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Application of the Investigative Interview to Child and Adolescent Victims of sexual offenses: effect on prosecution outcomes in Chile
Fri, September 5, 6:30 to 7:45pm, Communications Building (CN), CN 2104Abstract
The enactment of Law 21.057 in Chile has not only improved the standards for collecting testimony in criminal investigations involving children and adolescents victims of sexual or serious crimes, but by ensuring higher-quality testimony, the Law could contribute to strengthening the evidentiary basis of cases, potentially leading to higher clearance and conviction rates. The implementation of this policy was carried out in geographically allocated stages, with the first stage starting on October 3, 2019, the second on June 3, 2021, and the third on October 3, 2022. After four years of implementation, this study assessed the impact of investigative interviews on the prosecution of such cases, determining their effects on clearance and conviction rates.
A difference-in-differences method analyzed data provided by the Public Prosecutor's Office, comparing cases with investigative interviews to those with non-standardized statements. Cases received and processed in the first stage and second stage localities (treatment group) were compared with those in the third phase (control group).
The results indicated a positive effect of investigative interviews. In cases with charges, an effect of 21.37% is observed in the first stage and 27.63% in the second stage, taking as a reference the baseline prior to the implementation of the Law. In the case of sentences, the variation is 34.95% and 52.11% for stages 1 and 2, respectively. In conviction rates, the effects reach 42.29% in stage 1 and 52.33% in stage 2.
The main conclusion of this research was that the introduction of investigative interviews has had a positive impact on prosecution outcomes of cases involving children and adolescents victims of sexual crimes. These results underscore the need for adopting measures to enhance the investigation and prosecution of such cases, including the development of investigation protocols, professional training, and continuous monitoring, among others.