Memory for abuse: what can we learn from a prosecution sample?

In March 2003, Psychological Science published an article by Goodman and colleagues examining memory for prior childhood abuse in a sample of adolescents and young adults who as children had been the victims of childhood abuse that lead to criminal prosecution. At the time of the prosecution cases, the children in this study had been part of a research project conducted by Goodman and colleagues (Goodman et al., 1992). This sample has particularly well-documented abuse histories because of the criminal investigation and prior research. For the follow-up research reported by Goodman et al. (2003) in Psychological Science, participants had been asked to report any ex-