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Purpose: With increasing rates of migration worldwide, police are more likely than ever to interview witnesses who do not have the same first language as they do. We examined how to best approach this situation by comparing three different ways of conducting such interviews. Methods: Native Arabic speakers (N = 128) living in Sweden witnessed a video of a mock crime and were allocated to one of three interview conditions: a face‐to‐face interview in Swedish (i.e. their second language), a face‐to‐face interview with an interpreter translating from Swedish to Arabic or an Arabic language Self‐Administered Interview© (SAI). Results: For total number of details reported, the no interpreter condition resulted in moderately fewer details being reported than the interpreter and SAI conditions. A similar trend was seen for correct details; however, these differences were not statistically significant. Participants in the SAI condition were somewhat less accurate in their reports compared with both the interpreter and no interpreter conditions. Conclusions: If interviewing without an interpreter, there is minimal loss of reported detail when the witness speaks the interviewer's language at an intermediate level and the questions posed are few and simple. Moreover, provided that the witness has a sufficient level of literacy, administrating the SAI in the witness's native language can be an alternative for witnesses with no or limited verbal ability in the interviewer's language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Research‐based interviewing techniques typically rely upon suspects being, at least partially, responsive and engaged in the conversation. To date, the scientific literature is more limited regarding situations where suspects exercise their legal right to silence. The present study aimed to examine Swedish police officers' self‐reported strategies when interviewing suspects who decline to answer questions. Methods: A total of 289 police officers responded to a national survey that included questions about handling silence. The participants worked with a wide range of criminal cases, including financial crimes, fraud, violent offences, domestic abuse, volume crime and traffic violations. We used content analysis to examine their written responses to the open‐ended question: 'What, if any, strategies do you use when interviewing suspects who speak very little or not at all?' Results: Four main categories were identified relating to (1) question strategies (e.g. asking the questions anyway, using silence), (2) information strategies (e.g. emphasizing the benefits of cooperating and informing about their legal right to silence), (3) supportive strategies (e.g. being friendly and asking about reasons for silence) and (4) procedural strategies (e.g. changing interviewers and conducting multiple interviews). Practitioners working with violent crimes reported meeting silent suspects more frequently compared with practitioners working with other criminal offences. Conclusions: The results provide an initial exploration into the various strategies used by police interviewers when questioning suspects who decline to answer questions. Further research is necessary for understanding and evaluating the ethics and effectiveness of such strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Although drawing is frequently used during investigative interviews, few studies have explored the effectiveness of draw‐and‐talk techniques with very young children. In this article, we examined the effects of drawing on preschoolers' (3–6 years old) reports of self‐experienced and non‐experienced events. In Study I, we interviewed 83 preschoolers about a staged event. We did not observe any significant statement differences between children asked to draw‐and‐talk compared to a verbal‐only condition. In Study II, we interviewed 25 preschoolers about a nonexperienced event. Twenty‐one children initially denied the event. When asked if they could help the interviewer draw a person from the event, 13 (61.9%) children complied with the request and eventually provided several false details. While drawing did not significantly increase the average number of details, exploratory findings indicated that drawing may have helped a subset of children. However, drawing might impair children's accuracy when suggestively interviewed about nonexperienced events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The current study aimed to examine a Norwegian technique for conducting investigative interviews with preschoolers: the Sequential Interview (SI). The SI advocates for increased initial rapport building and includes a pre‐determined break before the substantive phase. To explore the potential benefits and risks of the SI, the technique was compared with an adapted version of the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) protocol. Methods: A total of 129 preschoolers (3–6 years) were interviewed with either the SI or NICHD protocol about a self‐experienced (Exp. I) or non‐experienced (Exp. II) event. Result: For Exp. I, no significant difference was observed across interview conditions in the number of reported details about a self‐experienced event. Children interviewed with the SI exhibited a slightly lower accuracy rate compared to those interviewed with the NICHD protocol. For Exp. II, a total of 31.1% of the preschoolers initially assented to remembering a fictive (false) experience and 15.6% gave an account (>40 details) of the non‐experienced event. We found no difference between interviewing conditions in assent rates or number of false accounts. Conclusions: The study provides valuable insights into the difficulties involved when interviewing young children. The results showed few differences between the novel SI model and the well‐established NICHD protocol. While many preschoolers could provide accurate testimony, some embedded worrisome false details in their narratives. Furthermore, a minority of children gave false reports about non‐experienced events when interviewed with the two techniques. Methodological limitations and suggestions for future research will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present experiment, we examined preschoolers' disclosures of a secret as a function of rapport building strategies used in Scandinavian field settings (verbal rapport building vs. prop rapport building), age in months (33–75 months) and question type (open‐ended free recall invitation vs. suggestive questions). Fifty‐three preschoolers (M = 60.5 months old, SD = 11.4) witnessed a researcher break a toy and were asked to keep the toy breakage a secret. The children were thereafter interviewed about the incident. Overall, 18.9% of the children disclosed the secret after an open‐ended free recall invitation. The disclosure rate rose to 83% after the final phase of the interviews when questions containing suggestive details were asked of the children. Notably, we did not observe any significant effects as a function of manipulating rapport building strategy. A linear regression model showed that child age (in months) significantly predicted the amount of reported details, with younger preschoolers reporting fewer details compared to older preschoolers. Age also predicted the amount of correct details, but not the amount of incorrect details. No age differences were found with regard to children's disclosure tendencies or proportion of central details about the secret. Methodological limitations and practical implications will be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Prosecutors working with child sexual abuse (CSA) cases involving young children have raised concerns that reliability criteria from the Supreme Court of Sweden are holding children's testimony to impossible standards (e.g., expecting the child's testimony to be long, rich in detail and spontaneous). This study aimed to address these concerns by investigating how District Courts and Courts of Appeal employ said criteria in their testimonial assessments of young child complainants. Methods: Court documents from District Courts (n = 100) and Courts of Appeal (n = 45) in CSA cases involving 100 children age 7 years and under were analysed with respect to the courts’ testimonial assessments. Results: Testimonial assessments were more frequently referenced in acquitting verdicts and in cases with evidence of low corroborative value. Richness in detail was the most frequently used reliability criterion, followed by spontaneity. Most criteria were used in favour of the children's testimony. However, the length criterion was typically used against the reliability of the children's testimony. Conclusions: Our findings confirm prosecutors’ concerns that criteria from the Supreme Court are frequently used in evaluations of young children's testimony. This is troublesome, as some criteria do not correspond to current research on young children's witness abilities. For example, compared to testimony given by older children or adults, testimony provided by a young child is typically not long or rich in detail. We encourage prosecutors to extend their own knowledge on young children's capability as witnesses and present this to the court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child sexual abuse ( CSA) investigations are complicated and few cases are prosecuted. The aim of the present study was to investigate judicial decisions in CSA investigations. Seventy-one law students (42 females, 29 males) read a vignette depicting a CSA investigation, assessed the complainant's and the accused's credibility, and if the case should be prosecuted or not. The participants were assigned to one of four conditions defined by a 2 (evidence: high probative value vs. low probative value) × 2 (complainant demeanour: emotional vs. neutral) factorial design. Females assigned higher credibility to the complainant than did males and males assigned higher credibility to the accused than did females. Emotionality, but not evidential value, affected credibility judgements: Females believed less in the suspect when the child behaved in an emotional manner. Most participants (94.4%) thought that the case should be prosecuted, though only 73.2% believed that prosecution could be corroborated. Corroboration of prosecution was affected by evidential value, but not emotionality. The results indicate that the behavior of alleged crime victims might affect males and females differently, which in turn could lead to biased judicial decisions in CSA investigations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]