Investigative Interviewing Of Children Research Articles

İNGİLTERE VE TÜRKİYE'DE ÇOCUKLARLA ADLİ GÖRÜŞMEYE İLİŞKİN MEVCUT DURUM DEĞERLENDİRMESİ

Child maltreatment is a social problem that is emphasized and researched around the World. The phenomenon of sexual abuse is different from other types of abuse, since there is no eyewitness other than the victim and perpetrator. Children exposed to sexual abuse are sometimes pressured by family members to keep secret or deny what happened because the abuser is a family member which makes it difficult to reveal sexual abuse. Forensic interview is one of the most important tools in order to obtain information about what happened from the child who is the victim of abuse. The fact that the forensic interviewer is an expert in the field increases the probability of getting a full and correct answer from the child victim of abuse. The history of forensic interview with a child in the UK is older than in Turkey, the process that started in the late 1970s accelerated in the 1990s. The process of forensic interviewing with children in Turkey gained momentum especially with the publication of the Child Monitoring Center circular in 2012. It is pleasing that the number of Child Monitoring Centers affiliated to the Ministry of Health and Forensic Interview Rooms affiliated to the Ministry of Justice has increased rapidly since 2012. There is no forensic interview protocol yet in Turkey. It is believed that it would be appropriate to prepare a forensic interview protocol as soon as possible with the studies carried out on this subject. This article initially focus on investigative interviewing of children and then discuss the important components that may impact the children’s testimony. Interview aids, cognitive interview, multiple interviews with children and the role of interviewer will be outlined. In addition to that, investigative interviewing of children in the UK and Turkey will be discussed.

Claiming Justice: An Analysis of Child Sexual Abuse Complainants’ Justice Goals Reported during Investigative Interviews

Investigative interviewing of children who report sexual victimisation focuses on helping children tell in their own words what happened. Children may say other things important to them such as their justice goals. We conducted the first research into this possibility in an exploratory analysis of 300 transcripts of actual interviews with child complainants aged 3 to 15 years. Building on an earlier study involving adults, we explored what goals children may articulate, when in the interview process their goals are relayed and in response to which interviewer prompts. Our analysis revealed that most children did articulate one or more justice goals during these interviews, especially their desire for acknowledgement of the victimisation and its wrongfulness. Children articulated their justice goals spontaneously and largely without any direct prompting by the police officer. These findings suggest that there is more that institutions [and researchers] can learn from carefully listening to children and understanding them as agents claiming justice.

The Impact of Interviewer Working Hours on Police Interviews with Children

Fatigue resulting from unpredictable or extended working conditions is a factor that negatively impacts the performance of police officers. In this study, we considered how investigative interviewing of children is influenced by interviewer working conditions. We examined two working conditions concerning when interviews were conducted: (a) during early duty shift and (b) an hour before the end of an interviewer’s duty shift and after the end of a shift. We analysed 102 police interviews with children and identified clues that interviews which commenced during early duty shift had more appropriate approaches than interviews in the other condition. Inappropriate approaches were not significantly affected by interviewer working conditions. These outcomes suggest considering new knowledge specific to the behaviour of interviewers according to working conditions and provide promising foundations for further research.

Investigative Interviews of Children: Multidisciplinary Team Approach and Support for a Reluctant Child

Investigative Interviews of Children: Multidisciplinary Team Approach and Support for a Reluctant Child

Children’s performance on ground rules questions: Implications for forensic interviewing.

Ground rules, also called interview instructions, are included in investigative interviews with children around the world. These rules aim to manage the expectations of children who are typically unaccustomed to being questioned by adults who are naïve to the children's experiences. Although analog research has examined the efficacy of ground rules instruction, a systematic analysis of children's ability to respond appropriately to each of the rules has not been reported. In the current study, we scored the accuracy of children's (N = 501, 4 to 12 years) responses to 5 ground rules practice questions (e.g., "What is my dog's name?") and 2 questions that asked whether they would follow the rules, and then assigned inaccurate responses to 1 of several error categories. Few children answered every question correctly, but their performance on individual questions was encouraging. As expected, there were marked differences in children's understanding across ground rules questions (especially among the younger children), with "Don't guess" and "Tell the truth" rules being the easiest to comprehend. Together with evidence that ground rules instruction takes little time to deliver (typically 2 to 4 min) and is associated with improved accuracy in previous research, these findings support the use of ground rules in investigative interviews of children 4 years and older.

