color confront cultural narratives that have the potential to produce unjust outcomes in the courtroom. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amber Joy Powell, Heather R. Hlavka, Sameena Mulla, “Intersectionality and Credibility in Child Sexual Assault Trials,” Gender & Society, 2017 We often hear public outcry regarding cases of children\u2019s sexual victimization, but we rarely get to see what happens within the courtrooms. The reality is that not all of these cases face swift justice. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1957,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,55,13,14],"tags":[35,37337,37335,37332,37333,3463,407],"class_list":["post-8982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-gender","category-inequality","category-race","tag-children","tag-crime","tag-gender","tag-inequality","tag-race","tag-sexual-assault","tag-stereotypes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8982"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8985,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8982\/revisions\/8985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}