Applied Issues in Investigative Interviewing, Eyewitness Memory, and Credibility Assessment

Victims. Witnesses. Suspects. Answers to an interviewer’s questions may mean the difference between prison or freedom, custody or loss, justice served or justice miscarried–outcomes that depend on expert decision-making as much as on the answers themselves.

Meticulously researched and reasoned by an international panel of experts from across the criminal justice fields, Applied Issues in Investigative Interviewing, Eyewitness Memory, and Credibility Assessment illustrates areas and strategies for improvement in this complex legal arena. The book begins by arguing for the need for field research in studying eyewitness memory, and subsequent chapters bear this out ably in issues such as biopsychosocial phenomena of memory, why inconsistent testimony may not necessarily equal deceit, and the challenges and opportunities digital technology poses in evaluating truthfulness. Throughout, the book’s theories, critiques, models, and tools are informed not only by the behavioral sciences but by the real-world experience of law enforcement and judicial professionals. Among the topics covered:

• Credibility assessment, common law trials, and fuzzy logic.

• Errors made by investigative interviewers and suggestions for redress.

• Children’s memory in “scientific case studies” of child sexual abuse.

• Repeated interviews about repeated trauma from the distant past.

• The contextualization of words by expert lie detectors.

Applied Issues in Investigative Interviewing, EyewitnessMemory, and Credibility Assessment will find an interested audience among investigative interviewers, law enforcement professionals, clinical and forensic psychologists, lawyers, and judges looking to integrate more substantial psychological knowledge into this critical area of legal practice.