Year: 2016
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The psycho-legal literature is scarce with respect to specific interviewing tactics aimed at eliciting\nnew and critical information (admissions) from suspects in criminal cases. The first major aim of this\nthesis was to fill this void by introducing and testing a novel evidence disclosure tactic, called the\nSUE-Confrontation, which draws on the general principles underlying the Strategic Use of Evidence\n(SUE) framework. The comparative efficacy of the SUE-Confrontation interview was examined in a\nseries of laboratory-based studies. In addition, a number of dependent measures was used to test the\nrelationships between the principles behind the SUE framework. The participants either committed a\nmock crime (guilty) or performed equivalent noncriminal activities (innocent) divided into three\nphases, after which they were interviewed as suspects. The interviewer possessed evidence pertaining\nto two (less critical) phases of the crime, but lacked information about the third and more critical\nphase. For the SUE-Confrontation interview, the interviewer initially aimed to obtain verbal cues to\ndeceit (statement-evidence inconsistencies) by using the evidence strategically. Thereafter, the\ninterviewer used these cues (confronted the suspect with his or her inconsistencies) to elicit\nadmissions about the critical phase for which the interviewer lacked information. In Study I (N =\n120), the SUE-Confrontation interview was compared to two control interviews: Early Disclosure of\nEvidence and No Disclosure of Evidence. As predicted, the innocent suspects (compared with the\nguilty suspects) were more forthcoming regarding their activities related to the critical phase. No\ndifference was found between the interview conditions with respect to the guilty suspects’\nforthcomingness regarding the critical phase. Nonetheless, the results were promising in terms of\neliciting admissions through strategic interviewing. For Study II (N = 90), the interview protocols\nwere revised. As predicted, the guilty suspects in the SUE-Confrontation condition (compared with\nthe Early Disclosure and No Disclosure conditions) perceived the interviewer to have had more\ninformation about the critical phase and disclosed more admissions about this particular phase. In\nStudy III (N = 75), the aim was to improve the ecological validity of the tactic by providing the\nsuspects with the opportunity to explain the discrepancies in their statements (labelled the SUEConfrontation/\nExplain condition). The guilty suspects in the SUE-Confrontation (following the same\nprotocol as used in Study II) and the SUE-Confrontation/Explain conditions combined (versus the\nEarly Disclosure condition) overestimated the amount of evidence that the interviewer possessed\nabout the critical phase. The SUE-Confrontation/Explain condition did not differ from either the\nSUE-Confrontation condition or the Early Disclosure condition with respect to the number of\nadmissions made by the guilty suspects. Importantly, the SUE-Confrontation interview resulted in\nmore admissions than the Early Disclosure interview. The second major aim of this thesis was to\nexplore police officers’ planned use of the available evidence to elicit admissions. Study IV was\ndesigned as a survey study in which police officers (N = 69) planned an interview with a suspect in a\nfictitious murder case. The investigators planned to disclose the evidence more often in a strategic\nmanner (i.e. obtain the suspect’s statement and/or exhaust alternative scenarios before revealing the\nevidence) than in a non-strategic manner (i.e. reveal the evidence before requiring an explanation). It\nwas rare that the investigators planned to use the evidence pertaining to the less critical phases of the\ncrime so as to elicit admissions about the critical phase (about which they lacked information). Taken\ntogether, this thesis demonstrates the development of, and support for, an effective evidence\ndisclosure tactic for eliciting admissions from suspects. Furthermore, the findings lend support to the predicted relationships between the principles underlying the SUE framework. These principles can\nbe tailored to meet the needs of an interviewer, and may be utilised in different criminal cases.\nLastly, it is recommended that the SUE-Confrontation tactic be included as part of police officers’\ntraining on how to effectively conduct interviews with suspects.
Author: Serra Tekin
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2511180180