Investigative Interviewing: The Literature

Background: The information supplied by a victim of sexual violence during an investigative interview frequently serves as the sole foundation for investigators in processing a sexual violence case. Nonetheless, the investigative interview process often lacks professionalism due to efforts to impose the investigator’s personal assumptions. Aims: This research is a forensic language analysis intended to uncover the assumptions held by an investigator during an investigative interview with a child victim of sexual violence. Methods: This study utilized qualitative data obtained from the investigative interview between an investigator and a child victim of sexual violence at a police station in Cilacap. Conversation data were collected using listening and note-taking techniques. The statistics were subsequently verified with the investigator to validate their legitimacy. This study employs the dialogic speech act theory technique proposed by Weigand (2010) to elucidate the assumptions held by the researcher. Results: The findings of this study suggested that the investigator attempted to impose her personal assumptions on the victim through numerous exploratory speech acts designed to validate, offer options, and direct the victim’s responses. Implications: The findings of this study may serve as a reference in assessing the specifics of inquiries within the Standard Operational Procedure on Examination and questioning techniques during the investigative interview procedure.

: This study examined current practice and research related to the investigative interview. A framework for examining the interviewing process was developed. Site visits were conducted to five government agencies and several industrial organizations were surveyed to identify current investigative interviewing practices. Existing research suggested that the investigative interview is a highly useful background investigation method. Related research from the employment interviewing, survey research, interrogation, general interviewing, and detection of deception literatures was also reviewed. Based on these finding, a scenario for conducting investigative interviews was developed. Finally, recommendations were made for research studies to evaluate the effectiveness of investigative interviewing procedures.

Interviews constitute a core activity of the investigative process. Information obtained from victims, witnesses, and suspects in the course of investigative interviews not only provides important investigatory leads but also informs the evidence in subsequent legal proceedings. Well-conducted interviews advance investigations by eliciting high quality and reliable information. Poorly conducted interviews run the risk of eliciting unreliable information, destroying the credibility of a witness or victim, and contaminating the investigative process. Crucially, poor interviewing practice can lead to serious miscarriages of justice. Obtaining high quality reliable information through ethical and effective investigative interviewing is vital to the delivery of justice. The aim of this article is to enable any reader, researchers and practitioners alike, to become cognizant of key topics in the field of investigative interviewing. This is a sizeable and complex research field, spanning laboratory research evaluating the cognitive and social components of memory performance under different encoding and retrieval conditions, through to more applied work examining the performance of specific interview techniques and the detailed analysis of archival data. The task of the interviewer in forensic settings is a challenging one and hinges on the ability of the interviewer to elicit a comprehensive and accurate account. The opening section of this article points readers in the direction of important background literature to inform their understanding of the psychological factors underpinning an interviewee’s ability to provide such an account. General overviews of research and practice in investigative interviewing provide the context for the remainder of the article, which examines witness and suspect interviews separately, highlighting the specific challenges associated with interviews in each category. Deliberately, and reflecting the large body of relevant literature, special attention is devoted to investigative interviews with children and other vulnerable individuals. Extending the usual reach of articles on investigative interviewing, the challenges faced by interviewers in intelligence settings are also examined, as too are the needs of individuals in particular interview contexts, such as refugees and asylum seekers. A consistent theme throughout the article emphasizes the need for high quality training, reflection, and evaluation to ensure ethical and effective interviewing in forensic settings.

Unlike the majority of investigative interviewing literature, this chapter will not focus on investigative interviewing as such but will reflect on how police interviewers can be trained more efficiently, in order to reduce the risk of qualitatively poor interviewing behaviour. Assuming that insufficient training still causes difficulties in everyday interviews, the present chapter will discuss new training opportunities where investigative interviewers can be trained personally at work. Coaching is seen today as a relatively broad concept, whereby a trainee or a group of trainees gain benefit by personal coaching that can be organised in various aspects by various techniques; however, the idea of coaching, as it is known in the world of trade and industry, has never been implemented in everyday criminal investigations before. In practice, there are various kinds of coaching, such as supervision, intervision, evaluation, group and individual coaching that can be applied in daily police interview practices. These different methods all share a common and explicit aim: to improve quality by evaluating an individual’s performance through giving and receiving feedback. Recently, research results showed that coaching leads to improvement of interpersonal interview competences. Based on these results, this chapter will focus on (1) how personal training can be organised during daily police interview practices (2) reporting the findings showing that coaching has a positive learning effect on interviewers; (3) what the benefits of this new way of training are.

