I’m not sure whether the satanic ritual abuse and similar prosecutions of the 80s/90s have ever been discussed on LW in any detail (I couldn’t find anything with a few google searches), but some of the failures of rationality in those cases seem to fit into the subject matter here.
For those unfamiliar with these cases, a sort of panic swept through many parts of the United States (and later other countries) resulting in a number of prosecutions of alleged satanic ritual abuse or other extensive conspiracies involving sexual abuse, despite, in almost all cases, virtually no physical evidence that such abuse occurred. Lack of physical evidence, of course, does not always mean that a crime has not occurred, but given the particular types of allegations made, it was not credible in most cases that no physical evidence would exist. It is hard to choose the most outrageous example, but this one is pretty remarkable:
Gerald [Amirault], it was alleged, had plunged a wide-blade butcher knife into the rectum of a 4-year-old boy, which he then had trouble removing. When a teacher in the school saw him in action with the knife, she asked him what he was doing, and then told him not to do it again, a child said. On this testimony, Gerald was convicted of a rape which had, miraculously, left no mark or other injury.
Moreover, there were all sorts of serious problems with the highly suggestive techniques used in questioning the children to elicit the accusations of abuse. If one is inclined to be charitable to the investigators, some of the problems with the interviews could be chalked up to lack of understanding at the time of how problematic these techniques were, but the stories are pretty damning. A short description of the sorts of techniques can be found in this Wiki entry on one of the most prominent prosecutions, that involving the McMartin preschool.
Many, although by no means all, of the defendants in these sorts of cases have since been exonerated. I am posting this comment because a defendant in one of the cases, Jesse Friedman (one of the subjects of the documentary film Capturing the Friedmans), is in the news because of a recent federal appellate court decision (pdf), which denied relief to Friedman, but noted:
While the law may require us to deny relief in this case, it does not compel us to do so without voicing some concern regarding the process by which the petitioner’s conviction was obtained.
For anyone who would like a brief overview of the problems with these sorts of prosecutions, the court’s opinion linked above has a relatively concise but informative discussion at pp. 18-23. For anyone interested in a book length treatment, I also recommend No Crueler Tyrannies by Dorothy Rabinowitz. Tons of info on the Internet as well, of course.
My father was a forensic psychiatrist heavily involved in some of these cases, testifying for the defense of the accused. The moral panic phenomenon is real and complex, but there’s a more basic failure of rationality underlying the whole movement which was the false belief in the inherent veracity of children.
Apparently juries (and judges alike) took the testimony of children at face value. The problem was that investigative techniques of the social workers invariably elicited the desired reactions in the children. In law you have the concept of leading the witness, but that doesn’t apply for investigations of child abuse. The children are taken away from their parents and basically locked up with the investigators until they tell them what they want to hear. It wasn’t even necessarily deliberate—from what I understand in many cases the social workers just had a complete lack of understanding of how they were conditioning the children to fabricate complex and in many cases outright ridiculous stories. Its amazing how similar the whole scare was to historical accounts of the witch trials. Although as far as I know, in the recent scare nobody was put to death (but I could even be wrong about that, and certainly incalculable damage was done nonetheless).
I’m not sure whether the satanic ritual abuse and similar prosecutions of the 80s/90s have ever been discussed on LW in any detail (I couldn’t find anything with a few google searches), but some of the failures of rationality in those cases seem to fit into the subject matter here.
For those unfamiliar with these cases, a sort of panic swept through many parts of the United States (and later other countries) resulting in a number of prosecutions of alleged satanic ritual abuse or other extensive conspiracies involving sexual abuse, despite, in almost all cases, virtually no physical evidence that such abuse occurred. Lack of physical evidence, of course, does not always mean that a crime has not occurred, but given the particular types of allegations made, it was not credible in most cases that no physical evidence would exist. It is hard to choose the most outrageous example, but this one is pretty remarkable:
Moreover, there were all sorts of serious problems with the highly suggestive techniques used in questioning the children to elicit the accusations of abuse. If one is inclined to be charitable to the investigators, some of the problems with the interviews could be chalked up to lack of understanding at the time of how problematic these techniques were, but the stories are pretty damning. A short description of the sorts of techniques can be found in this Wiki entry on one of the most prominent prosecutions, that involving the McMartin preschool.
Many, although by no means all, of the defendants in these sorts of cases have since been exonerated. I am posting this comment because a defendant in one of the cases, Jesse Friedman (one of the subjects of the documentary film Capturing the Friedmans), is in the news because of a recent federal appellate court decision (pdf), which denied relief to Friedman, but noted:
For anyone who would like a brief overview of the problems with these sorts of prosecutions, the court’s opinion linked above has a relatively concise but informative discussion at pp. 18-23. For anyone interested in a book length treatment, I also recommend No Crueler Tyrannies by Dorothy Rabinowitz. Tons of info on the Internet as well, of course.
My father was a forensic psychiatrist heavily involved in some of these cases, testifying for the defense of the accused. The moral panic phenomenon is real and complex, but there’s a more basic failure of rationality underlying the whole movement which was the false belief in the inherent veracity of children.
Apparently juries (and judges alike) took the testimony of children at face value. The problem was that investigative techniques of the social workers invariably elicited the desired reactions in the children. In law you have the concept of leading the witness, but that doesn’t apply for investigations of child abuse. The children are taken away from their parents and basically locked up with the investigators until they tell them what they want to hear. It wasn’t even necessarily deliberate—from what I understand in many cases the social workers just had a complete lack of understanding of how they were conditioning the children to fabricate complex and in many cases outright ridiculous stories. Its amazing how similar the whole scare was to historical accounts of the witch trials. Although as far as I know, in the recent scare nobody was put to death (but I could even be wrong about that, and certainly incalculable damage was done nonetheless).