Protecting Child Victims in Criminal Proceedings: Analyzing Trauma-Informed Approaches to Evidence and Courtroom Testimony

Abstract

Background: Children who enter criminal proceedings as victims or witnesses must communicate about often traumatic events inside systems designed around adult language, adversarial challenge, and public adjudication. Protective procedures can reduce distress, but poorly designed accommodations may also create new evidentiary or fairness concerns.

Objective: This review maps the empirical evidence on courtroom stress, questioning practices, special measures, preparation, support persons, ground rules, and intermediaries; compares these findings with leading child-protection and fair-trial standards; and develops an integrated trauma-informed procedural model for child testimony.

Methods: A structured scoping and policy review was undertaken for material published or in force through 31 December 2020. Twenty-six empirical or implementation studies were retained after focused searches of indexed biomedical/psychological records, publisher databases, citation chains, and legal-policy repositories. International standards and selected national procedural frameworks were analyzed in parallel. Because designs and outcomes were heterogeneous, findings were synthesized narratively rather than meta-analyzed.

Results: The strongest cross-study convergence concerned the risks created by linguistically complex, leading, repetitive, or credibility-challenging questioning. Courtroom context and repeated testimony were associated with stress and, in some studies, poorer memory or longer-term adjustment. Live-link/closed-circuit testimony, preparation programs, and communication assistance can reduce some burdens, but juror-perception effects are not uniformly neutral. Implementation studies showed that protections often fail at the identification, referral, or preparation stage. The synthesis generated the Trauma-Informed Evidence Continuum for Child Witnesses (TIEC-CW), which links individualized assessment, preparation, evidence capture, communication support, testimony mode, questioning controls, and post-testimony follow-up to measurable safeguards for both evidentiary integrity and procedural fairness.

Conclusions: Trauma-informed justice should not be understood as shielding child evidence from scrutiny. Properly designed accommodations improve a child’s capacity to understand, remember, and respond, thereby strengthening rather than weakening the conditions for reliable fact-finding.

Publication history: Originally published in print on 15 June 2022. Online abstract record added on 16 September 2026. Full-text PDF will be added when the digital galley is ready.