Research on confession has usually focused on showing that it is significantly associated with individual, crime-related, and situational/contextual variables and is both a static event and a dichotomous indicator of interview success. Recent work, however, suggests that investigative interviews are a dynamic process in which interrogation strategies change over time. Using a Game Theory perspective, this study looks at the impact of behaviours of both players (interviewer and suspect) on the production of investigation-relevant information (IRI). The sub-objective is to demonstrate the usefulness of applying Game Theory to the study of investigative interviews by considering time and interaction between players as an integrative part of the analysis. Videotaped interviews related to online child sexual exploitation (n = 130) were analysed and the different behaviours of suspects and interviewers were analysed to determine if they involved (1) rapport building/active denial, (2) collaboration, (3) confrontation, (4) emotion/response, and (5) elicitation of information related to the case. Results showed that information relevant to the investigation is often provided shortly after a suspect has offered additional information or given responses that meet emotional needs (e.g. justifications). The interviewer's use of available evidence increases the likelihood that additional information will be provided, while the ability to build a rapport with the suspect is effective in the longer term, even if a positive effect is not immediately observed. Using a dynamic process approach in analysing investigative interviews provides a starting point for the creation of practical guidelines to help practitioners increase suspect collaboration during investigative interviews.

The importance of building rapport when interviewing witnesses and suspects is emphasized in many interview models developed in Europe as well as in the United States. The construct of rapport shows a number of similarities with the construct of the working alliance, which is already extensively examined in therapeutic settings. Despite the important predictive role found in therapy, the role of the working alliance in investigative interviewing was not addressed in police research. The present study aims at looking into possible benefits of using the theoretical framework and the operationalisation of the working alliance in order to gain insights into the dynamics of investigative interviewing. It is examined to what extent the working alliance contributes to satisfaction with the interview from both investigators and interviewees in actual interviews. It also considers which factors are important to the working alliance. Besides therapeutic factors the study also explores significant factors from investigative interviewing literature on building rapport. Self-report questionnaires completed by investigators and interviewees show the mediating role of the working alliance between empathy, interview style, clarity of the interview and interview satisfaction. The research findings will also be discussed in the light of interview training and follow-up. More in particular, experiences with building rapport from interview training will be presented as well as experiences from a supervision project on suspect interviewing. Finally, in light of the recent Salduz case law and the subsequent introduction of legal advice in Europe, police officers’ views on building rapport with suspects and lawyers are touched upon.

Despite important progress in knowledge about interview ‘best practice’ with child victims, few studies had yet evaluated the impact of interviewers’ personal characteristics on adherence to these ‘best practice’. This study was designed to determine whether interviewers’ personal characteristics are associated with adherence to a structured interview protocol (National Institute of Child and Human Development), the use of open-ended questions and the amount of details provided in children’s responses during investigative interviews with alleged victims of child sexual abuse. 114 interviews were scored from 13 police investigators after they followed a one-week training program. Results showed that experience, emotional intelligence, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Neuroticism were related with adherence to the protocol and ratio of open-ended questions. Cognitive abilities were related to the amount of details obtained from the child. Generalized estimating equations were used to compare relative contribution of each variable. These findings raise questions about how investigative interviewers are selected and trained.

PurposeIntermediaries facilitate communication with many types of vulnerable witnesses during police investigative interviews. The purpose of this paper is to find out how intermediaries engage in their role in cases where the vulnerable witness presents with one type of vulnerability, namely, dissociative identity disorder (DID).Design/methodology/approachIn phase 1, data were obtained from the National Crime Agency Witness Intermediary Team (WIT) to ascertain the demand for intermediaries in DID cases in England and Wales within a three-year period. In phase 2 of this study four intermediaries who had worked with witnesses with DID completed an in-depth questionnaire detailing their experience.FindingsReferrals for DID are currently incorporated within the category of personality disorder in the WIT database. Ten definite DID referrals and a possible additional ten cases were identified within this three-year period. Registered Intermediary participants reported having limited experience and limited specific training in dealing with DID prior to becoming a Registered Intermediary. Furthermore, intermediaries reported the many difficulties that they experienced with DID cases in terms of how best to manage the emotional personalities that may present.Originality/valueThis is the first published study where intermediaries have shared their experiences about DID cases. It highlights the complexities of obtaining a coherent account from such individuals in investigative interviews.

Decades-old child sexual abuse cases stress the need to examine the accuracy of long-term memory regarding traumatic events. The article by Goldfarb, Goodman, Larson, Eisen, and Qin (published in the March 2019 issue of Clinical Psychological Science) showed that memories of genital contact occurring decades ago were highly accurate. We argue that their findings emphasize the use of investigative interviewing in past abuse cases. Such cognitive interviewing (CI) is known to increase the completeness of memory reports. We also contend that the CI may reduce a victim’s anxiety at the time of the interview. Therefore, besides a well-proven legal relevance, investigative interviewing could also have clinical value.

