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Article
Publication date: 14 August 2017

Céline Launay and Jacques Py

As eyewitnesses provide the most valuable information for criminal investigations, it is important to further develop and test techniques for collecting eyewitness testimony so…

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Abstract

Purpose

As eyewitnesses provide the most valuable information for criminal investigations, it is important to further develop and test techniques for collecting eyewitness testimony so that they meet the major objective of a police interview: obtaining details pertaining to criminal actions. The purpose of this paper is to test a new instruction – the re-enactment investigative instruction – formulated to collect the most fine-grained details of a criminal event as accurately as possible. It leads the interviewee to decompose all directly recollected actions into the most minimal actions so that the event can be accurately re-enacted.

Design/methodology/approach

In all, 40 participants individually viewed a video depicting a robbery, were randomly assigned to a re-enactment or structured interview (SI) group and then interviewed face-to-face. Each interview was comprised of two free recall phases and a questioning phase. Manipulation of the re-enactment instruction took place in the second free recall phase of the re-enactment interviews (RIs).

Findings

The RI elicited more correct information compared to the SI (d=1.14), and slightly but not significantly less incorrect information (d=0.09). Participants in the RI condition reported significantly more details pertaining to general and specific actions.

Practical implications

The re-enactment instruction shows the potential to increase witness recall in a way that promotes recall of both additional correct information and investigative-relevant information.

Originality/value

The instruction provides witnesses a retrieval strategy that facilitates overcoming both the gap between memory availability and accessibility and the gap between memory availability and output regulation, eliciting more details with no significant increase of errors.

Details

Journal of Forensic Practice, vol. 19 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-8794

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