Criminological-Interviews

Question 1

What is a cognitive interview?

Answer 1

A method of interviewing eye witnesses. The aim is to help witnesses produce more accurate recall of a crime scene using techniques based on psychological research.

Question 2

What is a ethical interview?

Answer 2

A method of interviewing that acknowledges that suspects are human beings and are more likely to co-operate with police if rapport is established and they are treated with respect.

Question 3

Define rapport

Answer 3

Connection between two people - the spoken and unspoken connections between two people

Question 4

Define unstructured interviews

Answer 4

Interviews that have no clear structure of questions

Question 5

Define semi-structured interviews

Answer 5

Interviews that have some structure of questions and then no structure in questions

Question 6

Define structured interviews

Answer 6

Interviews that have a structure to follow and a pattern of questions

Question 7

What is involved in the stages of a standard police interview?

Answer 7

1) Orientation - the purpose of the interview is stated and the legal requirements are fulfilled such as informing interviewee of their rights.
2) Listening - the interviewee gives free recall of the events with minimal questions.
3) Questions and answers - the interviewer asks specific questions based on the previous stage that is intended to fill in any gaps and reduce any ambiguities, and obtain additional information. The statement is then read through and signed.
4) Advice - the interviewee is informed of any further action e.g. the need to be re-interviewed.

Question 8

What are the criticisms of the Standard
Police Interview?

Answer 8

•criticised for being ineffective, including inappropriate or leading questions,
•witnesses often being interrupted. (Failed to build rapport)
•A report by Baldwin (1993), argued that these police interviews often used coercion and oppressive interviewing procedures, potentially leading to false confessions, wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice.

Question 9

What is the PACE act 1984?

Answer 9

The PACE ACT (1984) provides Police with a legal framework which they must follow in order to protect the human rights of those being interviewed. This led to the development of the PEACE MODEL of interviewing, which is the guidelines recommended for police to use whilst interviewing potential suspects or witnesses.

Question 10

What are the five principles in the PEACE model?

Answer 10

P- Preparation and planning - Identifying key objectives of the interview
E- Engage and Explain - Active listening to promote rapport
-Account, clarification, challenge - Using open-ended questions to elicit
information
C-Closure -Giving the suspect chance to ask any questions
E- Evaluate - Reflecting on the interviewer’s performance

Question 11

Give a strength of the PEACE model

Answer 11

P: A strength of using the PEACE model in police interviewing is that it is a more ethical way of interviewing.
E: This means that there will be hopefully fewer false confessions from suspects and therefore fewer miscarriages of justice.

Question 12

Give a weaknesses of the PEACE model

Answer 12

• P: A weakness of the PEACE model of interviewing is that it is not always used consistently throughout he police forces.
• E: This means that its effectiveness may be limited as not everyone will use it and therefore miscarriages of justice may still occur.

Question 13

Describe 2 ethical problems that could occur from Standard Police Interviews

Answer 13

• Another ethical issue could be protection from harm. This means that witnesses may become upset if they are discussing their trauma of a crime. A police officer could ask many probing questions which could lead to the witness etc becoming distressed.
• Witnesses may have been harassed or bullied during the interview and made false confessions leading to miscarriages of justice

Question 14

What are the two main memory theories/principles used in the application of the cognitive interview?

Answer 14

•Encoding Specificity Principle
(Tulving) The idea is that when an
event occurs it is first encoded, other important cues are stored alongside it. These might include sensory details and emotional state, being reminded of these context cues may facilitate a more accurate recall.
•Schema & Reconstructive Memory

Question 15

Describe Encoding Specificity Principle
(Tulving)

Answer 15

• When event occurs, it is first encoded and other important cues are stored alongside it.
• These might be sensory details of the context (e.g. weather or smells)
• Assumes that being reminded of these context cues may facilitate a more accurate recall
• (Related to the Report Everything and reinstate the context)

Question 16

Describe Schema and Reconstructive Memory

Answer 16

• Bartlett concluded that memory is rarely accurate and is prone to 4 things:
• Distortion
• Rationalisation
• Transformation
• Simplification
• Memory is reconstructive - previous knowledge is actively used to interpret
information so it can then be stored and recalled
•Having a schema for certain events can alter both our encoding and
recollection of an event
• This is because we might already have an expectation of what we expect to see, rather than what we do see.

Question 17

What are the four main stages of cognitive interview?

Answer 17

1. CONTEXT REINSTATEMENT/ Interview similarity- requires the witness to mentally reconstruct
   the physical and personal context.
2. REPORT EVERYTHING- Allowing the witnesses to freely recall a narrative of the situation gains an initial account, without interpretation.
3. CHANGE THE ORDER IN WHICH THE EVENT IS RECALLED- Recalling events in reverse order can help a person to avoid skipping over information that they have taken for granted, as it interrupts schema activation.
4. CHANGE PERSPECTIVE- to provide recall from a different physical perspective witnesses will use different retrieval cues and so be able to recall new information from memory. It has to be made clear that the witness only reports what they know, and not what they think the other person would have seen.

Question 18

Rose witnessed a robbery at a bank. Whilst she was waiting to give her statement to the police she was in
the room with other witnesses to the robbery. Rose gave an interview to the police at the bank. When she went
home a report of the robbery was on was on the local news where they mentioned that a weapon had been
used. One week later the lice asked Rose to go to the police station to give a second interview as they wanted
to clarify a few points about the robbery. The police carried out a cognitive interview with Rose
when she was at the police station.
Describe how the police may have carried out a cognitive interview with Rose. (4 marks)

Answer 18

The police would have asked Rose to report everything that she remembered
about the robbery, as a small detail may cause her to remember other
information (1). The police may ask Rose to think about the environment in
the bank at the time of the robbery, such as what music was in the
background (1). Rose could be asked to recall the robbery from the point of
view of the cashier behind the desk (1). The police would not ask Rose any
specific questions until later on in the interview to try and stop Rose
reconstructing the bank robbery based on the questions asked (1).

Question 19

Describe GEISELMAN ET AL (1985) research into the effectiveness of the COGNITIVE INTERVIEW

Answer 19

• AIM: to compare the effectiveness of three interview procedures for
optimising eyewitness memory performance
• METHODOLOGY: Lab experiment using independent measures design
•RESULTS & CONCLUSIONS: The results showed a significant increase in the number of correct items recalled using the cognitive interview. Geiselman et al. concluded that the increased retrieval using the cognitive interview was due to the guided approach to interviewing, which encouraged participants to remember the crime. Although participants recalled more information, it was not more accurate than the standard police interview.

Question 20

Give a strength of cognitive interview in PEEC

Answer 20

• P: One strength of the cognitive interview is that it is supported by research evidence.
• E: This is a strength because it means the findings are valid and it increases the
usefulness of the model.
• E: For example, Bekerian & Dennet (1993) reviewed 27 studies into the effectiveness
of the cognitive interview and found that they produced more accurate information
than other interview techniques.
• C: This supports the Cognitive interview as a useful application for police to use to
gain more accurate and valid information from witnesses. This will help reduce future
potential miscarriages of justice.

Question 21

Give a weakness of cognitive interview in PEEC

Answer 21

• However a weakness of the Cognitive interview is that is not necessarily an
appropriate interview technique for everyone.
• This may be a problem if the cognitive interview is used on young children as they may produce inaccurate answers.
• For example, Geiselman (1999) found that the accuracy of recall for children aged 6 and under decreased significantly.
• This indicates that different groups of people may need a different interview
technique, which then reduces the reliability and generalisability of the cognitive interview.