Police officers’ perceptions of interviews in cases of sexual offences and murder involving children and adult victims

Abstract

This paper examines 90 UK police officers' perceptions of characteristics of interviews with suspects of rape and murder involving child and adult victims. Officers rated their beliefs about how stressful they would find such interviews, the importance of confessions, their likely emotional involvement and how much empathy they would show towards the suspect. Murder cases were reported to be more stressful than rape, and confessions were deemed to be less important for respondents compared to 'other' officers. Officers reported that they would become more emotionally involved in cases involving children, and they would show more empathy in murder cases than rape cases. Officers were unable to provide clear and unambiguous definitions of 'empathy' or 'sympathy'.

No rapport, no comment: The relationship between rapport and communication during investigative interviews with suspects

“…In hindsight, perhaps it is not surprising that positivity was not as beneficial or used as often as the other components in the present sample. Previous research indicates that interviewers have a more negative attitude towards sex offenders, and this can have a detrimental impact on interview technique (Oxburgh et al, ). It may also be difficult to maintain positivity to a great extent when these types of allegations are discussed.…”

“…Sexual offences involving children induce some of the strongest reactions from society, and there is a social stigma attached to sexual offending (Quinn, Forsyth, & Mullen‐Quinn, ). Interviewers hold more negative attitudes towards sex offenders, and these attitudes impact negatively upon the quality of interview technique (Holmberg & Christianson, ; Oxburgh, Ost, Morris, & Cherryman, ). Therefore, these suspects may be less cooperative and forthcoming with information (Ward, Hudson, Johnson, & Marshall, ).…”

Empathy in the field: Towards a taxonomy of empathic communication in information gathering interviews with suspected sex offenders

“…Continuer empathy may be inherently uncomfortable for police interviewers who have consistently reported finding interview encounters with suspected sex offenders extremely demanding (Soukara, Bull, & Vrij, 2002). As a consequence officers may choose, consciously or otherwise, not to 'use' this type of empathy during suspect interviews, which are unchosen relationships within which they may believe there is little room for shared feeling or emotional attunement (also see Oxburgh et al, 2015).…”

“…Grounded theory was well suited for this research because it supports the derivation of analytic categories directly from the data rather than from pre-conceived hypotheses. To date, there exists no preexisting theory to label and explain specific types of empathic behaviour displayed by police officers during interviews with sex offenders (or indeed any type of offender), and the limited amount of published research has employed a broad operational definition of empathy (see also Oxburgh & Ost, 2011;Oxburgh et al, 2012;Oxburgh et al, 2015). Given that empathy is a complex and multifaceted cognitive and social phenomenon (e.g., Jolliffe & Farrington, 2004;Larden, Melin, Holst, & Langstrom, 2006), grounded theory was employed to label types of empathy in the first instance.…”

“…Some researchers have recently begun the process of investigating empathy in police interviews, and its impact on the amount of information obtained (Oxburgh, Ost, & Cherryman, 2012;Oxburgh, Ost, Morris, & Cherryman, 2015). However, their findings have been mixed, and as such investigative empathy is not well understood.…”