The impact of investing in the good interviewers policy of practice (IGIpop) on police interviews with children

ABSTRACT

It is important to elicit the best evidence from children during investigative interviews. Many of recent improvements (such as extensive training) are costly to implement preventing police forces with small budgets from adopting them. A policy is needed that can benefit all forces irrespective of their financial resources. We assessed a new approach: Investing in the Good Interviewers: Policy of Practice (IGIpop). IGIpop suggests that all interviews should be conducted using ‘good’ interviewers. In 2016 we evaluated the performance of interviewers in a police force and identified the good interviewers. IGIpop was implemented in 2017 when five good interviewers were chosen to conduct all of the interviews with children alleging sexual abuse. We analysed 102 interviews and assessed how IGIpop impacted the quality of interviews. As expected, appropriate interviewing approaches increased and inappropriate interviewing approaches decreased after IGIpop. IGIpop achieved an important improvement in the quality of interviews with no additional training or costs.

KEYWORDS:

• Police interview
• investigative interview
• Cyprus
• child sexual abuse
• talent management

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marilena Kyriakidou

Dr. Marilena Kyriakidou research interests cover a number of areas surrounding investigative interviews of children with a particular aim to help front line investigators in their roles.

Mark Blades

Dr. Mark Blades, is a Chartered Psychologist, Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. Member: APA, SRCD, CDS, ESDP, BPS. Previously Associate Editor for Applied Cognitive Psychology, and British Journal of Developmental Psychology, and on 5 editorial boards. Guest editor for 5 other journals. He has published 8 books, 20 book chapters, over 100 journal papers, 50 other papers and reports. Major research awards: 6 from ESRC and 4 from the National Science Foundation (USA).

Julie Cherryman

Dr. Julie Cherryman, trains UK police interviewers and advises on good practice