False allegations and false denials in child sexual abuse.

Abstract

The amicus brief in the Kelly Michaels case ignores the risks that abused children will fail to reveal abuse unless direct and sometimes leading questions are asked. Although the brief correctly criticizes previous research for understating the risks that aggressive interviewing practices will lead young children to make false allegations of abuse, it overstates the likelihood that false allegations occur by overlooking the aspects of the Kelly Michaels case and the research it inspired that are unlike the typical abuse case. The author discusses factors that lead abused children to falsely deny abuse and that minimize the likelihood that nonabused children will allege abuse. Interviewers who question children about suspected sexual abuse must avoid two types of error: eliciting a false report of abuse and failing to elicit a report of abuse when abuse in fact occurred. A decision regarding how to proceed is properly based in part on the risks that a particular method of interviewing will lead to a false allegation or a false denial. The decision is also dependent, however, on the interviewer's judgment regarding the damage caused by each type of error. If one seeks to avoid false allegations at all costs, then one simply does nothing that might prompt a child to assert falsely that abuse occurred. If one wishes to minimize false denials, on the other hand, one does everything one can to encourage a young child to acknowledge abuse. That one's judgment about the relative risks of different types of interviewing practices is based on a mixture of empirical beliefs (how likely is this practice to result in error?) and value judgments (how harmful is it to commit each type of error?) muddies the debate over children's suggestibility. Although social science research may make it possible to estimate the rates of error, it does not address the value judgment regarding how different types of error should be weighed. When researchers focus only on risks of one type of error (whether it be false allegations or false denials), they preempt the value debate, substituting their own value judgments for those of policymakers. The amicus brief in the Kelly Michaels case rightly criticizes previous research on children's suggestibility for understating the risks of aggressive interviewing practices with young children. However, it fails to acknowledge any middle ground; it ignores the likelihood that abused children will fail to reveal abuse unless direct and sometimes leading questions are asked. It fails to consider whether the Kelly Michaels case—a case involving alleged multivictim abuse by a preschool teacher—is representative of child sexual abuse cases in general, or whether the research inspired by cases like Michaels's accurately portrays the risks of false allegations of