A comment on methodological concerns: A rejoinder

This rejoinder to Professor Cohen's Comment is intended to elaborate on approaches we utilized in our original paper. Some of our specification was necessitated by data availability (e.g., the specification of the sanction process). We attempt to clarify our approach in regard to the intervention process. We provide an explanation of the modeling that could underly a test of the hypothesis that the control effect is a product of the arrest process—a test that we had regarded as informative but peripheral to our main points. As noted, a significant part of that test utilizes the full range of control variables available to us. Finally, we enumerate what we felt to be the main points of our paper—points we are afraid might otherwise be lost in this discussion of methodology.     

One Way or Another? Criminal Investigators’ Beliefs Regarding the Disclosure of Evidence in Interviews with Suspects in England and Wales

The research base concerning interviews with suspects remains to be comprehensively developed. For example, the extant literature provides differing views regarding how best to undertake the important interview task of disclosing evidence. In the current study, using a self-report questionnaire, 224 investigators based in England and Wales were asked as to their own preferred methods. Most respondents advocated a gradual method of disclosing evidence, stating that this approach would better reveal inconsistencies and obtain a complete version of events (similar to the reasoning of those who preferred disclosing evidence later). Those who advocated revealing evidence early stated this approach would more likely elicit confessions. Several respondents would not commit to one single method, arguing that their chosen strategy was contextually dependent. The study’s findings suggest that it remains arguable as to whether there is one best approach to evidence disclosure and/or whether particular circumstances should influence interviewing strategies.     

The enhanced cognitive interview: expressions of uncertainty,motivation and its relation with report accuracy

The Enhanced Cognitive Interview (ECI) is one of the most widely studied and used methods to interview witnesses. However, ECI research has mainly focused on increasing report size and somewhat overlooked how to improve and evaluate report accuracy. No study evaluated if witnesses’ spontaneous expressions of uncertainty are accurate metacognitive judgments, nor if witnesses’ motivation during the interview affects report accuracy. This study examined how witnesses’ judgments of recall ‘uncertainty’ and their motivation perception could relate to report accuracy. Forty-four psychology students watched a mock robbery video recording and were interviewed 48 hours later with either the Portuguese version of the ECI or a Structured Interview (SI). Afterward, participants’ motivation was assessed and items of information were classified as ‘certainties’ or ‘uncertainties’. Results suggest that our ECI protocol was effective, since participants interviewed with the ECI produced more information without compromising accuracy. ‘Uncertainties’ were less accurate than ‘certainties’, and their exclusion raised overall, ECI, and SI, accuracy. More motivated participants had better recall accuracy. Accounting for witnesses’ motivation and spontaneous verbal expressions of uncertainty may be effective and time-saving procedures to increase accuracy. These are key points that professionals and researchers should consider.     

Exploring the Disclosure of Forensic Evidence in Police Interviews with Suspects

Despite many years of empirical research focusing on investigative interviewing and detecting deception, very little research attention has been paid to the various types of evidence which feature in police interviews with suspects. In particular, the use of forensic evidence in the context of police interviews has not been previously considered, although in recent years the availability of various types of forensic analyses has dramatically increased. In the current study 398 experienced police interviewers from various countries completed a questionnaire about their experience of using various types of forensic evidence in interviews with suspects, as well as their perceptions regarding the strength of various sources of forensic information and how this may affect their interviewing strategy. The results indicated that although the participants have forensic evidence available in a large proportion of their interviews with suspects, the vast majority of police interviewers have received no training about how to interpret or use such forensic information. However, the perceived strength of forensic evidence was reported by some participants to affect their interview strategy and specifically the timing of the disclosure of such evidence during an interview. These findings are discussed with reference to police training and interview techniques, and suggestions for further research are offered.     

