Interviews Flashcards
PEACE
The Reid approach was used in USA which had been criticised for being coercive to cause false confessions (Leo, 2008). This caused concern in the public and undermined public confidence. In 1992 the PEACE approach was associated with securing greater number of comprehensive accounts as well as confessions. Overall 63% of those interviews rated satisfactory or above obtained a comprehensive account whereas only 12% for needs more training. Therefore, overall improving police practice.
Comparison:
Within eyewitness testimonies cognitive interviewing is used using the approach ADVOKATE similar to PEACE. However, 83% of interviews in the UK are not done with cognitive interview. This is because it is time consuming and the pressures of resources are too great.
Research Supporting Argument:
Buckhout, (1980) found recorded crime on TV, 2000 people rang. But, 1800 made a false ID. If police officers were to use cognitive interviewing for each person, it would be a massive waste of resources.
Evaluation:
Therefore, we need to condense and find which witnesses are reliable, this may be done by time estimation. Memon et al (2003) found exposure to the event and the face are correlated with better performance. This proposes the mere exposure to target 45s vs 12s = better identification of target. However, need to be cautious as participants time estimations can vary hugely ranging from 16% - 496%. Memon et al (2003) found they are consistent against laboratory estimation tasks. Suggesting if police were to make participants to participate in mandatory time estimation tasks, this would help to identify which witnesses are more reliable. Thus, using more resources on them such as cognitive interviewing.
False Confessions
Alison et al (2008) stated the police officers use a variety of intimidation techniques. In turn, this can lead to false confessions. The innocence project (2017) 10 % of false confessions had mental health or mental capacity issues. Furthermore, suggestive & intimidating interviewing techniques can lead to Internalised false confessions (Ofshe 1989; Gudjonsson 1992). This suggests, vulnerable suspects believe they did it in the end, from usually highly suggestive Interrogations. Furthermore, a person with memory distrust syndrome (Gudjonsson & MacKeith 1982) may distrust his own memory and rely of external information instead such as a false eye witness identification. Additionally, an individual with mental health may experience disturbing suggestions where inconvertible evidence is against them.
Similarity:
When interviewing vulnerable witnesses’ guidelines to follow were to be sensitive to the interviewee showing empathy. Similarly, Outska et al (2011) found interviewed suspects (who denied committing crime but later confessed) there was a significant positive association between officers (self-reported) level of empathic understanding and obtaining full confessions.
Evaluation:
Senior officer (unpublished) found that dominant interview tactics had a negative influence on confessing/providing relevant information, but felt self-respect was significantly associated with confessing. This provides valuable insight into how creating a relaxed environment, being sensitive to interviewee can lead to more full confessions & less false confessions from vulnerable suspects. Especially, from individuals with mental health, police could access medical records to ensure when interviewing individuals with mental health that suggestive/intimidating methods are not used which could contribute to a false confession and a waste of police resources. This also be cost effective to the government as it costs £90 a day to keep an offender in prison (Parliament, 2018). Let alone someone who is innocent!
Children
NSPCC stats 2017 recorded 64,667 child sexual offences (Bentley et al 2016). Poole & Lindsay, 1995) found children younger than preschool are more prone to suggestion. Furthermore, Ceci & Bruch (1995) conducted an experiment looking at 40 children in a paediatric examination. Findings found children who did not experience genital examination said they were touched, 50% of children give incorrect report & 17.5% put spoon it dolls private area. This shows that children accounts of the experience can be limited/incorrect. This may be due to attention, language comprehension and suggestibility. Children may be more prone to suggestibility if they think they are being asked again because they answered wrong or if they don’t know but don’t want to say they don’t know. Inevitably, this can cause problems.
Comparison
Due to language comprehension we cannot assume that the question that the child heard was the one the adult asked unlike adults.
Evaluation
Interviewers should focus on open ended questions, such as what happened which encourages free call, also the use of cue invitations such as you mentioned. Furthermore, What & how questions could be used focusing interviewer’s attention to specific information. Additionally, interviewers should make sure children understand what is being asked. However, interviewers should be careful when approach yes or no question, this may lead to individuals to start doubting their answers. Finally, information not mentioned by interviewee should not be brought up as this is where children are more prone to susceptibility than adults, therefore providing an incorrect account of the event. Also, suggesting something which isn’t true can lead to false confessions, and a child with limited language comprehension may fail to interpret the trick question.
Filler Line Ups & Composites
Police procedures can cause difficulty in identifying suspects. Similarity in line ups can be problematic and causes the eyewitness to experience difficulty in identifying the suspect. Face composites can harm the line-up identification performance (Wells et al 2016). The composite building process can harm builder’s memory for the face. Reduction in chance of identifying the real face, therefore more chance of a false ID. But, moderately similar can lead to increase identification and less false positive IDs (Fitzgeral et al 2015). This may suggest, the phenomenon choice blindness where individuals have difficulty detecting the manipulation choice they made (Sagana et al 2014), research suggests 39 – 68% of manipulations remain undetected. This can cause a huge problem as 75% of eyewitness testimony errors involved 75% of DNA exoneration cases. However
Similarity
In all police procedures whether interviewing a suspect, vulnerable witness or a witness it is key psychological research is used to understand how line ups can affect memory and this is very similar to what questions are asked in police interviews.
Evaluation
Loftus & Palmer (1975) aim was to test whether the language used in eyewitness testimony can alter memory. Group 1 was asked “how fast were the cars going when they hit each other”? and group 2 “how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other”? The highest speed estimate for ‘smashed’ (40.8 mph) and for ‘hit’ (34 mph). The results show that the verb conveyed an impression of the speed or the car, therefore altering participants perception. Within experiment 2 participants were asked if they saw broken glass for the ‘hit’ condition 14% & for ‘smashed’ 32%. This suggests two theories response bias factors were the misleading information have simply influenced the participants answer but did not lead to false memory of the event or the memory representation is altered. The critical verb changes the person’s perception of the accident.
