Videotaping Investigative Interviews of Children in Cases of Child Sexual Abuse: One Community\u27s Approach

Legal scholars have long debated the efficacy and necessity of videotaping investigative interviews with children when allegations of child sexual abuse have surfaced. This debate has been advanced from the perspectives of adversaries in the criminal justice system, prosecutors and defense advocates. Absent from this debate has been the perspective of the broader community. This debate has failed to consider how other investigative tools might be used in conjunction with videotaping to advance the interests of the community. Moreover, the debate about videotaping has taken place with little actual data. This Article seeks to accomplish two goals. First, it seeks to consider the interests of the broader community in the debate about whether investigative interviews of children in cases of suspected child sexual abuse should be videotaped. Second, this Article presents both quantitative and qualitative data from a single county\u27s longstanding use of a protocol for investigating these difficult cases. The author concludes that videotaping, when used as one element of an integrated protocol for investigating child sexual abuse, can serve the interests of the community