Securing reliable information in investigative interviews: coercive and noncoercive strategies preceding turning points

ABSTRACT

Investigative interviewers apply a range of physical, cognitive, social or legalistic strategies to secure information from suspects. The perceived effectiveness of coercive and noncoercive strategies on turning points was examined by interviewing 34 practitioners and 30 high value detainees in East Asian and Western jurisdictions. Each recounted an interview with an initially uncooperative detainee who became cooperative, or an initially cooperative detainee who became resistant or silent. Analyses of interview narratives identified perceived turning points in the practitioner-suspect relationship associated with clear outcomes. Independent of jurisdiction, 56% of the noncoercive strategies were associated with cooperation, yielding reliable information in 49.4% and true admissions in 20.0% of the cases. In contrast, coercive strategies were perceived as more ineffective (58.9%) than effective (14.6%) in securing information. Physical coercion, intimidation and deception were most frequently acknowledged to yield false information. These findings suggested prioritisation of noncoercive social and physical interview strategies and international consensus on best practices.     

Restorative Justice: The Ideals and Realities of Conferencing for Young People

This paper is concerned with the nature and complexities of restorative justice. It uses Braithwaite’s (Br J Criminol 42:563–577, 2002a) framework of constraining, maximising and emerging restorative standards to understand the interactions that underpin success and failure in practice, i.e., ‘restorativeness’. Using qualitative data from observations of youth justice conferences in New South Wales, Australia, the roles of empowerment (as an example of a constraining standard), restoration of communities (as an example of a maximising standard) and remorse over injustice (as an example of an emergent standard) are examined. Findings confirm that restorative justice is best conceived as a continuum of dynamic process and outcome related values. Non-domination is paramount to achieving restorative justice. However, the presence, absence, and nature of other values such as storytelling, respectful listening, victim and support attendance, and apology are also important. They affect where a restorative event falls on the restorative continuum, and they affect the likelihood of other standards being met.     

‘Loose tweets sink fleets’ and other sage advice: social media governance,policies and guidelines

While social media represents a broad range of benefits to organisations and institutions, such as enhanced brand engagement, it also presents challenges and risks to reputation and security, such as confidentiality breaches. Employee use of popular social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, both at work and about work has resulted in organisations developing social media policies and guidelines as part of contemporary governance practice. This paper investigates this recent approach to corporate governance by examining 20 social media policies and guidelines from a sample of corporate, government and third sector organisations that are active social media users. It develops a basic framework for social media governance based on the 13 common themes that emerge from the sample, including confidentiality, disclosure and the public–private divide of social media usage. It draws on social contract theory and considers its importance to the field of social media governance. Key implications for managers who are tasked with developing and implementing social media policies and guidelines are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.