Despite increased awareness of sex trafficking of minors in the U.S., prosecution of traffickers remains difficult, in part because of victim uncooperativeness. There are questions about how that uncooperativeness is expressed, whether it is evident in successfully prosecuted cases, and whether it is unique to trafficked minors or it emerges in similar age victims of sexual abuse. To provide insight relevant to these questions, we compared appellate opinions in two types of successfully prosecuted criminal cases: sex trafficking and sexual abuse of adolescent victims. In the trafficking opinions, victims were rarely described as disclosing on their own or as knowing their trafficker before the victimization. The opinions also often alluded to the trafficking victims’ uncooperativeness and delinquency history, and frequently mentioned electronic evidence and prosecution experts. The sexual abuse opinions, in contrast, tended to suggest that victims’ own disclosures initiated the case, perpetrators were known and trusted adults, and caregiver support during the case was common. Finally, the sexual abuse opinions never explicitly mentioned victim uncooperativeness or electronic evidence and rarely mentioned expert testimony or delinquency. The different characterizations of the two case types highlight the need for improved education concerning effective prosecution of sex crimes against minors.
Adolescence is characterized by multifaceted growth, change, and vulnerability. Several developmental characteristics of adolescence, such as youths’ tendencies to engage in exploratory and risk-taking behaviors, susceptibility to peer influence, and desire for autonomy, increase the likelihood that they will come into contact with the legal system not only as perpetrators but also as victims and witnesses. Those same characteristics then influence their experiences. In the present chapter, we describe these influences, focusing on how they likely influence legally relevant decisions adolescents make in interviews and in court as suspects and defendants and as victims and witnesses. We close by highlighting important new directions for research on how developmental characteristics shape legal decisions in unique subsets of adolescents (e.g., those who are both delinquent and victims) and by offering practical recommendations regarding the need for more in-depth training of legal professionals on how adolescent development affects youth involvement in the legal system.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.