31 Mar
14:00 - 19:00

Fourth Zoom Psychology & Law Symposium: Children in Legal Settings

Children can sometimes come into contact with the legal system. This could, for example, be because they are victims, witnesses, or perpetrators of a crime. Children are considered a vulnerable group which implies that special care is needed when they enter police investigations and court proceedings.

In the upcoming Zoom-Psychology and Law Symposium (Z-PLS), key experts will provide the latest insights into themes related to children in legal settings such as suggestibility and forensic child interviewing. 

The Zoom-Psychology and Law Symposium (Z-PLS) is an online conference in the area of psychology and law. Z-PLS was launched in 2020 at the initiative of Prof. Henry Otgaar (Maastricht University; KU Leuven), Dr. Irena Boskovic (Erasmus University Rotterdam), and Dr. Ivan Mangiulli (KU Leuven) as a series of online one-day symposia following the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The main idea was to “zoom” into topical issues in the legal psychological domain. By organising symposia on various psychology and law topics and inviting experts to talk about them, Z-PLS has been able to reach (via Zoom) a wide variety academics, legal professionals and students from all around the world.

This, the fourth edition of the Z-PLS,  will focus on the topic of 'Children in Legal Settings'. 

Guest Speakers

Paul Riesthuis

Maggie Bruck

Professor Maggie Bruck works at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (US). She is renowned around the world on her work on children’s suggestibility. Her work has been highly influential in legal cases in which children due to suggestive interviewing techniques made false reports of abuse. She has published numerous publications and books in the area of children’s suggestibility such as the bestseller “Jeopardy in the courtroom: A scientific analysis on children’s testimony. 

Maggie Bruck

Emilie Ernberg

Dr. Emelie Ernberg is a researcher at the Department of Psychology, at the University of Gothenburg (Sweden). Her expertise covers children's memory, eyewitness testimonies, and legal decision-making. She is a member of the research group for Criminal, Legal and Investigative Psychology (CLIP), and currently works on prosecutor's knowledge on cases of sexual abuse against preschoolers.

Emilie Ernberg

Lindsay Malloy

Dr. Lindsay Malloy is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Ontario Tech University, specializing in developmental and forensic psychology. She is the Director of the Development, Context, and Communication Lab and her research addresses how, why, and to whom children and teens disclose negative or traumatic experiences, as well as factors that influence children’s memory, deception, and narratives. She frequently provides expert testimony and consultation related to children’s communication about and memory of difficult events. She is also the co-founder of Pandemic Parenting.

Lindsay Malloy

Julia Korkman

Dr. Julia Korkam is an Associate Professor and Project Researcher at Åbo Akademi University (Finland). Her research is focused on investigative interviewing, investigating crimes against children, witness identifications, and evidence-based assessments of child abuse allegations. She frequently serves as a legal expert in Finland and Sweden. She is a Board Member of the Nordic Network for Research in Psychology and Law and Board Member and Vice-Chair of Save the Children, Finland. In addition, she is a Senior Programme Officer at the European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control (HEUNI, affiliated with the United Nations) and President-elect of the European Association of Psychology and Law (EAPL).

Julia Korkman

Melissa de Roos

Dr. Melissa de Roos (Erasmus University Rotterdam) is an assistant professor of forensic psychology. She has worked as a researcher for the Centre for Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse. Her research focuses on how offenders groom the environment and the child to gain access to the child and minimize the risk of detection. 

Melissa de Roos

Kamala London

Prof. Kamala London is a full professor and associate chair at the University of Toledo in Ohio (USA). She conducts research in the field of developmental psychology and the law, with specific research interests in the areas of autobiographical memory and suggestibility in children and adolescents, disclosure of maltreatment, and forensic interviews in typical and atypically developing children. She frequently provides expert testimony related to these topics internationally in court and is the head of the University of Toledo Children’s Memory lab

Kamala London

Mitchell Eisen

Prof. Mitchell Eisen is Director of the Forensic Psychology Graduate Program at Cal State LA in Los Angeles (USA). He serves as the Research liaison for the partnership between CSULA and the Juvenile Court. His research addresses topics related to memory, suggestibility and the law, with current research lines in the fields of memory and suggestibility in maltreated children, lineup decision making, and witness conformity. Prof. Eisen additionally serves regularly as an expert witness for the Los Angeles County Superior Court in the area of eyewitness memory. 

Mitchell Eisen

Thomas Lyon

Prof. Thomas D. Lyon is the Judge Edward J. and Ruey L. Guirado Chair in Law and Psychology at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law (USA). His research is focused on how to question children about abuse and violence. He is currently the head of the USC Child Interviewing lab and he was the president of the American Psychological Association’s Section on Child Maltreatment. 

Thomas Lyon

Deborah Goldfarb

Dr. Deborah Goldfarb is an assistant professor in legal psychology at Florida International University (USA). She studies a number of topics at the intersection of law and developmental psychology, including legal attitudes, developmental intuitive jurisprudence, and memory in victims and eyewitnesses. Dr. Goldfarb also practiced for a number of years as an attorney, including as a law clerk in the federal courts.

Deborah Goldfarb

Programme

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14:00 - 14:45 Workshop on Effect Sizes in Statement Validity Assessment   Paul Riesthuis, MSc. (KU Leuven, Belgium; Maastricht University, the Netherlands)
14:45 - 15:00 Break   
15:00-15:05 Opening of the Symposium  
15:00 - 15:30

Keynote lecture 1

Important Recent Suggestibility Research Findings: Are there any?

  Prof. Maggie Bruck (John Hopkins University, MD, USA)
15:30 - 15:45 Q&A  
15:45 - 16:00  Break  
16:00 - 17:00

The Four Talks

 

16:00 - 16:15 What did you say? Challenges in interpreter-mediated investigative interviews with children   Dr. Emilie Ernberg (Univeristy of Gothenburg, Sweden)
16:15 - 16:30 Juvenile False Confessions: Developmental Science and Practical Implications   Dr. Lindsay Malloy (Ontario Tech, ON, Canada)
16:30 - 16:45 Investigative interviews with children in the context of online abuse   Dr. Julia Korkman (Åbo Akademi University, Finland)
16:45 - 17:00

Offline and online grooming behaviours in sexual abuse of children

  Dr. Melissa de Roos (Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands)
17:00 - 17:15 Break  
17:15 - 18:00

Round table  discussion

Disclosure Among Child Abuse Victims

 

 

 

  Prof. Kamala London (University of Toledo, OH, USA)

  Prof. Mitchell Eisen (California State University, CA, USA)

  Prof. Thomas Lyon (University of Southern California Gould, CA, USA)

Moderator:  Charlotte Bücken, MSc. (KU Leuven, Belgium; Maastricht University, the Netherlands)

18:00 - 18:15 Break   
18:15 - 18:45

Keynote lecture 2

The Statute of Limitations and Long-Term Memory for Traumatic Events

  Prof. Deborah Goldfarb (Florida International University, FL, USA)

18:45 - 19:00  Q&A  
19:00 Closing of the Symposium