This experimental study examined whether a humanitarian and a dominant interviewing style, respectively, had any causal effect on 146 interviewees’ memory performance, as well as the interviewees’ psychological well-being. Independent-samples t-tests showed that participants interviewed in a humanitarian style reported a larger amount of information altogether, including, as defined, more peripheral and central information, compared to those interviewed in a dominant style. The amount of false reported information was statistically invariable regardless of interviewing style. A mixed between-within analysis of variance showed an interaction effect between the interviewing style and the interviewees’ anxiety level before and after interview, thus, partly supporting the hypothesis that a humanitarian interviewing style promotes greater psychological well-being among interviewees. Factors influencing the results are discussed, including the main implications, which are that a humanitarian interviewing style promotes rapport building and provides the interviewees with adequate time to find retrieval paths and cues to memories.

<p>The police interview is one of the most important investigative tools that law enforcement has close at hand, and police interview methods have changed during the twentieth century. A good police interview is conducted in the frame of the law, is governed by the interview goal, and is influenced by facilitating factors that may affect the elicited report. The present doctoral dissertation focuses on police interviews in cases of very serious crimes of violence and sexual offences. Results reveal crime victims’ and perpetrators’ experiences of being interviewed and police officers’ attitudes towards conducting interviews related to traumatizing crimes. Study 1 revealed that when police officers interviewed <i>murderers</i> and <i>sexual offenders</i>, the interviewees perceived attitudes characterized by either <i>dominance</i> or <i>humanity</i>. Police interviews marked by dominance and suspects’ responses of <i>anxiety</i> were mainly associated with a higher proportion of denials, whereas an approach marked by humanity, and responses of being <i>respected</i> were significantly associated with admissions. In line with Study 1, the victims of rape and aggravated assault in Study 2 also revealed the experience of two police interview styles, where an interviewing style marked by <i>dominance </i>and responses of <i>anxiety</i> was significantly associated with crime victims’ omissions of information. Moreover, a <i>humanitarian</i> interviewing style, and crime victims’ feelings of being <i>respected</i> and <i>co-operative,</i> was significantly related to crime victims providing all information from painful events. Special squad police officers’ attitudes towards<i> interviewing</i> <i>crime victims</i>, in Study 3, also showed a <i>humanitarian</i> approach and <i>two dominant approaches</i>, one affective and the other refusing. The attitude towards <i>interviewing suspects</i> of crimes in focus revealed <i>humanitarian</i> and <i>dominant</i> interviewing attitudes, and an approach marked by <i>kindness</i>. The present thesis shows that, during their entire career, an overwhelming majority of the special squad police officers have experienced stressful events during patrol as well as investigative duty. Results show that symptoms from stressful event exposures and coping mechanisms are associated with negative attitudes towards interviewing suspects and supportive attitudes towards crime victim interviews. Thus, experiences from stressful exposures may automatically activate ego-defensive functions that automatically generate dominant attitudes. Moreover, it is important to offer police officers who have been exposed to stressful events the opportunity to work through their experiences, for example, through debriefing procedures. After debriefings, police officers are better prepared to meet crime victims and suspects and, through conscious closed-loop processes, to conduct police interviews without awaking ego-defensive functions. </p>

