NCJ Number
147925
Journal
Police Journal Volume: 67 Issue: 1 Dated: (January-March 1994) Pages: 46-52
Date Published
1994
Length
7 pages
Annotation
Recent amendments to British law allow video recordings of initial interviews with children to be used as evidence in court.
Abstract
Published recommendations for interviewing children have advocated the use of general, open-ended questions wherever possible to elicit the most accurate statements. However, research has shown that young children questioned in this manner are unlikely to reveal all the relevant information they know. For 5- and 6-year-olds, cued recall may be the best method for conducting interviews. Care must be taken not to use cues that might suggest answers and contaminate the evidence. However, interviewers can encourage children to be forthcoming by using nonsuggestive visual feedback. This method allows interviewers to explain the purpose of the interview to the child, encourage the child to give narrative answers, make the child aware of what the interviewer knows, provide a focus for the child's attention, and encourage the use of memory retrieval techniques. 24 references