What is Forensic Interviewing?

1
What is Forensic Interviewing?

• Forensic - pertaining to, connected to, or used
  in courts of law.

• Interview - Formal meeting in which a person
  questions, consults, or evaluates another
  individual.

2
Forensic Interview

• When information obtained from the interview is
  to be applied or used for questions of criminal,
  juvenile, or civil law, especially in court
  proceedings.

3
Therapeutic vs. Forensic Interviews

• Therapeutic
• 1) Assumes child is telling the truth.
• 2) Interviewer is an advocate.
• 3) Subjective reality is accepted.
• 4) Accepting of general descriptions of abuse.
• 5) Information can be obtained using a variety of
  techniques.

• Forensic
• 1) Fact finding.
• 2) Interviewer is neutral.
• 3) Alternative are explored.
• 4) Details are imperative.
• 5) Interviewer follows relatively set guidelines.

4
Role of the Forensic Interviewer

• Objective Committed to eliciting facts without
  imposing own belief system on the child.
• Neutral Considers alternative hypotheses.
• Friendly Does not present as authoritative or
  disciplinary.
• Empathic Considers feelings and reactions of
  victim and family.

5

• A forensic interviewer provides a neutral, yet
  child-friendly environment in which to interview
  children in a developmentally sensitive and
  legally defensible manner.

6
Competence of the Interviewer

• Interviewers have often been criticized as
  sources of false allegations.
• Interviewers have occasionally been criticized
  for failure to discover existing sexual abuse.
• Both positions cite the interviewers poor
  skills, and hold that interviewers lead children
  to confirm or deny abuse through leading
  questions, statements, or nonverbal behavior.

7
Examples of leading children...

• Leading question
• Mr.. Green touched your pee-pee, didnt he?
• Leading statement
• Mr.. Green is in jail because he is a very bad
  man who hurt lots of kids just like you.
• Leading nonverbal behavior
• Nodding affirmatively when the child alleges
  abuse and ignoring comments by the child that are
  inconsistent with the suspected abuse.
• (Reed, 1996)

8
STAGES OF THE INTERVIEW

• Rapport Building and
• Setting the Stage
• Creating the Context
• Appropriate Empathy
• Developmental Assessment
• Evaluating Speech and Language
• Testing Concepts and Skill Level
• Competency and Credibility
• Information Gathering
• Making the Transition
• Problem Areas
• Helping Children Volunteer Information
• Closure
• With Children Who Dont Disclose
• With Emotional Children
• State of Mind, Self-esteem, Preparation

9
Rapport Building

• Goal
• Interviewer hopes to be perceived as a neutral,
  non-intimidating, yet supportive adult.
  Emotional connection is established with child.

10

• Techniques/Tasks
• Introductions Who are you? What do you do? What
  do they like to be called?
• Information Advise of observers/taping.
• Familiarize with environment and with task
  Limited choice of activities. Here we talk some
  and play some. I ask you a lot of questions and
  you get to ask me some questions.
• Address preconceived notions This is a place to
  talk to kids about worries / problems /
  bothering.
• Discuss non-threatening topics School, family,
  pets, hobbies, etc.

11

• Good ideas
• Ask open-ended questions early on to set the
  tone of the interview.
• Ex. - I like to learn about the families I work
  with. Tell me about your family. or Id like
  to know about what youve been doing today. Tell
  me about everything that happened since you woke
  up.
• Pay close attention to body language and affect.
  If negativity or withdrawal is noted, switch
  topics.

12
Developmental Assessment

• Goal
• Determine the childs fund of knowledge and
  communication abilities in order to facilitate
  the clear and accurate communication of memory
  and events.

13
Task is to assess baseline skills.

• Linguistic - get informal language sample.
• Concepts/knowledge -
• Colors
• Numbers
• Time
• Days
• Labeling and Identifying -
• Body parts
• Feelings
• Spatial arrangements-prepositions
• Kinds of touch
• Reporting ability
• Competency
• Truth / Lie
• Right / Wrong

14
Language Issues

• Language is a developmental skill.
• Children continue to acquire language skills
  through adolescence.
• Childrens language may sound similar to adult
  language, but this does not mean they have
  acquired mastery or understand meanings.

15
Language Issues

• Preschoolers dont always know what they dont
  know.
• Children dont always know that it is okay not to
  know.
• Children dont always know they can ask for
  clarification.
• Children often dont understand concepts (i.e.
  relationships, time, truth) even though they
  sound as if they do. They can use the words
  correctly without understanding the meaning.

16
Some facts about language.Prepositions

• in/on
• off/out/away
• toward/up/down
• in front of/ next to/around
• beside
• ahead of/behind

• 1-1/2 - 2 years
• 2 - 3 years
• 3 - 3-1/2 years
• 3-1/2 - 4 years
• 4-1/2 years
• 4-1/2 - 5-1/2 years

17
Some facts about language.Pronouns

• By age 3-1/2
• 3 - 5 years
• 7 years
• About 10 years

• My, your, their, mine, his
• Her(s), his, its, our(s)
• Pointing pronouns - this vs. that
• Matching of pronouns to following nouns

18
Some facts about language.Adjectives/Adverbs

• Comparatives - more, bigger
• Superlatives - most, biggest
• Before vs. after

• 4 - 5 years
• 3 - 6 years
• 7 years

19
Before vs. After

• Q. Do you know what date this happened on?
• A.
• Was it BEFORE or AFTER Christmas?
• A.
• Are you sure it happened BEFORE Christmas?
• A.
• What holiday comes AFTER Christmas?
• A.
• What did you get for Christmas?
• A.
• Do you remember if you had your Nintendo on the
  day you watched the movie at (Mr.. Jones)
  apartment?
• A.