The police interview is one of the most important investigative tools that law enforcement has close at hand, and police interview methods have changed during the twentieth century. A good police interview is conducted in the frame of the law, is governed by the interview goal, and is influenced by facilitating factors that may affect the elicited report. The present doctoral dissertation focuses on police interviews in cases of very serious crimes of violence and sexual offences. Results reveal crime victims’ and perpetrators’ experiences of being interviewed and police officers’ attitudes towards conducting interviews related to traumatizing crimes. Study 1 revealed that when police officers interviewed murderers and sexual offenders, the interviewees perceived attitudes characterized by either dominance or humanity. Police interviews marked by dominance and suspects’ responses of anxiety were mainly associated with a higher proportion of denials, whereas an approach marked by humanity, and responses of being respected were significantly associated with admissions. In line with Study 1, the victims of rape and aggravated assault in Study 2 also revealed the experience of two police interview styles, where an interviewing style marked by dominance and responses of anxiety was significantly associated with crime victims’ omissions of information. Moreover, a humanitarian interviewing style, and crime victims’ feelings of being respected and co-operative, was significantly related to crime victims providing all information from painful events. Special squad police officers’ attitudes towards interviewing crime victims, in Study 3, also showed a humanitarian approach and two dominant approaches, one affective and the other refusing. The attitude towards interviewing suspects of crimes in focus revealed humanitarian and dominant interviewing attitudes, and an approach marked by kindness. The present thesis shows that, during their entire career, an overwhelming majority of the special squad police officers have experienced stressful events during patrol as well as investigative duty. Results show that symptoms from stressful event exposures and coping mechanisms are associated with negative attitudes towards interviewing suspects and supportive attitudes towards crime victim interviews. Thus, experiences from stressful exposures may automatically activate ego-defensive functions that automatically generate dominant attitudes. Moreover, it is important to offer police officers who have been exposed to stressful events the opportunity to work through their experiences, for example, through debriefing procedures. After debriefings, police officers are better prepared to meet crime victims and suspects and, through conscious closed-loop processes, to conduct police interviews without awaking ego-defensive functions.

The police interview is one of the most important investigative tools that law enforcement has close at hand, and police interview methods have changed during the twentieth century. A good police interview is conducted in the frame of the law, is governed by the interview goal, and is influenced by facilitating factors that may affect the elicited report. The present doctoral dissertation focuses on police interviews in cases of very serious crimes of violence and sexual offences. Results reveal crime victims’ and perpetrators’ experiences of being interviewed and police officers’ attitudes towards conducting interviews related to traumatizing crimes. Study 1 revealed that when police officers interviewed murderers and sexual offenders, the interviewees perceived attitudes characterized by either dominance or humanity. Police interviews marked by dominance and suspects’ responses of anxiety were mainly associated with a higher proportion of denials, whereas an approach marked by humanity, and responses of being respected were significantly associated with admissions. In line with Study 1, the victims of rape and aggravated assault in Study 2 also revealed the experience of two police interview styles, where an interviewing style marked by dominance and responses of anxiety was significantly associated with crime victims’ omissions of information. Moreover, a humanitarian interviewing style, and crime victims’ feelings of being respected and co-operative, was significantly related to crime victims providing all information from painful events. Special squad police officers’ attitudes towards interviewing crime victims, in Study 3, also showed a humanitarian approach and two dominant approaches, one affective and the other refusing. The attitude towards interviewing suspects of crimes in focus revealed humanitarian and dominant interviewing attitudes, and an approach marked by kindness. The present thesis shows that, during their entire career, an overwhelming majority of the special squad police officers have experienced stressful events during patrol as well as investigative duty. Results show that symptoms from stressful event exposures and coping mechanisms are associated with negative attitudes towards interviewing suspects and supportive attitudes towards crime victim interviews. Thus, experiences from stressful exposures may automatically activate ego-defensive functions that automatically generate dominant attitudes. Moreover, it is important to offer police officers who have been exposed to stressful events the opportunity to work through their experiences, for example, through debriefing procedures. After debriefings, police officers are better prepared to meet crime victims and suspects and, through conscious closed-loop processes, to conduct police interviews without awaking ego-defensive functions.

