Untrained police interviewers ‘allow sex offenders to go fre

[non-sheep]

http://networkedblogs.com/3IZMs

May 9, 2010

Untrained police interviewers ‘allow sex offenders to go free’

Victims of child sex abuse may not be getting justice as the poor quality of police interviews allows perpetrators to go free, a report has warned.
The study found most police interviewers had only a week’s training to deal with children in abuse cases. Some 78% of staff surveyed said they had no refresher training and 60% said they got no feedback on how they conducted their interviews.
The study, for the Scottish Institute for Policing Research, also found that 87% of interviewers were not following Scottish government guidelines.
Few conducted “practice interviews”, which are designed to put children at ease by discussing neutral issues before asking them about the alleged crime.

The report also noted failures to ask open-ended questions to elicit more detailed and accurate responses from children.
The authors, who spoke to 91 police interviewers, said the study “identified important concerns about the quality of interviewing in Scotland” and that crucial evidence could be lost as a result.

“Our findings suggest situations may be occurring where a child has been abused but they are interviewed poorly, meaning the quality of the evidence isn’t good,” said David La Rooy, a psychologist at Abertay university and the study’s lead author. He has shared the results of his research with police forces, and officers are now taking his courses to develop their interviewing skills.
He said it was difficult for management to assess the quality of interviewing techniques as there is no legal requirement to film interviews with children in Scotland.

Mark O’Donnell, a social worker who co-ordinates joint investigative interview training in the west of Scotland, said: “It is clear that workers need post-training support and regular refreshing to maintain appropriate levels of skill and knowledge. A refresher course has been piloted and is being rolled out to all police divisions and local authorities.”
Detective superintendent Lesley Boal, who leads the child protection working group for the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, said: “Carrying out joint investigative interviews is a highly skilled task, which requires advanced training to ensure that interviewers have the appropriate knowledge and practice to carry out effective interviews.

“As with any training course, we recognise the importance of continuous improvement and regular reviews are carried out.”