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3.1 - Credibility and Investigative Interviewing

from Part III - Assessment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2021

By
Mark Kebbell  and
Rebecca Milne
Edited by
Jennifer M. Brown  and
Miranda A. H. Horvath
Jennifer M. Brown
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
Miranda A. H. Horvath
Affiliation:
University of Suffolk
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Summary

Effective investigative interviewing is at the heart of any police investigation and thus is the root of achieving justice in society. This is because the key aims underpinning any investigation are to: (i) find out what happened, and if anything did happen, (ii) to discover who did what, and (iii) to collect evidence in a way that will be credible to decision-makers. In order to achieve this, investigators need to gather information whose source is usually a person (e.g., a witness, victim, suspect, complainant, first officer at the scene of a crime and so on). Thus, one of the most important tools in an investigator’s toolbox is the ability to interview. This chapter will examine the evidence base examining the most effective methods to interview and assess witness reliability within an investigative context.

Keywords

Investigative interviewingCredibilityReliabilityDecision-makingWitness
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Forensic Psychology , pp. 339 - 352
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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