PSYC 376 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Salem Witch Trials, Child Sexual Abuse, Closed-Circuit Television
15 May 2016
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Psychology 376: unit 1: history of children and the law. Explain why children were functionally barred from criminal court until the early to mid 1980s. Explain why early research on issues relevant to child witnesses was done in europe rather than in north. Explain why psychological research on issues relevant to child witnesses began in north america at the end of the 20th century. In the 1600s in salem massachusetts, 19 defendants were put to death because a group of young girls between age 5 to 16 testified as seeing the defendants participate in witchcraft. These children did not independently generate heinous allegations. Salem witch trials were the first recorded cases in american jurisprudence of children as witnesses. Until the late 1980s, children were functionally barred from testifying in criminal court: functionally because no real laws that stopped children from testifying.
