Best Practice Recommendations Still Fail to Result in Action: A National 10‐Year Follow‐up Study of Investigative Interviews in CSA Cases

Abstract

SummaryThe present study examined a national sample of Norwegian investigative interviews in alleged child sexual abuse cases (N = 224) across a 10‐year period (2002–2012), in order to decide whether practice had improved over the decade in terms of the types of questions asked. The results indicate that the frequency of open‐ended, directive, option‐posing, and suggestive questions asked was unchanged during the 10‐year period, but that the frequency of repeated questions had increased significantly. When analyzed together with the results from a previous study of interview practice covering the period of 1990–2002, long‐term trends were found to be similarly stable, with no change in the frequency of open‐ended and suggestive questions asked over a 22‐year perspective. However, a decreasing frequency of option‐posing questions observed accompanied by an increasing frequency of directive questions may be considered a positive trend. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.