What Themes Trigger Investigative Interviewers to Ask Specific Questions When Interviewing Children?

Abstract

Recent research has established that investigative interviewers have difficulty adhering to open-ended questions and instead ask specific questions when interviewing children about abuse. The current study aims to examine the themes in abuse-related interviews that trigger investigators to ask specific questions. Twenty police officers who were authorised to conduct investigative interviews with children completed a mock interview with an expert in child abuse interviewing who had been trained to play the role of an abused child. During the interview, the officers were stopped by a researcher and asked to reflect on why they had asked specific questions. Overall, the results revealed five areas where the officers deviated from open-ended questions. These related to: (1) the identity of the alleged offender; (2) the meaning of terms used by the child to describe genitals; (3) whether or not penetration occurred; (4) the offender's intent and motives; and (5) the timing of the abuse and where it occurred. Each of these themes is discussed, along with the implications for trainers and researchers in child abuse interviewing.

Keywords

investigative interviewing child sexual abuse police training

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Burrows

K. S.

Powell

M. B.

(in press). Prosecutors' recommendations for improving child witness statements about sexual abuse. Policing and Society.

Cederborg

A.-C.

Orbach

Sternberg

K. J.

Lamb

M. E.

(2000). Investigative interviews of child witnesses in Sweden. Child Abuse & Neglect, 24, 1355–1361.

Davies

G. M.

Westcott

H. L.

Horan

(2000). The impact of questioning style on the content of investigative interviews with respected child sexual abuse victims. Psychology, Crime, and the Law, 6, 81–97.

Gifford

(1998). Analysis of non-numerical research. In Kerr

Taylor

Heard

(Eds.), Handbook of public health methods (pp. 543–554). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Guadagno

B. L.

Powell

M. B.

Wright

(2006). Police officers' and legal professionals perceptions regarding how children are, and should be, questioned about repeated abuse. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 13, 251–260.

Hughes-Scholes

C. H.

Powell

M. B.

(2012). Techniques used by investigative interviewers to elicit disclosures of abuse from child witnesses: A critique. Police Practice and Research, 14, 45–52. DOI: 10.1080/15614263.2012.680716

Lamb

M. E.

Hershkowitz

Sternberg

K. J.

Esplin

P. W.

Hovav

Manor

Yudilevitch

(1996). Effects of investigative utterance types on Israeli children's responses. International Journal of Behavioural Development, 19, 627–637.

Lamb

M. E.

Orbach

Hershkowitz

Esplin

P. W.

Horowitz

(2007). A structured forensic interview protocol improves the quality and informativeness of investigative interviews with children: A review of research using the NICHD investigative protocol. Child Abuse & Neglect, 31, 1201–1231.

Orbach

Lamb

M. E.

(2007). Young children's references to temporal attributes of allegedly experienced events in the course of forensic interviews. Child Development, 78, 1100–1120.

10.

Powell

M. B.

Cavezza

Hughes-Scholes

C. H.

Stoove

M. A.

(2010). Examination of the consistency of interviewer performance across three distinct interview contexts. Psychology, Crime & Law, 16, 585–600.

11.

Powell

M. B.

Fisher

R. P.

Hughes-Scholes

C. H.

(2008). The effect of using trained versus untrained adult respondents in simulated practice interviews about child abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect, 32, 1007–1016.

12.

Powell

M. B.

Hughes-Scholes

C. H.

(2009). An evaluation of the questions used to elicit evidence about abuse from child witnesses: An Australian study. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 16, 369–378.

13.

Powell

M. B.

Hughes-Scholes

C. H.

Cavezza

Stoove

M. A.

(2010). Examination of the stability and consistency of investigative interviewer performance across similar mock interview contexts. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 15, 243–260.

14.

Powell

M. B.

Snow

P. C.

(2007). Guide to questioning children during the free-narrative phase of an investigative interview. Australian Psychologist, 42, 57–65.

15.

Sternberg

K. J.

Lamb

M. E.

Davies

G. A.

Westcott

H. L.

(2001). The memorandum of good practice: Theory versus application. Child Abuse & Neglect, 25, 669–681.

16.

Sternberg

K. J.

Lamb

M. E.

Hershkowitz

Esplin

P. W.

Redlich

Sunshine

(1996). The relation between investigative utterance types and the informativeness of child witnesses. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 17, 439–451.

17.

Wright

Powell

M. B.

(2006). Investigative interviewers' perceptions of their difficulty in adhering to open-ended questions with child witnesses. International Journal of Police Science & Management, 8, 316–325.