Supplemental Material for Evaluation of a Comprehensive Interactive Training System for Investigative Interviewers of Children

Supplemental Material for Evaluation of a Comprehensive Interactive Training System for Investigative Interviewers of Children

Improving child investigative interviewer performance through computer-based learning activities

The current study adopted a pre- versus post-training design and a standardised measure of performance to evaluate the effectiveness of a series of online computer-based learning activities designed to encourage open-ended question usage among investigative interviewers of children. Participants included 61 social workers, police and psychologists. The learning activities, organised into 12 modules of approximately 3 hours duration each, focused purely on the skill of eliciting a disclosure of sexual abuse and a narrative account of the offence from a young child. Results revealed a significant improvement in interview performance from pre-training to immediate post-training. For the 25 participants who also completed a follow-up assessment three to six months after completing the learning activities, performance was found to be maintained. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Re-thinking rapport through the lens of progressivity in investigative interviews into child sexual abuse

Building rapport is considered important in investigative interviewing of children about alleged sexual abuse, but theoretical understanding of the nature of rapport and how to judge its presence remains sketchy. This article argues that the conversation analytic concept of progressivity may provide empirical tractability to the concept of rapport and indeed may be partially what people are detecting when they judge the presence of rapport. A single case is analysed, drawn from a corpus of 11 video-taped interviews with children conducted by police in an Australian sexual crime unit. Analysis focuses on how the interviewer responds when progressivity breaks down, and how restoration is collaboratively achieved. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for future work that might investigate a more thoroughly social interactional account of rapport, and in terms of new ideas about what might constitute skilful interviewing practices amongst investigative interviewers.

Errors in the Identification of Question Types in Investigative Interviews of Children

This study examined the incidence and nature of the errors made by trainee coders during their coding of question types in interviews in which children disclosed abuse. Three groups of trainees (online, postgraduate and police) studied the coding manual before practising their question coding. After this practice, participants were given two-page field transcripts to code in which children disclosed abuse. Their coding was assessed for accuracy; any errors were analysed thematically. The overall error rate was low, and police participants made the fewest errors. Analysis of the errors revealed four common misunderstandings: (1) the use of a ‘wh’ question always denotes a specific cued-recall question; (2) ‘ Tell me’ always constitutes an open-ended question; (3) open-ended questions cannot include specific detail; and (4) specific questions cannot elicit elaborate responses. An analysis of coding accuracy in the one group who were able to practise question coding over time revealed that practice was essential for trainees to maintain their accuracy. Those who did not practise decreased in coding accuracy. This research shows that trainees need more than a coding manual; they must demonstrate their understanding of question codes through practice training tasks. Misunderstandings about questions need to be elicited and corrected so that accurate codes are used in future tasks.

The effects of an intensive training and feedback program on police and social workers' investigative interviews of children.

In the present study, we assessed the effectiveness of an extensive training and feedback program with investigative interviewers of child victims of alleged abuse and neglect in a large Canadian city. Twelve investigative interviewers participated in a joint training initiative that lasted 8 months and involved classroom components and extensive weekly verbal and written feedback. Interviewers were significantly more likely to use open-ended prompts and elicited more information from children with open-ended prompts following training. These differences were especially prominent following a subsequent “refresher” training session. No negative effects of training were observed. Clear evidence was found of the benefits of an intensive training and feedback program across a wide variety of investigative interviews with children. Although previous research has found benefits of training with interviewers of child sexual assault victims, the current study extends these findings to a wide range of allegations and maltreatment contexts.

Factors Affecting the Length of Responses in Field Investigative Interviews of Children (FIIC) in Child Sexual Abuse Cases

In this study some of the most prominent variables considered to facilitate interviewee responses in the literature of field investigative interviews of children (FIIC) are reviewed and included in the analysis of 100 FIICs. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that of all the variables, the interviewer's utterances had the most impact on the children's responses, with the open questions eliciting the longest answers. The variable to follow was the children's age, with the oldest children yielding longer responses than the younger children to the open questions. Contrary to the hypothesis, the interviewer's competence, children's gender, and time of interview had little impact on the length of the children's responses. Possible explanations for the results are discussed.

An Examination of the Limitations in Investigative Interviewers' Use of Open-Ended Questions

Best-practice guidelines in the area of investigative interviewing of children specify the importance of using open-ended questions. However, use of open-ended questions per se does not maximise interview outcome; open-ended questions can vary markedly in quality. The aim of this study was to identify the nature of investigative interviewers' limitations when using open-ended questions, and to compare how representative these limitations are in three distinct interview paradigms. These interview paradigms include: (a) interviews in which trained actors played the role of a 5–6-year-old child; (b) interviews where 5–6-year-old children recalled an innocuous event that was staged in their school; and (c) actual field interviews where child witnesses aged 5 to 7 years recalled an abusive event. Overall, several common problems that would restrict children's opportunity to provide elaborate and accurate narrative accounts of events were identified and described. Our identification of these problems (using a dichotomous rating scale) was found to be consistent with an independent expert, and their presence was not limited to those interviewers who used a low frequency of open-ended questions. The implications of the findings for researchers and trainers in the area of investigative interviewing of children are discussed.