20

• When did you get your Nintendo?
• A.
• Have you ever had more than one Nintendo set?
• A.
• And you got that on Christmas?
• A.
• Well, if you did not have your Nintendo game
  BEFORE Christmas, (and the child is claiming the
  incident happened BEFORE Christmas), how were you
  able to play it on the day you were at Mr..
  Jones apartment?
• A.
• Listen carefully now. What number comes BEFORE
  the number 5?
• A.

21
WH questions???

• What Where Who
• Why How When
• Appear in speech ---- 2-1/2 - 3-1/2
• Appropriate grammatical
• response ----- by age 5-1/2
• Appropriate cognitive response
• (to why, how, when) ----- about 10

22
Time / Dates

• Children are often not good at reporting time.
• Q. Do you know what your birth date is? I bet
  you know that.
• A.
• When you were 5 years old?
• A.
• You are 5?
• A.
• Okay, when will you be 6?
• A.
• Ask a silly question, get a silly answer -- or
  get a straight answer. Okay. How long ago did
  you have your birthday?
• A.

23
What is time???

• Clock time - hours, minutes, seconds
• Dates - days, weeks, months
• Quantity - how much time?
• Which - the time that
• Number - how many times?

24
Ways to facilitate talking about time

• Daytime/nighttime
• Morning/noon/night
• Breakfast/lunch/dinner
• Holidays
• Grade in school
• TV shows

25
Competency vs. Credibility

• Competency -
• An issue for the Judge.
• Is the child able to understand or differentiate
  between truth and non-truth. Do they have the
  ability to report what happened?

• Credibility -
• An issue for the Jury.
• Is the child believable? Are the children lying
  or fantasizing? Are they responding to coaching?

26

• Even young children have a moral concept of
  lie.
• They cannot, however, answer an abstract question
  such as Do you know the difference between the
  truth and a lie?
• Its better to have children demonstrate their
  knowledge through simple concrete questions that
  make use of a childs experience.

27

• Q. What did you have for breakfast today?
• pause for answer
• Q. If you said you had chocolate cake and cherry
  pie, would you be telling me the truth, or would
  you be telling me a lie?
• Young people equate truth with fact, and lies
  with non-fact.

28
Examples

• Q. If I said it was raining in this room, would I
  be telling the truth or telling a lie?
• -----------------------------------------
• Q. If you took a cookie and broke the cookie jar,
  then told your Mom your brother did it, would you
  be telling the truth or telling a lie?
• Pause for answer
• Q. What happens when you tell a lie?

29
more hints

• Avoid the question of belief - do you believe
  that is true?
• Avoid using the word story - ambiguous and
  prejudicial.
• Be cautious about using real and pretend -
  pretend implies imaginary.
• Ex.
• Is Mickey Mouse real or pretend?

30
Credibility can be enhanced if you deal with
rules for talking

• Guessing
• I dont Know
• I dont want to talk about it
• Correcting mistakes
• Confusing questions

31
Information GatheringGoal

• Obtain as much contextual information as possible
  regarding the alleged abuse. Interviewer should
  have a mental picture of how the abuse occurred.
• Who
• What
• Where
• When
• How

32
Questioning Strategies

• General to specific
• Open-ended to focused
• Short sentences
• Avoid pronouns
• Elicit contextual details
• Sensory memory
• Follow-up on relevant forensic info
• ID coercion
• Explore alternative explanations
• Utilize tools as needed

33
Importance of using their words

• (CROSS-EXAMINATION)
• Q. And then you said you put your mouth on his
  (Daddys) penis?
• A.
• You didnt say that?
• A.
• Did you ever put your mouth on his penis?
• A.
• Well, why did you tell your mother that your dad
  put his penis in your mouth?
• A.

34

• (REDIRECT)
• Jennie, you said that you didnt put your mouth
  on Daddys penis. Is that right?
• A.
• Did Daddy put his penis in your mouth?
• A.
• Did you tell your Mom?
• A.
• What made you decide to tell?
• A.

35
DUR-X Questions

• Do you remember saying that Jack had the knife
  when Doug got hurt?
• ----------------------------------------
• Do you remember X
• saying Y
• (that) Jack had the knife Z
• when Doug got hurt?

36
One more example

• Do you remember when we talked?
• A.
• Did we talk?
• A.
• Im confusedWe talked?
• A
• You dont remember?
• A.
• How can that be?
• A.
• -----------------------------------------------
• This child thought you had to forget before you
  could remember!

37
ClosureGoal

• To have the child leave the interview in as
  positive a frame of mind as possible and not in a
  state of emotional distress.

38
Areas to be addressed

• Provide info and answer questions
• Respond to childs fears
• Explains what happens next
• Dont make promises you cant keep
• Thank child for participating (not for providing
  disclosure)
• Give child chance to ask questions

39
Summary points...

• Improper interviewing and misleading does occur
  in some cases of suspected child maltreatment.
  This is, indeed, a serious concern.
• The extent of the problem, however, has not been
  studied empirically and is currently a matter of
  speculation.
• In light of the potentially grave consequences
  associated at arriving at the wrong conclusions,
  it is incumbent on all professionals involved in
  investigating and decision making to be guided by
  the most reliable information available.
• To this end, interviewers need to acquire the
  knowledge and skills about what we know, and to
  stay informed about what we (so far) dont.