Children Exposed to Violence

Assembly on State Issues - Children, Families and Health Committee--December 1999

Joint ASI/AFI Meeting in Washington, D.C.

Children Exposed to Violence

Presiding:	Representative Toby Goodman, Texas Chair, ASI Children, Families and Health Committee
Speaker:	Eric Holder, Deputy Attorney General U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C

Children who are victims of or witnesses to violent crime at home and elsewhere are at greater risk of entering the juvenile and criminal justice systems. In fact, being abused or neglected as a child increases the likelihood of arrest as a juvenile by 53 percent and of arrest for a violent crime as an adult by 38 percent.

Equipped with this knowledge, the U.S. Department of Justice launched the Children Exposed to Violence Initiative directed by Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder. The initiative has produced legislative recommendations, resources for practitioners who work with child victims and witnesses, a public awareness campaign to increase understanding of the links between early childhood violence and later criminal behavior, and funding for programs that emphasize multidisciplinary approaches.

Legislative recommendations include:

Reform murder statutes to ensure that child murderers can be effectively prosecuted and will be subject to penalties that reflect the heinousness of their crimes;

Adopt evidence rules that ensure that juries in child molestation cases can hear evidence that the defendant has committed other similar crimes;

Adopt evidence rules that ensure that juries hear credible out-of-court statements that children make about abuse;

Speed up trials where children are the victims and/or witnesses;

Provide privacy protections to children who are victims of crime;

Start with the presumption that children will tell the truth;

Minimize the number of times a child is interviewed;

Provide children who testify in court with help from multi-disciplinary child abuse teams; and

Allow special procedures for child testimony on the rare occasions when a child cannot testify in the normal manner.

Handouts available upon request:

Children Exposed to Violence: Criminal Justice Resources, Office of Victims of Crime, U.S. Department of Justice, June 1999.

Breaking the Cycle of Violence: Recommendations to Improve the Criminal Justice Responses to Child Victims and Witnesses, Office of Victims of Crime, U.S. Department of Justice, June 1999.

From Child Victim to Adult Offender: Opportunities to Stop the Cycle of Violence, Office of Deputy Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice. (Chart).

Effective Intervention in Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment Cases: Guidelines for Policy and Practice, National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, February 6, 1999.

Children Exposed to Violence: Recommendations for State Justice Systems, U.S. Department of Justice.

NCSL contacts: Mary Fairchild or Barbara Houlik, CFH committee staff at the NCSL Denver office (303) 364-7700.