성폭력 피해 아동 진술신빙성 평가의 한계와 전망

Prospects and Limitations of Credibility Assessment of Child Sexual Violence Victims

This paper reviews the history of credibility assessment of child sexual violence victims and introduces the Statement Validity Assessment(SVA) as a widely used method of credibility assessment. This paper discusses the prospects and limitations of using SVA or other credibility assessment methods at the police or courts of Korea. SVA is the most widely used credibility assessment method. SVA was developed by psychologists in Germany in 1950s and is being used by expert witnesses in many countries. SVA procedure consists of three elements: (1) obtaining voluntary statements from an alleged child victim, (2) doing Criteria-Based Content Analysis(CBCA), and (3) analyzing validity factors that might have influenced the child's statements. CBCA is a content analysis scheme to tell the likelihood of child's statements coming from his or her own experience. Many empirical studies show that the average CBCA scores of children who actually witnessed an event are significantly higher than those of falsely reporting children. But using CBCA or SVA in court is still controversial. After many years of practice, the German Supreme Court in 1999 specified guidelines for SVA by experts. Credibility assessment is a professional area which requires in-depth knowledge of child development, eyewitness memory and investigative interviewing. Any attempts to produce credibility assessment experts by a short-term training without intensive supervision and ethics could be very risky and hinder the fact finding in the criminal justice system.