The Impact of Interviewer Working Hours on Police Interviews with Children (original) (raw)
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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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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...
Child Abuse & Neglect, 1999
Objective: Previous research suggests that training workshops on investigative interviewing conducted with front-line workers, such as police officers or child protective service (CPS) workers, may result in improved knowledge about appropriate strategies to use. Limited research has addressed whether such training programs result in improvements in actual interviewing skills. The present investigation assessed the impact of a training workshop on CPS workers' knowledge about conducting and behavior during investigative interviews. Method: Twelve CPS workers participated. To evaluate the impact of the training, a quasi-experimental design was used. Participants completed outcome measures prior to, immediately following, and 3 months following the training. Outcome measures included (a) a questionnaire to assess knowledge about interviewing practices, (b) simulated interviews with a confederate to assess participant behavior during an investigative interview, and (c) questionnaires to gather information related to the simulated interviews (e.g., materials requested for use during interview, abuse status of confederate). All participants completed 6 hours of training during 3 weekly 2-hour sessions. Results: Participants' knowledge on the topic, as well as several interviewing skills during simulated interviews, improved following the training. However, the training failed to impact several key interviewing skills such as the types of questions asked or the length of the interview. Conclusions: Knowledge-based workshop training programs may not adequately prepare CPS workers to conduct appropriate investigative interviews with children who were allegedly abused. Further, knowledge about how to conduct such interviews may not be the best indicator of whether someone is prepared for this aspect of the job.
Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science/Revue canadienne des sciences du comportement, 2011
In the present study, we assessed the effectiveness of an extensive training and feedback program with investigative interviewers of child victims of alleged abuse and neglect in a large Canadian city. Twelve investigative interviewers participated in a joint training initiative that lasted 8 months and involved classroom components and extensive weekly verbal and written feedback. Interviewers were significantly more likely to use open-ended prompts and elicited more information from children with open-ended prompts following training. These differences were especially prominent following a subsequent "refresher" training session. No negative effects of training were observed. Clear evidence was found of the benefits of an intensive training and feedback program across a wide variety of investigative interviews with children. Although previous research has found benefits of training with interviewers of child sexual assault victims, the current study extends these findings to a wide range of allegations and maltreatment contexts.