Police perceptions of rape victims and the impact on case decision making: A systematic review

Police officers are frequently perceived to hold negative attitudes about rape victims. The aim of this systematic review is to: (1) synthesise the current literature on police officers' attributions of rape victim blame, assessments of rape victim credibility, and rape myth acceptance; and, (2) examine the evidence that holding these attitudes impacts on police investigative decision making in rape cases. Twenty-four articles published between 2000 and 2016 were included following a systematic search of the available literature. The findings highlight that some police officers do hold problematic attitudes about rape victims e.g., blame, rape myth acceptance, although they are frequently noted to be at a low level. Furthermore, characteristics of the victim, e.g., alcohol intoxication and emotional expression, can affect attributions of victim credibility. Assessments of victim credibility were related to police investigative decision making e.g., recommendations to charge the perpetrator, perceptions of guilt. However, the impact of rape victim blaming and rape myth acceptance is less clear. Given that the literature was predominantly vignette-based, it is unclear how these judgements have an impact in real rape investigations.N/

The enhanced cognitive Interview: towards a better use and understanding of this procedure

The Enhanced Cognitive Interview is accepted as one of the most successful techniques for enhancing witness recollection. This type of interview has been studied all over the world (eg, Europe or the USA) and is used by police officers in many different countries (eg, the UK and New Zealand). Nonetheless, it is essential for police officers to understand how, and when, to properly apply this interview. Therefore, we examined the underlying psychological processes involved in this interview, and what research can tells us about the situations and purposes that can benefit from applying it

Enhancing the cognitive interview with an alternative procedure to witness-compatible questioning: category clustering recall

The Cognitive Interview (CI) is one of the most widely studied and used methods to interview witnesses. However, new component techniques for further increasing correct recall are still crucial. We focused on how a new and simpler interview strategy, Category Clustering Recall (CCR), could increase recall in comparison with witness-compatible questioning and tested if a Revised Cognitive Interview (RCI) with CCR instead of witness-compatible questioning and without the change order and change perspective mnemonics would be effective for this purpose. Participants watched a mock robbery video and were interviewed 48 hours later with either the CI or the RCI. Recalled information was classified as either correct, incorrect or confabulation. Although exclusion of the change order and change perspective mnemonics in the RCI group might have caused a slight decrease in recall during the last interview phases, the RCI group generally produced more correct information than the CI group, with a lower number of confabulations. Further analyses revealed CCR was largely responsible for this increase in correct recall. CCR is a very promising interview technique which allowed the interviewer to obtain more detailed information without additional questions and may have, in certain situations, several practical advantages over a questioning phase.N/