criminal justice

CASE SCENARIO

A two-year-old child was found crawling in the middle of a two-lane country road by a woman who happened to be driving by at the time. The woman picked the child up out of the road and called the police. The child was only wearing a diaper. Two police officers went to a nearby home and found the child’s mother who appeared intoxicated. A seven-year-old boy was also found in the home asleep on the couch. The police found fentanyl and drug paraphernalia in the home on a coffee table in the living room. However, very little food was found in the home. The mother was arrested and placed in jail. Social services placed the children with their paternal grandmother after taking them to the hospital for an exam. 

From this scenario, write an essay from the point of view of you being an investigator answering the following questions:

Who should you interview in the investigation and why? ( Remember that important witnesses may not be mentioned directly in the Case Scenario. Remember to list both who you should interview and why. Ten points will be deducted if the essay does not list why the witnesses should be interviewed in the investigation of child maltreatment)

Choose one essential witness you want to interview and describe how you would properly conduct that interview.  (Remember to include at least three aspects of how you would properly conduct the interview such as the setting, phases, etc. You may also want to review  who would be considered an essential witness such as the suspect, victim, reporting source, and others who saw or heard what happened. Ten points will be deducted if that witness is not an essential witness to the allegations of child maltreatment.)

List five important things you would want to find out from the essential witness. (These do not have to be in question form, but information from the essential witness that you would need to know as the child maltreatment investigator. )

From the facts given, what types of possible child maltreatment are present? (Give the basis (ie. sign or indication) for each type based on the facts given.)