Consistently Inconsistent? Clarifying Conflicting Timelines with Aoristic Interview Analysis

Abstract

Police investigations are complex processes, often accumulating large amounts of interviews. Mapping temporal pathways within and across individuals’ statements is time-consuming and often difficult to interpret after multiple interviews. The current paper provides a novel use of a well-supported timeline method: aoristic analysis. By applying aoristic analysis to interviews, it is shown that consistencies and inconsistencies across multiple interviews can be easily calculated and given probability scores. Important parts of timelines can be highlighted to expedite investigations. This approach uses existing police records and offers an additional layer of statistical analyses to provide quicker insights into the likelihood of activity and event times and durations. While offered as a proof-of-concept study, the current paper provides an opportunity for a range of researchers and academics to assist with interpreting timelines and investigations.