Police Victim and Witness Interviewing in a Northern Canadian Territory: Measuring Perceptions and Practice
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Police Victim and Witness Interviewing in a Northern Canadian Territory: Measuring Perceptions and Practice Kate Chenier1 · Rebecca Milne1 · Andrea Shawyer1 · Brent Snook2 Accepted: 13 November 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Police victim and witness interviewing in a northern Canadian territory with a predominantly Indigenous population was examined across two studies. In study 1, an Internet survey about interview training, practices and cross-cultural issues was completed by serving police officers (N = 37). In study 2, transcripts of interviews with Indigenous adult victims and witnesses (N = 20) were coded for the presence of various interviewing practices (e.g. question types, interruptions, talking time). Survey results showed that most officers were untrained in scientific-interviewing protocols but were aware of the general practices that constitute a competent interview (e.g. building rapport, requesting a free narrative). Most respondents indicated that cultural differences impact their interviewing style. Results of the transcript analysis showed that officers violated the 80/20 talking rule in 90% of the interviews and unproductive question types (e.g. closed yes/no) were used often. All interviews contained a request for a full account, most interviews contained elements of active listening and few interruptions were observed. These findings are discussed with reference to how interviewing and cross-cultural communication training could help police organizations who serve Indigenous populations. Future research should consider whether established international best practices for interviewing are effective in settings with Indigenous victims and witnesses. Keywords Witness interviewing · Police · Training · Evaluation · Cross-cultural · Indigenous population
Introduction Research has shown that police officers tend to ask a flurry of questions and steer the discussion when gathering information from victims or witnesses (Eades 2010; Heydon 2005; Thornborrow 2002). The natural inclination of police interviewers is to seek an efficient outcome, and they may approach an interview feeling confident that they already know what happened (Griffiths et al. 2011; Shepherd 1988). As a result, interviews conducted by police officers with limited training are perfunctory exercises, demonstrating low skill and unreasonable levels of conversational control (Clifford and George 1996; Fisher et al. 1987; Griffiths et al. 2011; MacDonald et al. 2017; Wright and Alison 2004). To counteract these tendencies, an evidence-based best practice * Kate Chenier [email protected] 1
Centre of Forensic Interviewing, Institute of Criminal Justice Studies, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK
Department of Psychology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Newfoundland, Canada
2
model, the cognitive interview [CI] (Geiselman et al. 1985), was developed and shown to be highly effective (Kohnken et al. 1999). The CI forms a substantial part of the UK’s national investigative interviewing model (i.e. PEACE; a
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