Forensic Psychology

by Graham M Davies

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  7 Interviewing Witnesses

  ALLISON P. MUGNO, LINDSAY C. MALLOY AND DAVID J. LA ROOY

  CHAPTER OUTLINE

  7.1 INTRODUCTION

  7.2 SHORTCOMINGS AND CONSEQUENCES OF TRADITIONAL INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEWS

  7.3 THE COGNITIVE INTERVIEW (CI) 7.3.1 Overview of the CI

  7.3.2 Empirical Support for the CI

  7.3.3 Variants of the CI

  7.3.4 Concluding Remarks on the CI

  7.4 INTERVIEWING VULNERABLE WITNESSES 7.4.1 Child Witnesses

  7.4.2 Memorandum of Good Practice (MOGP)

  7.4.3 Achieving Best Evidence (ABE)

  7.4.4 The U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Investigative Interview Protocol

  7.4.5 Elderly Witnesses

  7.4.6 Witnesses with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

  7.5 SUMMARY

  LEARNING OUTCOMES

  BY THE END OF THIS CHAPTER, YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO:

  Understand how a psychological analysis of investigative interviewing techniques can inform legal practice

  Appreciate the cognitive and social factors that influence the development of effective interviewing methods for various vulnerable populations

  Understand the implications of developing empirically-based interviewing techniques for improving the event recall of eyewitnesses.

  7.1 INTRODUCTION

  Imagine that you are at the pub with your friends. You start to hear a commotion at the next table. A fight has broken out between two fellow patrons, and it escalates quickly. Above the laughter and music, you hear punches being thrown and glasses
breaking. You notice one of the men pull a knife from his back pocket and you gasp as you see him plunge this knife into the abdomen of the other man. Your friend shouts, “Call 999!” Fearing for your own safety, you make the call, stating the basic facts of what you have just witnessed to the emergency response team. A few moments later you hear sirens; police and paramedics are on the scene. They want to talk to you. You thought that you would have a nice evening out with friends, and now you are a key witness to a crime. Feeling distressed and shocked by what you just saw, you shake hands with a police officer, and prepare to give your statement. How will the police question you to ensure that they get an accurate and complete account of what happened? Have their interviewing techniques been supported by empirical research? In this chapter, we focus on these questions, highlighting several “best-practice” interviewing techniques.

  Although the situation described above is relatively uncommon, thousands of witnesses or victims of crime are interviewed each year. Many of these individuals are considered “vulnerable” victims or witnesses. For example, in England, more than 50,000 children were the subject of a child protection plan between April 2015 and March 2016, meaning they were identified as needing protection from physical, emotional or sexual abuse and neglect (Department for Education, 2016).

  The intellectually disabled and elderly are also at enhanced risk for becoming victims of crimes (see also Chapter 14). It is important to consider how interview techniques may be tailored to accommodate the needs of particular groups of victims or witnesses.

  In this chapter, we begin by reviewing some of the shortcomings and consequences of traditional investigative interviews and discuss the Cognitive Interview (CI), which was designed to interview cooperative, primarily adult, witnesses in light of these shortcomings. Next, we discuss research on interviewing vulnerable victims and witnesses, focusing on children, the elderly, and individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities. We discuss the social and cognitive abilities of each, along with research that has examined the most effective ways to elicit accurate and complete recall from these populations. In so doing, we review the Memorandum of Good Practice (MOGP) and Achieving Best Evidence (ABE) guidelines, as well as the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Investigative Interview Protocol. At times, we use the terms “victims” and “witnesses” interchangeably.