Protecting Children From Violence

The law and psychology lab focuses on a number of different issues.  One of the most of important issues we have begun to focus on in the past several years can be characterized as protecting children from violence:

· In 2007 approximately 794,000 children were victims of child maltreatment (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2009)

· Approximately 1,530 children die every year as a consequence of child abuse and neglect. (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2008)

· The prevalence of child sexual abuse of girls has been estimated to be approximately 27%, while the prevalence in boys has been estimated at approximately 16% (Finkelhor et al., 1990).

· Approximately 1.6 million children in grades 6-10 are victims of bullying on a weekly basis (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2001)

· In one survey, eighteen percent of students reported carrying a weapon at some time in the past month and six percent of students reported carrying a weapon onto school property. (U.S. Department of Education, 2008)

· There are close to 200,000 family abductions every year (Flores, 2002) and close to 60,000 non-family abductions every year (Finkelhor, Hammer, & Sedlak, 2002). More than 1.6 million children run away from home or are forced to leave home every year. (Flores, 2002)

· More than 50,000 children are murdered every year around the world. 

· Between 80-98% of children world-wide are subjected to physical punishment, with about one third of those children being beaten with objects. 

· School bullying occurs world-wide with 20-65% of children indicating that they have been the victims of either verbal or physical bullying in the past month. 

· Worldwide, more than 200,000,000 children under the age of 18 years old were victims of child sexual abuse in 2002 alone.

· Approximately 1.2 million children are victims of human trafficking worldwide.

Because of my interest in the problem of protecting children from violence, I recently served as co-chair of a conference in Chicago entitled Protecting Children from Violence, bringing together a prestigious group of international researchers. A book I edited with Kathy Sexton-Radek based on this work will be published by Psychology Press in February of 2010.   I am currently working with LaDonna Meredith of Let’s Bring Them Home and Uche Ewelukwa of the Law School organizing a conference at the University of Arkansas on the topic of human trafficking. With Jeff Neuschatz and Andrew Cling I am putting the finishing touches on a book entitled the Psychology of Eyewitness Identification, which is going to be published by Psychology Press.  In addition, with LaDonna Meredith I will be writing a book on the topic of missing persons.

The Law and Psychology Lab’s research related to protecting children from violence is multifaceted. It includes the following issues:

Missing Children.  Much of my recent research has focused on the area of improving efforts to find missing children.  I have conducted research on the extent to which people look at and remember posters of missing children, the effectiveness of forensic age progression, and prospective person memory (i.e., the ability of people to spot someone in the community that they have been told to be on the lookout for).  I recently presented this research as the Goldsmith Distinguished Speaker in Psychology at Elmhurst College.

Prospective Person Memory.  In the past few years, much of our research has focused on a concept we call prospective person memory.  Prospective memory, generally speaking, is the ability to remember to engage in a future action.  For instance, you might think to yourself, I need to mail my sisters birthday card the next time I am near a mailbox.  Prospective memory is defined by a delayed intention (e.g., mailing a letter) and a cue that will serve as a reminder in the future (e.g., mailbox).  Prospective person memory involves situations in which we need to remember to take an action when we encounter a particular person some time in the future.  Specific applications of prospective person memory include being on the lookout for a wanted fugitive, or being on the look out for a missing child.  We have done research on both issues, and we currently have a chapter in press describing some of this initial research.

Children’s Eyewitness Testimony.  In other research I have explored the accuracy of children’s eyewitness memory.  This research has been cited by other psychologists, in books on forensic interviewing and in court cases.  I am currently under contract with Psychology Press for a book entitled The Psychology of Eyewitness Testimony.  A draft of the book should be ready in about a year.  

False Memories.  I have also conducted research comparing false memories in children and adults. In some of this research I have demonstrated that some types of false memories are less common in children than they are in adults.  I have also conducted research examining how children and adults avoid false memories (i.e., false memory editing mechanisms). I recently presented some of this research as a featured speaker at the pre-conference on memory development at the Society for Research in Child Development in Boston.  I served as guest editor of the journal Memory for special issue devoted to the topic of how people avoid false memories.

