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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 233 (2016) 110 – 112

Annual International Scientific Conference Early Childhood Care and Education, ECCE
2016, 12-14 May 2016, Moscow, Russia

Psychology of interaction between professional lawyers and

juvenile victims of sexual violence: pressing problems

Julia Plavinskaya*
Nizhniy Novgorod Academy of the Ministry of the Interior of Russia, Ankudinovskoe highway, GSP-268, Nizhny Novgorod, 603950, Russia

Abstract

Provision of constructive interaction with juvenile victims of sexual violence is one of the burning problems in legal
psychology. The issues under consideration are the specifics of two groups of interaction between professional lawyers and
juvenile victims (conditioned by both the specific personality of the victim and that of the lawyer communicating the victim);
advantages and disadvantages of a professional psychologist’s involvement in this process; research into foreign experience
(scholarly works by German scientists) and ways to solve this problem in today’s Russia (the system for additional training of
investigators, judges and psychologists participating in investigations and examinations of criminal cases of sexual violence
against juvenile victims).

©
© 2016
2016TheTheAuthors. Published
Authors. by Elsevier
Published Ltd. Ltd.
by Elsevier This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of ECCE 2016.
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of ECCE 2016.

Keywords: legal psychology, sexual violence, juvenile victim.

Over the past years, there has been a steady increase in the number of crimes related to sexual abuse of children
in Russia and other countries. In this connection there arises a highly topical issue of expedient interaction
between juvenile victims of sexual violence and investigators, judges, lawyers and public prosecutors - all
professional lawyers engaged in the investigation and judicial examination of criminal cases in this category.
The characteristics of interaction between juvenile victims and professional lawyers during the investigation
and court examination of criminal cases of sexual violence against juveniles can be subdivided into two groups.
The first group includes the characteristics conditioned by the victim’s specific personality:

* Plavinskaya J. Tel.: +7-951-918-2257

E-mail address: juliaplavinskaya@rambler.ru

1877-0428 © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of ECCE 2016.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.10.155
 Julia Plavinskaya / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 233 (2016) 110 – 112 111

x Age (it is obvious that communication with a 6-year-old child varies a lot from that with a 13-year-
old teenager);
x Individual psychological constitution (the temper type, neuro-psychological resilience of the victim
of sexual violence, its communication skills level, characterological features, etc.);
x Psychological trauma intensity;
x Time interval between the crime and interrogation of the victim, etc.
The second group includes features conditioned by the specific personality of a lawyer communicating with a
victim of sexual violence:
x Intelligence level;
x Development and life experience level;
x Individual psychological constitution;
x Knowledge in the sphere of general, developmental, child, criminal and legal psychology;
x Professional deformation or none, etc.
Many Russian scientists (for example, [1]) qualify a professional psychologist’s involvement into interaction as
a main tool for optimizing the interaction between professional lawyers and juvenile victims of sexual violence.
This point of view has its own advantages and disadvantages.
The obvious advantages include the fact that a qualified psychologist will be near the aggrieved child to create
an atmosphere of confidence and safety. The juvenile victim is highly stressed at the moment as sexual violence
results in persistent post-traumatic psychic disorders even in adult victims. Another aspect of this problem is that
the interrogation situation can be subconsciously regarded by the victim as a conflict situation. That is why the
presence of an intermediary may facilitate the process of effective communication.
The disadvantages of this view point may include, for one thing, the fact that the mere introduction of a
psychologist in the investigation process is hardly likely to help resolve the existing problems. Unfortunately,
there are few experts qualified as legal psychologists, and there are none qualified as forensic or criminal
psychologists in Russia presently. And engagement of the experts qualified as educational psychologists is
questionable as they do not have the necessary knowledge in the sphere of law and have a vague picture of what
answers to what questions are valuable to a lawyer investigating a sexual violence case.
On the other hand, cooperation between psychologist and lawyer is unlikely to effective unless the latter
possesses profound knowledge in psychology. The mere inclusion of a psychologist in the interrogation process
cannot protect a child from incorrectly worded questions and inadequate non-verbal reactions by a
psychologically incompetent investigator which may result in a communication gap between him/her and the
victim of sexual violence.
Therefore, the solution to the problem of effective interaction between professional lawyers and juvenile
victims of sexual violence is to include a comprehensive set of elaborate measures.
First of all, it is related to study of existing foreign experience and its creative application with an eye on the
existing cultural differences. Many foreign countries have already developed very interesting methods and
techniques for interaction between investigative officers, court officers and juvenile victims of sexual violence.
German scientists have made a profound contribution into elaborating this question. For example, Udo
Undeutsch (1967) is considered to have authored the techniques of psychological interviewing and examination
of the reliability of children's testimony during investigation and court examination of criminal cases related to
sexual violence [2]. It should be noted that from 1955 on the Supreme Court of the Federal Republic of Germany
has employed a legal procedure for obligatory expertise of criminal cases of this category. Max Steller, a
professor of forensic psychology, working at the Institute of Forensic Psychiatry “Charite”, Medical University in
Berlin, has been successfully studying matters of examining the reliability of children's testimony since 1970 [3],
[4]. Renate Volbert, a professor of psychology at the same Institute of Forensic Psychiatry “Charité”, works on
matters concerning a child's suggestibility during the interrogation and the examination of the reliability of
112 Julia Plavinskaya / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 233 (2016) 110 – 112

testimony [5], [6]. Of great importance are the works by C.Böhm (2010), K.Erdmann (2005) and other European
scholars [7], [8].
Efforts are to be made to create a system for additional training of investigators, judges and psychologists
participating in investigations and examinations of criminal cases of sexual violence against juvenile victims. A
lot has been said on the need to train lawyers in the sphere of psychology since the times of G.Gross and
A.F.Koni. However, at present we can state that there is a limited level of knowledge of psychology in national
lawyers. In this aspect, the experience of the Netherlands can be of interest: to obtain the right of interrogating
children under 13 in this country, a police officer should undergo14-month-long psychological training and
obtain a corresponding certificate.
In addition, it is required to engage a psychologist (and to extend his/her mandate) in developing the strategy
and tactics for obtaining testimony from juvenile victims of sexual violence and arranging further interaction with
this victim.
Therefore, the issue of making psychologically the most of interaction between professional lawyers and
juvenile victims of sexual violence is complex and multi-faceted that is why it requires quite a lot of time and
joint efforts on the part of law makers, practitioners and scientists to resolve this problem in our country.

References

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