Untapped Potential? A Survey Study with German Police Officers into Suspect Interviewing Practices and the Strategic Use of Evidence

Clemens, Franziska; Knieps, Melanie; Tekin, Serra

doi:10.1080/24732850.2019.1684123

Cited by 14 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Two decades of research have built a firm foundation for the notion that strategically disclosing evidence to suspects fosters the gathering of reliable and often incriminating information in an ethical and effective way Hartwig and Granhag 2015;Hartwig et al 2016;Oleszkiewicz and Watson 2020;Sandham et al 2020), and helps to obtain comprehensive accounts (Bull and Soukara 2010;Soukara 2005;Walsh and Bull 2012). Criminal investigators in a growing number of countries have been trained in several models of strategic interviewing (van Beek and Hoekendijk 2016;Clemens et al 2019;King (2002) in Sukumar et al 2016;Luke et al 2016;Nilsson, personal communication, 2019, November, 27;Rachlew, personal communication, 2020, March, 3;Snook et al 2020b). However, as stated in our introduction, the strategic interviewing research thus far has implicitly assumed that the evidence/information that is to be disclosed to the suspect is all correct information.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When the Evidence Is Incorrect: an Exploration of What Happens When Interviewers Unwittingly Present Inaccurate Information in Interviews with Suspects

Beek

Bull

Chen³

2021

J Police Crim Psych

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Skillfully presenting evidence/information to suspects is one of the few interviewing techniques that increases the likelihood of guilty suspects providing information or making a confession, without making innocent ones do so as well. It is important that this evidence/information is correct, since deliberately disclosing incorrect evidence poses some risks. Also, in real-life interviews, police interviewers may unwittingly disclose incorrect evidence, for example when a witness was mistaken and provided the police with incorrect information. The present study examined the behavior of fifty police interviewers in interviews with “suspects” of a scripted crime: what is their response when the interviewees try to explain to them that some of the evidence/information just disclosed by them is incorrect? Eleven interviewers responded adaptively (by actively picking up on this new information), 35 responded in a neutral way and four responded maladaptively (by discrediting the interviewee’s claim). Experience and a full interview training had a significant negative relationship with adaptiveness. These results indicate that, when preparing and conducting interviews with suspects, greater awareness is needed of the possibility that some of the evidence/information that is to be disclosed could be incorrect, and therefore it is crucial that suspects’ responses which suggest such may be the case are taken into account.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When the Evidence Is Incorrect: an Exploration of What Happens When Interviewers Unwittingly Present Inaccurate Information in Interviews with Suspects

Beek

Bull

Chen³

2021

J Police Crim Psych

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“…One possible downside of late evidence disclosure is that it could negatively affect the relationship between interviewer and interviewee. Clemens et al (2020) surveyed German police officers regarding the SUE technique, and one concern raised was that SUE may interfere with the quality of interaction between interviewer and interviewee. That is, SUE may reduce rapport.…”

Section: Evidence Disclosure and Interviewer-interviewee Relationshipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One concern about the use of SUE is that it might inhibit the quality of the relationship between the interviewer and suspects (Clemens et al, 2020), either by making interviews conform to a rigid structure and so inhibiting the quality of communication or by making participants feel the interviewer has behaved unfairly by withholding evidence. We did not find convincing evidence that these effects occur.…”

Section: Evidence Disclosure and The Interviewer-interviewee Relation...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The simplicity of the interview is also likely to be relevant. A specific concern raised by practitioners within the research of Clemens et al (2020) was that a strict adherence to SUE might inhibit the natural flow of communication between suspect and interviewer. Any such effects are likely to be small when interviews are brief and cases are simple.…”

Section: Evidence Disclosure and The Interviewer-interviewee Relation...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Examining the Effects of Evidence Disclosure Timing and Strength on Information Inconsistencies and Provision within Investigative Interviews

Polman¹,

Luther²,

Almeida³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Late disclosure of evidence within investigative interviews with guilty suspects has been shown to increase statement-evidence and within-statement inconsistencies, which are indicators of untruthful testimony. We experimentally tested whether such inconsistencies were influenced by the timing and strength of the disclosed evidence. We also tested whether evidence disclosure timing or strength had any effect on the provision of novel investigative information or the relationship between interviewer and interviewee, measured via perceived rapport and trust. Participants (N = 101) were allocated to one of four groups within a 2(Evidence disclosure timing: Early vs Late) x 2(Evidence strength: Weak vs Strong) between-participants design. Participants received a vignette in which they played a guilty suspect who committed a theft, and were interviewed via videoconference. Suspects were instructed to convince the interviewer that they were innocent. Late disclosure of evidence led to both more statement-evidence inconsistencies and within-statement inconsistencies than early evidence disclosure. In the case of early disclosure, strong evidence produced fewer statement-evidence inconsistencies than weak evidence. Thus, it appears wise to be especially cautious of disclosing strong evidence early. No effects of evidence disclosure timing were found for rapport or novel investigative information. Early disclosure of weak evidence reduced trust in the interviewer, again cautioning against early disclosure. This research supports that late disclosure of evidence can aid lie detection by making use of inconsistencies, and may do so without necessarily impacting on rapport. However, late disclosure did not facilitate the provision of novel investigative information.

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“…In Slovenia, the most widely used interviewing techniques are of a coercive nature (Areh, 2016), which reduces the chance of the suspect being given an FA invitation. A study of interviewing methods used in Germany describes six methods used in that country, two of which start with an FA invitation, whereas the other four do not (Clemens et al., 2020). The Dutch interviewing manual (Van Amelsvoort & Rispens, 2021) outlines four interviewing methods.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A free account or not? Its effect upon information yield in strategic interviews with suspects

Beek

Bull

Mijalkovic

2022

Journal Invest Psychology

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Asking suspects for a free account (FA) at the start of an interview is considered good practice in a growing number of police organisations, whereas in others it still is not commonplace. This study explored whether interviews with or without such an invitation yielded more information from guilty suspects. Students in safety and security committed a mock crime and were then interviewed using a strategy of gradual disclosure of evidence, in the experimental condition preceded with an FA invitation (n = 20) and without such an invitation in the control condition (n = 17). On average, relatively little information was collected in the FA phase and far more in the subsequent gradual disclosure phase. However, the FA condition yielded seven confessions, four of which were given already in the FA phase. The No FA condition yielded only two confessions. Other differences in yield were not found. These findings indicate that an FA invitation could lead to some relevant and important information, such as a confession, being gathered already at an early stage of an interview, and that such an invitation does not hamper the gathering of further information later in the interview.

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Untapped Potential? A Survey Study with German Police Officers into Suspect Interviewing Practices and the Strategic Use of Evidence

Cited by 14 publications

References 35 publications

When the Evidence Is Incorrect: an Exploration of What Happens When Interviewers Unwittingly Present Inaccurate Information in Interviews with Suspects

When the Evidence Is Incorrect: an Exploration of What Happens When Interviewers Unwittingly Present Inaccurate Information in Interviews with Suspects

Examining the Effects of Evidence Disclosure Timing and Strength on Information Inconsistencies and Provision within Investigative Interviews

A free account or not? Its effect upon information yield in strategic interviews with suspects

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