If psychologically (and physically) coercive/oppressive
techniques are not to be used in interviews with suspects to
motivate them to confess, what will? We were a little puzzled that
showing concern seemed to be related to suspects moving
from denial to confession. Then we found a study conducted just
a few years ago in Sweden that noted that men now in prison for
serious crimes such as murder indicated on an extensive question-
naire that a humanitarian (rather than a dominating) police
interviewing style was related to their decisions to confess in the
interviews.
Thus, with regard to the crucial topic of police interviewing of
suspects, criminal psychology has been associated (at least in
England and Wales) with a turn away from what has been called
unethical to ethical policing. A number of countries (e.g. Norway)
are now taking note of this.
Some countries have also taken steps designed to improve the
interviewing of witnesses, especially (i) those who may have been
victims of serious crimes such as sexual abuse and (ii) those who
need most help to remember accurately (e.g. children and vulner-
able adults). These steps, like the police interviewing of suspects
described above, have often accompanied governmental decisions
to tape record interviews with alleged victims or bystanders who
witnessed what took place.
England and Wales have pioneered the routine video taping of
investigative interviews with children. The Criminal Justice Act
1991 allowed a video recorded interview (usually by the police
and/or social services) to be used as part of a child’s evidence, pro-
vided that the judge deemed the interviewing to have been con-
ducted appropriately. (The judge could order that some or all of
the recording not be shown to the jury.) To provide guidance to
interviewers the Government commissioned a Professor of
Psychology (Ray Bull) and a Professor of Law (Di Birch) to write
the first working draft of the 1992 Memorandum of Good Practice
60 criminal psychology: a beginner’s guide