Other Current Research.  In some research we will be starting in Fall of 2008 we will be examining recent laws which make some types of child sexual abuse subject to the death penalty.  We will also be looking at cognitive, social, perceptual, and developmental issues related to eyewitness memory for people of other racial or ethnic groups (the so called own race bias).  More generally, my research over the past decade has focused on psychology and the legal system.  I have taught courses on human memory, psychology and the law, children and the legal system, eyewitness testimony and false memories. I have also served as the director of the Ph.D. program in Experimental Psychology at the University of Arkansas.

Future Directions.  One of my main goals for the immediate future is to develop a research, training, and consulting program at the University of Arkansas devoted to scientific research on how best to protect children from violence.  My tentative name for the Program is the Children’s Justice Program.  I am hoping that we can attract corporate or other philanthropic support to make this program a reality. It is a program that would be good for the department, the college, the university, and the community at large.  Indeed, the human trafficking conference that is taking place at the University of Arkansas in September 2009 is a good example of the kind of thing a program like this could accomplish.

The Program would serve three broad functions. First, faculty associated with the Program would conduct and publish high quality research on children and the legal system. Research topics would include improving recovery efforts for missing children, protecting children from physical and sexual abuse, protecting children from bullying and other forms of violence at school, protecting children from the dangers of drugs and alcohol, eyewitness memory in children, and other topics related to children’s role in the legal process.  Second, faculty associated with the Program would provide high quality training for psychology graduate students and undergraduate students. Students would be trained in basic science, in research and empirical findings relating to children and the legal system, and in how to apply that knowledge to consulting with law enforcement. Training would go beyond what is typically provided to students in graduate programs in psychology, in that graduate students would spend considerable time as part of their formal third year training interacting with law enforcement and public safety professionals, members of organizations such as CASA, schools, and other groups interested in child safety. Graduate students would thus gain invaluable experience consulting with these groups and the groups would benefit from the knowledge provided to them by the students.  The students would also gain real world expertise from these professionals.  Third, faculty and graduate students affiliated with the Program would provide training to law enforcement and public safety personnel on the research conducted at the Program. This would take the form of participation in continuing education programs for law enforcement, attorneys, and school personnel, as well as annual summer workshops hosted at the University of Arkansas. In addition to these goals, the Children's Justice Program would serve as a springboard for efforts to bring in additional extramural funding from foundations and government agencies.  The Children’s Justice Program would thus contribute to the University of Arkansas’s mission as a nationally recognized research university serving Arkansas and the world.

The University of Arkansas is an ideal location for this kind of scientific Program.  Arkansas is centrally located, making it ideal for serving the needs of practitioners around the country.  Scholars already at the University of Arkansas are well suited to take part in the Program.  Indeed, the talent pool for such a Program is already both broad and deep.  In addition, a number of groups in Arkansas have an active interest in the issue of protecting children from violence.  Groups include schools, law enforcement agencies, CASA of Northwest Arkansas, the Children’s Safety Center, the Morgan Nick Foundation, the Arkansas Bar Association, Walmart's Missing Children's program and numerous other groups.  The Children’s Justice Program would be devoted to developing partnerships and working relationships with these groups so that the people working in the field to protect children could benefit from interactions with scholars who do scientific research on these issues, and so that the scholars could gain from the real world hands on experiences of these professionals.

Becoming Involved. The psychology and law lab that I supervise at the University of Arkansas is one of the largest most productive labs in the department.  We currently have three top notch graduate students who are members of the lab, an exciting group of undergraduate honors thesis students, and fifteen undergraduate research assistants.  I am constantly on the lookout for high quality students to become involved in the lab at both the undergraduate and graduate level.  If you are interested in helping us with research on the topic of protecting children from violence, or any of the other research that the psychology and law lab does, feel free to contact me at lampinen@uark.edu.  I would be glad to talk with you about how you can become involved.