Investigative interviewing: the literature - New Zealand Police

REVIEW OF INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEWING
A third limitation is the fact that the distinction between
witnesses and suspects can become blurred. Sometimes
‘witnesses’ emerge as suspects (Yeschke, 2003). This is
part of the argument put forward for audio- or videotaping
witness statements, particularly for homicides and
other serious offences (Heaton-Armstrong & Wolchover,
1999).
Although these days the term ‘interrogation’ is mainly
found in the American literature, it does occasionally
appear in the English literature (see, for example,
Baldwin, 1994; Sanders, 1994; Sanders & Young, 2002;
and Williamson, 1994a).
INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEWING
In the early 1990s, Eric Shepherd (1991) advocated a
move towards adopting the term ‘investigative
interviewing’ to describe the questioning of victims,
witnesses and suspects (Gudjonsson, 1992; Ord et al,
2004). This was to counter public perceptions of more
‘persuasive’ techniques and was implemented by police
forces in England and Wales in 1993. It formed part of
an integrated programme of training, research and
development that resulted in the ‘PEACE’ package
(Soukara, Bull & Vrij, 2002).
The mnemonic PEACE (which is explained more fully in
later sections) provides the first letters of: Planning and
Preparation, Engage and Explain, Account, Closure and
Evaluation. This interviewing model rejects the term
‘interrogation’ completely (see CFIS, 2004). All
interviews, whether with victims, witnesses or suspects,
are ‘investigative interviews’.
INVESTIGATOR / DETECTIVE
Where crime investigation was once the sole prerogative
of detectives (Maguire, 2003) the rise in reported crime
from the mid-20th century onwards led to uniformed
officers investigating so-called minor crimes such as
theft, criminal damage and petty assaults. The ‘serious’
crimes were still left to detectives (Wright, 2002).
According to Ede and Shepherd (2000, p111) however,
“as more and more officers become involved in
proactive and reactive investigation, the traditional
term detective is becoming less and less relevant.
Numerically speaking, as forces change their
policing emphases, increasing numbers of officers
are engaged in detective work who do not have the
descriptive title ‘detective’ before their rank. … To
add more confusion, many individuals with the title
detective are not engaged in recognisably
detective tasks!”
Wright (2002) uses the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’ case, in which
13 women were killed by Peter Sutcliffe, to argue that
investigation should be seen as a whole-of-police
activity. Whilst solving this case was the entire focus for
an investigative (detective) team, the final arrest was by a
sergeant and probationer on routine patrol. This
challenges the use of the term ‘investigator’ as
synonymous with ‘detective’. Wright (2002) suggests
that all police officers need to be investigators to some
extent, and that competency in investigation should
range from basic though to specialist.
Similarly, the training notes from the ‘Foundation Course’
of the Metropolitan Police Service (2001, p4) state:
“As a uniformed police officer, you will nearly
always be the first on the scene of a crime. In
many cases you will be the only officer to attend the
scene, and because of this it is your responsibility
to actively investigate the crime. In other words
you are e the ‘investigator’. Your aim should be:
1) to meet the needs of the victim, 2) to identify and
preserve scenes of crime, 3) to initiate an
investigation that will provide the best prospect
of apprehending the offender
fender.”
.” [original
emphasis]
It could be argued, then, that anyone engaged in
investigative work is an ‘investigator’ or as Ede and
Shepherd (2000) recommend, a ‘forensic investigator’.
They support this term by citing a model spelt out by
ACPO leader David Phillips (formerly Chief Constable of
Kent) in 1999 which proposes that forensic investigators
must fulfil the same professional criteria as forensic
scientists (Ede and Shepherd, 2000, pp112-113).
• The forensic investigator must have the knowledge to
do the job competently. … [Otherwise] the ignorant
forensic investigator is inherently engaged in selfdeception
and deception of others; and is a danger,
whose lack of awareness is liable to produce
blunders which lead to the conviction of the innocent
and enable the guilty to remain at liberty.
• The forensic investigator must have the requisite
technical skills, methods and techniques to collect,
assemble, analyse and evaluate evidence - and to
record fully and faithfully these processes and their
outcomes.
• The forensic investigator must adopt a rigorous ‘warts
and all’ scientific approach. It is not about setting out
to confirm what an individual believes to be the case.
… The forensic investigator is obliged to hypothesise
the suspected person to be innocent, not guilty, and
to gather and examine a suitably wide spectrum of
information to test this hypothesis.
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