What criteria do police officers use to measure the success of an interview with a child? (original) (raw)

What Is a Child-Appropriate Interview? Interaction Between Child Witnesses and Police Officers

International Journal on Child Maltreatment: Research, Policy and Practice, 2020

Over the past decades, researchers have recognized a need to develop more suitable forensic interview protocols to meet children’s right to receive improved and adapted communication. This study examines to what extent a relatively novel implementation of an investigative protocol conducted by highly trained Norwegian police investigators helps children (n = 33), 3–15 years of age, to report more detailed information from a criminal allegation than a previous protocol. Additionally, we investigated the bidirectional dynamics between interviewees and interviewers. We predicted that children’s spontaneous recollection would elicit more open-ended and focused questions from interviewers, and increase their likelihood of posing more open questions. We expected wh-questions to produce more central details regarding the abuse, which in turn allows the interviewers to resist employing suggestive and leading questioning. Results confirm an enriched communication after open-ended questions c...

Theory and practice in interviewing young children: A study of Norwegian police interviews 1985–2002

Psychology, Crime & Law, 2006

Has the increased public and professional awareness of the challenges of interviewing children in forensic contexts led to changes and improvements in police interviewing practices? A representative sample (n0/91) of police interviews conducted during the period of 1985 Á2002 from a large Norwegian police district was analysed. The results indicated that interviewer strategies have improved; there was a decrease in the use of suggestive, yes/no and option-posing questions and this decrease was accompanied by a comparable increase in the use of cued recall questions.

The impact of investing in the good interviewers policy of practice (IGIpop) on police interviews with children

Police Practice and Research, 2020

It is important to elicit the best evidence from children during investigative interviews. Many of recent improvements (such as extensive training) are costly to implement preventing police forces with small budgets from adopting them. A policy is needed that can benefit all forces irrespective of their financial resources. We assessed a new approach: Investing in the Good Interviewers: Policy of Practice (IGIpop). IGIpop suggests that all interviews should be conducted using 'good' interviewers. In 2016 we evaluated the performance of interviewers in a police force and identified the good interviewers. IGIpop was implemented in 2017 when five good interviewers were chosen to conduct all of the interviews with children alleging sexual abuse. We analysed 102 interviews and assessed how IGIpop impacted the quality of interviews. As expected, appropriate interviewing approaches increased and inappropriate interviewing approaches decreased after IGIpop. IGIpop achieved an important improvement in the quality of interviews with no additional training or costs.

General View for Investigative Interviewing of Children

Advances in Psychology, Mental Health, and Behavioral Studies, 2018

This chapter aims to summarize the development of investigative interviewing of children especially in the UK and Turkey to give short information about the methods which have been implemented by police officers during interviews. The role of the interviewers during the interview will be outlined and some information will be given about children as witnesses. This book chapter will also express the risks and difficulties of conducting interviews with children. Moreover, it will be briefly underlined the harmfull effects of re-interviewing of children. All these subjects were examined comprehensively Interviewing is at the heart of any police investigation and thus is the root of achieving justice in society.

Police Officers' Ability to Play the Role of the Child during Investigative Interview Training

International Journal of Police Science & Management, 2012

Practice during investigative interview training is crucial for interviewers to develop the ability to adhere consistently to best-practice interview procedures. Given the constraints around using trained actors in the role of the child during practice interviews, this study examined whether officers themselves were able to play this role in a manner known to facilitate interviewers' performance. At baseline, 24 police officers' ability to adhere to five rules that were developed to train actors how to play the role of the child were measured. They were then given simple instructions about each of the five rules, and their ability to adhere to these rules was measured a second time. The results showed that participants naturally adhered to two of the rules at baseline (providing broad disclosure initially and responding with no more than four pieces of information to open-ended questions). Their performance improved for one rule (introducing conversational tangents) after receiving the simple instructions; however, participants' performance showed less improvement for the other two rules (responding with a non-feasible response to complex questions and responding to specific questions with few words). Overall, the results supported the use of fellow interviewers in the role of the child during practice interviews.

Testing an Evaluation Tool to Facilitate Police Officers’ Peer Review of Child Interviews

Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology

Providing child forensic interviewers with ongoing opportunities for feedback is critical to maintaining their interviewing skills. Given practical difficulties with engaging experts to provide this feedback (such as costs and workloads), the current paper explores whether a structured evaluation tool can assist police interviewers to accurately peer review interviews. A structured checklist of best practice skills was created, and participants in two studies used it to evaluate mock transcripts of child interviews that ranged in quality. Transcripts were manipulated to present the opening, transitional, and substantive interview phases as a strong, poor, or mixed performance of best practice skills. In Study 1, 57 police participants from one jurisdiction evaluated the opening and substantive phases of the transcript less accurately when the transcript contained a mixed performance of best practice and the transitional phase less accurately when it contained poor performance. In St...

The Impact of Interviewer Working Hours on Police Interviews with Children

Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology

Fatigue resulting from unpredictable or extended working conditions is a factor that negatively impacts the performance of police officers. In this study, we considered how investigative interviewing of children is influenced by interviewer working conditions. We examined two working conditions concerning when interviews were conducted: (a) during early duty shift and (b) an hour before the end of an interviewer's duty shift and after the end of a shift. We analysed 102 police interviews with children and identified clues that interviews which commenced during early duty shift had more appropriate approaches than interviews in the other condition. Inappropriate approaches were not significantly affected by interviewer working conditions. These outcomes suggest considering new knowledge specific to the behaviour of interviewers according to working conditions and provide promising foundations for further research.

Forensic Interviews with Children in Scotland: A Survey of Interview Practices Among Police

Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 2011

The present study surveyed 91 police interviewers in Scottish police forces about their perceptions of how well they adhered to the Scottish Executive guidelines. Almost all respondents (97%) received the appropriate national training and overwhelmingly indicated (again 97%) that their training equipped them either quite, very, or extremely well for conducting their interviews. Not surprisingly, therefore, that most interviewers (88%) believed that their interviews allowed them to obtain full and complete accounts of the events being investigated. However, aside from this positive self evaluation there are reasons to be concerned about some aspects of the interviews being conducted; 1) Most interviewers (78%) received no refresher training, 2) no interviewers received formal feedback about the quality of interviews that they conducted, 3) practice interviews were reportedly not included in most interviews, 4) the use of open-ended prompts were not widely used with 20% of interviewers indicating that they were rarely used, and 5) interviews are not currently being electronically recorded. These results are discussed with respect to the context of child interviewing in Scotland and recommendations for future training.

Assessing the quality of child investigative interviewing in the Netherlands

. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 2019

Using evidence-based guidelines to interview children is an important means to obtain complete and accurate accounts. In the current study, we examined the quality of child investigative interviewing in the Netherlands. To examine this, we compared the Dutch Scenario Model with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Protocol and interviews from countries that did not follow a specific protocol. Our principal result was that Dutch child interviewers rarely asked recommended open prompts that are known to elicit detailed and accurate testimonies from children. Furthermore, we found that the scenario model contained the highest number of directive questions compared with interviews from other countries. Our findings show that the Dutch Scenario Model is not well aligned with current research-based recommendations for interviewing children.