Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

54 A Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions
questioning. Now the focus was on information gathering rather than obtaining
a confession per se (i.e. reliably establishing the facts), non-coercive interviewing
and accurate recording of the interview. Police officers adopting ‘oppressive’
questioning would be in breach of these national guidelines and would find
judges less willing to admit such statements into evidence than they had in the
past. Williamson goes even further:
In future the judges will also be paying particular attention to confessions from
those who expert psychological evidence could show were at risk in making false
confessions (Gudjonsson 1992a). There has to be greater awareness of these issues
by police officers and also a change in questioning style in order to satisfy the legal
requirement for the prosecution to show that nothing has been done which could
render a confession unreliable (Williamson, 1994, p. 109).
The PEACE model has undergone some minor changes since its introduction
in 1992 to take into account changes in legislation (Mortimer & Shepherd,
1999; National Crime Faculty, 1996, Ord & Shaw, 1999). It will be interesting
to see in the future whether the enthusiasm for police interview training
continues.
A number of studies have attempted to evaluate the effectiveness of the
PEACE model. An early review produced favourable results (McGurk, Carr &
McGurk, 1993). However, concerns have been expressed about the quality of
management and supervision of police interviews (Stockdale, 1993; Williamson,
1994). The most detailed national evaluation of PEACE to date (Clarke & Milne,
2001) has raised concerns about the apparent lack of sufficient effectiveness of
the national training in improving officers’ interview skills. It is clear that training
alone will not assist officers in developing new skills. Many officers appear
to fail to put into practice what they have learned on the course, with planning
and basic communication skills still remaining relatively poor, although some
improvement has been noted since the introduction of the National Training
Programme. About 10% of the interviews evaluated in the study were rated as
possibly being in breach of the PACE Codes of Practice. Nevertheless, Clarke
and Milne remain reasonably positive about the potential value of the National
Training Programme. They emphasize that since the introduction of PEACE
the approach to interviewing has become more ethical and the findings from
their study are more favourable than those reported by Baldwin (1993). Clarke
and Milne offer a number of important recommendations for future training.
The Clarke and Milne (2001) study also provides the first large-scale evaluation
of interviews with victims and witnesses. These interviews were found to
be far more defective than those conducted on suspects and the authors point to
the absence of proper guidelines in relation to the taking of witness statements
and the lack of audio or video recording of many such interviews.
In 1992 there was also new legislation and procedures introduced in relation
to the interviewing of child witnesses and victims in criminal proceedings
(Bull & Davies, 1996). Recently various Government agencies have jointly
produced important guidance about the interviewing and treatment of vulnerable
witnesses and children in criminal proceedings, which will undoubtedly