Child Suggestibility In The Namibian Legal Justice System

SUMMARY

This study explored whether Namibian legal and allied criminal justice professionals involved in child sexual abuse investigations were cognizant of child suggestibility and whether the concept child suggestibility was duly weighted during investigations and court proceedings. The legal practitioners were defined as prosecutors, magistrates and private defense lawyers. It was hypothesized that the Namibian legal and allied criminal justice professionals involved in child sexual abuse investigations were significantly uninformed about child suggestibility and that the concept child suggestibility was not duly weighted during investigations and court proceedings. The study followed a mixed method approach of both quantitative and qualitative research. The quantitative approach was done through constructing a semi-structured questionnaire, which assessed the legal and allied criminal justice professionals‟ knowledge/sensitivity levels of suggestibility. The qualitative part of the study reviewed five forensic interviews (cases), and the assessment of six police dockets with two different scoring checklists. The semi-structured questionnaire was administered to fifty eight (N=58) legal and allied criminal justice professionals composed of three social workers, ten police officers, 16 prosecutors, 10 magistrates and 19 defence lawyers.