An examination of the types of leading questions used by investigative interviewers of children

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of leading questions used by a representative sample of investigative interviewers of children. In particular, it examined whether these interviewers use the type of questions that are known to elicit reports of false activities or events among child samples.Design/methodology/approachA total of 82 police officers who were authorized to conduct interviews with alleged child abuse victims conducted individual mock interviews with children aged 5‐7 years. The focus of the interviews was an event that was staged in the children's school a week earlier. Prior to the interview, each officer was provided with accurate and inaccurate information about the event, including details about an activity that did not occur. The officers' task was to elicit as detailed and accurate account of the event as possible using the techniques they would “normally” use in the field.FindingsAlthough the officers refrained from using coercive interview techniques, two problematic types of questions were relatively common. These include: questions that presumed that an activity/detail occurred that had not been previously mentioned by the child; and questions that included highly specific details about an activity. Both of these techniques had featured in prior laboratory research on children's false event narratives.Research limitations/implicationsThese results support the need for better training techniques for assisting officers to avoid the use of leading questions.Originality/valueWhile it is well established that investigative interviewers do sometimes use leading questions when interviewing children, this is the first study to specify the incidence of various types of leading questions.

Evaluation of the usefulness of ‘Marvin’; a computerized assessment tool for investigative interviewers of children

This study examined the usefulness of a computerized developmental assessment tool, designed to provide investigative interviewers with knowledge about children's understanding of spatial, temporal, numerical, and color terms that may be relevant to the forensic setting. Specifically, the effect of the computer program (compared to a standard verbal and no assessment) was examined on 4- to 5-year-old children's recall of an independent event and their enjoyment of the interview process. In addition, children's performance on the computerized and verbal developmental assessment was compared with their performance when recalling the independent event. Overall, the children rated the assessment conducted on computer more favorably than the verbal assessment. Further, the verbal assessment elicited responses that were more consistent with their responses about the event than the computerized assessment. However, there was no difference in the accuracy and detail of children's responses about the independent event, irrespective of whether the children received the computerized or verbal assessment, or no assessment. Directions for future research are discussed.

Investigative Interviews of Children: A Review of Psychological Research and Implications for Police Practices

Historically, children were considered incompetent courtroom witnesses. However, legal barriers that once prevented children from offering courtroom testimony have been largely removed. In recent decades, police agencies have been flooded with reports of child maltreatment. In response to the increasing presence of children in forensic settings, researchers have begun to examine the efficacy of methods used to interview children. The purpose of this article is to review recent research on interviewing children. Both interview practices that appear effective in eliciting accurate testimony and practices that have been shown to produce erroneous testimony from children are discussed. Implications for police practices and policy are discussed.

The phased approach to the investigative interviewing of children

When investigating cases of alleged or suspected child sexual or physical abuse the evidence provided by the child has become central to the whole process. The fact that conviction rates, as the outcome of prosecutions, indicate that the Criminal Justice process is less successful for younger children and in situations where there is no physical evidence, indicates the importance of the evidence contained in the child's testimony (De San Lazaro, 1996). It has become the case that ‘the child interview’ is the cornerstone of the investigation (Pence and Wilson, 1994). Because so much emphasis is now placed on what the child says, the way they tell and the questioning that brings about their telling, great care must be taken to ensure that the account is not contaminated by adult influence.

Taint Hearings to Attack Investigative Interviews: A Further Assault on Children's Credibility

Prosecution plays an important role in protecting children from sexual abuse. In such litigation, defense attorneys frequently attack the way children are interviewed by professionals. The attack on interviews assumed new dimensions with the New Jersey Supreme Court's 1994 decision in State v. Michaels, where the court created a procedure that allows defense attorneys to request pretrial taint hearings to challenge investigative interviews of children. This article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of taint hearings as well as the legal standard that should govern such hearings. The article concludes with a call to increase the number of professionals who are qualified and willing to serve as expert witnesses to defend competent interview practices.

Should Investigative Interviews of Children Be Videotaped?

Should Investigative Interviews of Children Be Videotaped?