NCJ Number
105557
Journal
Policing Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Dated: (Spring 1987) Pages: 4-22
Date Published
1987
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This 1986 British study examined the effect of the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act on the nature and practice of police interrogation.
Abstract
Quantitative data obtained pertained to the duration of the suspect's custody, detention, the interview, and other factual matters. Qualitative data were obtained from the observation of 68 police interviews at the Brighton Police Station. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act requires a handwritten contemporaneous record for each interview or interrogation without the benefit of tape recording. Overall, this requirement has undermined effective skills and techniques of interviewing, such that only the novice offender is likely to volunteer incriminating information as a result of police interrogation. The mechanics of contemporaneous handwritten recordkeeping disrupt the rhythm of silence and conversation essential for an effective interview. A preoccupation with recordkeeping hampers interrogators' observations of suspects' nonverbal cues and promotes a rigid format of questions and answers. Officers are now so averse to the interview requirements that interrogations have been shortened, and the information obtained from them has accordingly been reduced. 20 references.