Remarks

This study analyzes the ways in which the issue (or issues) of religion and politics were shaped during the 1984 campaign partially by the exigencies of political rhetoric and partially by the logic of the problem itself. The form in which the issue(s) of religion and politics came into view is traced in four addresses: one each by President Reagan, Walter Mondale, Senator Edward Kennedy, and Governor Mario Cuomo. One premise of this study is that such political speeches are in some sense and to some extent rational discourse aimed at persuading the unpersuaded that the speakers’ moral, political, and constitutional perceptions are cognitively superior to opposing perceptions. The author finds two substantive issues in the argument: the “toleration/church and state” issue and the “relation of Catholic moral principles and public policy” issue. The manner in which the speakers defend their position on these issues is explicated so as to reveal the strengths and weaknesses in each speaker's formulation. The limits of the accuracy of each side's rhetoric are identified in such a way that it becomes evident they are debating importantly different interpretations of principles on which they nominally agree. It is argued that the core of the debate concerned whether religious citizens have a right to try to change the drift towards an exclusion of religious traditions and practices and of religiously based moral values from a place in our public policy or whether such exclusion is required constitutionally and hence attempts to change its attack or undermine the Constitution.     

Validation of the factor structure and predictive validity of the Forensic Evidence Evaluation Bias Scale for robbery and sexual assault trial scenarios

In order to investigate the role of pre-trial attitudes about forensic science in juror decision-making, a previous study demonstrated the predictive validity of the Forensic Evidence Evaluation Bias Scale (FEEBS), using a murder trial scenario, which featured ambiguous prosecution DNA evidence. The current study validates the FEEBS using two new crime types and the conditions include a manipulation of the presence of DNA evidence in the trial scenario. The FEEBS successfully predicted mock jurors' perceptions of the probative value of DNA evidence for both robbery and sexual assault trials. The two subscales of the FEEBS were demonstrated to have different predictive ability depending on the presence or absence of DNA evidence. A confirmatory factor analytic technique was used to validate the underlying two-factor structure of the FEEBS, as previously proposed. These results are discussed with reference to the CSI Effect literature, and the potential for improvement to less empirically supported voir dire questioning techniques.     

A brief measure of the triarchic model of psychopathy among community youths: psychometrics and measurement invariance

ABSTRACT

The development and validation of empirically sound measures that operationalize the Triarchic model of psychopathy among youth is currently in the nascent stage. The present study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of a brief refined measure of the Triarchic model of psychopathy based on the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI-Tri-S) among a mixed-gender school sample of 782 youth (M?=?15.87 years, SD?=?1.72) from Portugal. Confirmatory factor analysis offered support for the theoretically expected three-factor structure. Cross-gender measurement invariance using the present sample and cross-sample measurement invariance of the YPI-Tri-S using a previously collected forensic sample of institutionalized males was established. The YPI-Tri-S showed adequate psychometric properties in terms of discriminant validity, convergent validity, concurrent criterion-related validity, known-groups validity, and internal consistency. Findings indicate that YPI-Tri-S is a valuable brief and psychometrically reliable and valid self-report measure of the Triarchic model of psychopathy for use in diverse samples of youth.     

Testing the impact of group offending on behavioural similarity in serial robbery

Behavioural case linkage assumes that offenders behave in a similar way across their crimes. However, group offending could impact on behavioural similarity. This study uses robbery data from two police forces to test this by comparing the behavioural similarity of pairs of lone offences (LL), pairs of group offences (GG) and pairs of offences where one crime was committed alone and the other in a group (GL). Behavioural similarity was measured using Jaccard's coefficients. Kruskal–Wallis tests were used to examine differences between the three categories within the linked samples. No statistically significant differences were found for linked GG compared to linked LL pairs. However, differences emerged between GL and the other categories for some behaviours (especially control) suggesting caution should be applied when linking group and lone offences committed by the same perpetrator. Differences between linked and unlinked pairs were assessed using receiver operating characteristic. The results suggest it is possible to distinguish between linked and unlinked pairs based on behaviour especially within the GG and LL categories. There were, however, fewer significant findings for the GL sample, suggesting there may be issues linking crimes where the offender commits one crime as part of a group and the other alone.