Interviewing Vulnerable People

Abstract

One of the critical moments that highlights vulnerability in the policing process is the police interview. Although offenders may have already traversed a few formal policing processes by that time—detention and police warning—and their vulnerability may have been identified, it is during the interview that vulnerabilities are most apparent. Conversely, the police interview may be the first formal policing process that victims and witnesses may encounter. The police interview is therefore an important step in recognising and addressing vulnerability. It is also a step in the policing process where the skills and capacities of individual officers to manage vulnerability are in stark relief. Done badly, the police interview can exacerbate the situated ontological vulnerabilities of offenders, victims and witnesses and may even create iatrogenic (system generated) harms. In this chapter, we explore how vulnerability can be recognised and accounted for at this stage of the policing process and consider what strategies each of the three groups (offenders, victims and witnesses, and police officers) require to ameliorate the harms presented and caused by police interviews.