Analysis of Forensic Interview Techniques
Crime victims are routinely interviewed by the police to gather information in their investigation. However, experts say that these interviews often involve questions that poorly gather victims’ memory of the crime and may cause retraumatization. Thus, there was a call for the creation of a trauma-informed version to solve these problems. This study compares the new trauma-informed version against the current technique, the Enhanced Cognitive Interview, on participant accuracy, inaccuracy, and interviewee overall experience. The study used 45 participants from the University of Denver’s human subjects research pool. These participants watched a video simulating a crime, participated in a 30-minute delay period, and completed the interview condition they were randomly selected into. The two techniques were found to be similar for accuracy, inaccuracy, and overall experience. Despite these findings, we believe future research should be done into these techniques for further understanding of how to improve experiences for crime victims.
