Citation

Tidmarsh P, Sharman S, Hamilton G. J. Police Crim. Psychol. 2023; 38(2): 318-327.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s11896-021-09446-x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Two studies examined the immediate and longer-term impact of specialist training on sexual assault investigators' use of best-practice questions and relationship evidence. Investigators completed mock suspect interviews immediately and 9-12 months following a 4-week specialist course that concentrated on the Whole Story approach to sexual offence investigations. The training had an immediate positive impact on investigators' use of non-sexual grooming details, and a long-term positive impact on investigators' use of relationship details. It also increased the use of open questions and decreased the use of specific questions, with performance sustained for open-depth questions and specific yes/no questions. Specialist training can improve investigators' ability to adopt a narrative interviewing approach and ask about relationship details, yet skill erosion remains an issue that future training programs need to address. Incorporating relationship evidence into investigative interviews in an open-ended manner may be a key strategy for improving understandings about victim-offender dynamics in sexual offence cases, which could have implications for attrition and conviction rates.

Language: en

Keywords

Investigative interviewing; Sexual offending; Specialist police training; Whole Story