This thesis has explored the context of police interviews with suspects of serious crimes. Focus group studies, a case study and additional interviews have shown several aspects of information flow, decision making, interviewing tactics, human rights and tacit knowledge as these interviews are planned, performed and evaluated. The informants, homicide investigators, describe their work as an information generating and information evaluating process. They apply a series of methods, e. g. different forms of tactics in the use of investigative information during the police interviews. Based on the informants’ description and the case study, their methods seem to have research evidence in general, where such is available. The informants specifically stress the important role of planning and evaluation. The investigative process generates a vast amount of situations where decision making is needed. In these, the bases for the decisions are mainly the information flow of the investigation, which tends to be obscure and in constant change. The investigators’ decision making is thereby exposed to the risk of confirmation bias. The informants express an ambition to work objectively and to presume the suspects’ innocence. However, this generates a psychological conflict, which might affect the human rights of the suspect in negative ways. The informants describe several ways to handle this conflict. The informants describe that they have several concerns when making decisions. These can be categorized as legal, organizational and tactical concerns. Taken together, legal rule conflicts and the organizational ambition to lead the investigators in a target oriented way using quantitative measures, result in strong incitements for investigations to be finalized when they are good enough, rather than when they are good. The informants describe their profession as one where it is possible to develop expertise and where tacit knowledge plays an important role. When previous research on tacit knowledge is combined with the interview results, there seems to be a level between the tacit and the explicit knowledge. I have called this low-key knowledge. This low-key knowledge can be verbalized in the proper context in communication among those initiated in the subject at hand. The low-key knowledge also seems to risk being over-voiced in certain contexts.

The investigative interviewing of eyewitnesses is an important part of the judicial system and is essential in police investigations to identify culpable parties. However, interviewing witnesses to elicit accurate recall is not without some flaws (Ainsworth, 2002). Researchers have acknowledged that recall of information is a complex process vulnerable to variables which impede the retrieval of accurate information (Gudjonsson, 1996; Loftus, 1979; 1992). To improve witness recall, psychologists developed the Cognitive Interview (CI) procedure to help interviewers retrieve more correct information from witnesses (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992). The use of the CI has been shown to increase accuracy in many populations (Memon, Holley, Wark, Bull, & Koehnken, 1996; Milne & Shaw, 1999). However, there are some criticisms of the CI. For example, the CI may cause confusion for witnesses (Kebbell, Milne, & Wagstaff, 1999), takes longer to administer than a standard police interview (Croft, 1995) and contain components which are reported to undermine the effectiveness of this procedure (Boon & Noon, 1994). This research program utilised three studies in a multimethod approach to evaluate investigative interviewing procedures, from an experimental and applied perspective. The overarching aim of this research was to identify a parsimonious, effective and efficient interview procedure which overcame some of the limitations recognized in the CI. The first study employed an experimental methodology to test the effectiveness of the CI and two alternative versions of the CI, to determine which interview procedure resulted in the most correct and least incorrect amounts of information being elicited from student witnesses to a road incident stimulus. Results indicated that the truncated group utilizing mnemonics Tell All and Reinstate Context elicited as much correct and less incorrect information than the ‘Full CI’ group, and took less time to administer. Study Two examined the perceptions of the interview procedure from the witnesses’ perspective. Witnesses were asked to complete a questionnaire which was designed to investigate what the participants thought about how the interview was conducted. Results indicated that, overall, the witnesses found that the interviewers engaged in practices and behaviours at a similar skill level and appreciated the rapport building and clarity of the interviewers. A content analysis revealed that the witnesses favoured some mnemonics over others. The qualitative statements made in regard to questions in the questionnaire are presented. Study Three used a triangulation methodology to determine what the Queensland Police Service officers were currently trained in and practising in the field. Secondary sources, a questionnaire, focus group and case study methodologies were used to make this determination. Findings indicated that there were areas where the police service could improve training of officers to help facilitate interviewing of witnesses. The integration of the findings from the three studies will help to inform the current state of research in the area of investigative interviewing. In particular, this research provides a target examination of interviewing practices in a sub-section of the Queensland Police Service. The findings from the three studies were used to identify an interview procedure which obtained more correct information, did not gain an increase in incorrect information, reduced the time required to conduct the interview, was not confusing for the witnesses, or the officers, and contained no inherent problems for the judicial system. Further recommendations are made for the use of interview protocols for investigative interviewing of road incidents.