8 - Communicating with psychopaths in law enforcement settings

The current study explored the expected consequences of disclosure discussed by 204 5- to 13-year-old suspected victims of child sexual abuse during the course of investigative interviews conducted using the NICHD Investigative Interview Protocol. Expected consequences were mentioned in nearly half of all interviews, with older children and those alleging multiple incidents more likely to do so. Most consequences were mentioned spontaneously by children and most consequences were expected to befall the children themselves. The most common consequences were physical harm and feeling negative emotions for the child and jail/legal consequences for the suspect. Expecting consequences for the child or another family member were associated with delaying disclosure, but expecting consequences for the suspect was not related to delay. Results provide insight into developmental and socio-motivational influences on children's disclosure of negative events and are of considerable practical interest to legal and clinical professionals who must interview, treat, and evaluate children alleging sexual abuse.

A crucial way of improving the justice response to sexual violence is to strengthen investigative interviews with victim-survivors. Research in investigative interviewing, however, has tended to preference the views of police and psychologists in understandings of effective interview techniques, with minimal research examining victim-survivors’ perspectives of interview techniques and protocols. In this qualitative study, adult victim-survivors in Australia (n = 26) were invited to view and provide their perceptions on a Cognitive Interview style police protocol. Responses were thematically analysed and showed that participants generally valued the protocol’s structure, especially the emphasis on setting clear expectations for the interview, encouraging a free narrative, and grounding techniques. However, many expressed concerns about the ‘context reinstatement’ component, suggesting it would likely be trauma-inducing. They also noted examples of patronising language that communicates disbelief, as well as the potential for insincere rapport-building. Practical suggestions to improve investigative interview protocols in sexual offence investigations are discussed. Overall, the study helps to clarify which protocol components might be harmful or supportive to victim-survivors and adds a victim-centred empirical basis to recommendations moving forward.

L’influence des habiletés cognitives, de l’âge et des caractéristiques de l’agression sexuelle sur la déclaration des présumées victimes

In Australia the criminal justice system is largely the responsibility of the states (there are six) and territories (two), with each state and territory having its own police force, laws and justice system. The Commonwealth, in the form of the Australian Federal Police, which was established in 1979, only takes responsibility for a limited range of offences, including national and international operations, and peacekeeping (Fleming 2004). Surprisingly little primary research has been conducted in this country on investigative interviews with suspects. Instead, research has tended to focus on perceptions of the investigative process, with studies exploring the views of judges, prosecutors, defence lawyers, police officers, the public and even defendants (e.g. Dixon 2006; Moston and Fisher 2006; Kebbell et al. 2006). The reasons for this particular focus are complex, but centre on a deep-seated distrust (in both directions) between academics and police officers. This chapter will explore what we currently objectively know about investigative interviewing practices in Australia, with data mainly coming from a series of thorough (but narrowly focused) audit commissions, and also how the various players in the criminal justice system see the legislation, technology and operational practice of interviewing. It focuses on the investigative interviewing of suspects in criminal investigations, and thus excludes some interesting and innovative work on the interviewing of children who have witnessed criminal activity (e.g. Wilson and Powell 2001; Powell et al. 2002; Powell and Thomson 2003).

Purpose This study aims to examine how lay persons’ perceived usefulness and ease of use of chatbots influence their intention to use one in an eyewitness interviewing setting, while considering trait anxiety, trust in police and prior experience in chatbots use. Design/methodology/approach Dutch citizens (N = 183) completed a survey consisting of scales measuring chatbot-related perceived usefulness, chatbot-related perceived ease of use, trait anxiety, trust in the police and prior experience in chatbot use. Findings Perceived usefulness and ease of use were found to significantly influence chatbot use intention during investigative interviews. Social anxiety moderated the relationship between ease of use and chatbot use intention, where higher anxiety reduced the likelihood of adoption. Trust in police and prior experience in chatbot use had no moderating effect. Research limitations/implications Psychological factors play an important part in using technological tools to collect information from eyewitnesses. Further research is needed to explore how other psychological factors and different levels of interaction with chatbots may affect their use in investigative contexts. Practical implications These findings address the importance of perceived use and social anxiety in improving chatbot integration in investigative interviews, enhancing resource efficiency in police work. Social implications This paper highlights that eyewitnesses might display individual preferences based on psychological determinants. Taking these into account may help improve reporting conditions and, therefore, reporting quality. Originality/value This study pioneers the application of the Technology Acceptance Model in the context of chatbot-aided eyewitness interviews, highlighting the crucial role of societal and psychological factors in technology acceptance within legal and investigative settings.