The cognitive interview method of conducting police interviews: eliciting extensive information and promoting therapeutic jurisprudence.

Police officers receive little or no training to conduct interviews with cooperative witnesses, and as a result they conduct interviews poorly, eliciting less information than is available and providing little support to assist victims overcome psychological problems that may have arisen from the crime. We analyze the components of a typical police interview that limits the amount of information witnesses communicate, and which militate against victims' overcoming psychological problems. We then describe an alternative interviewing protocol, the Cognitive Interview, which enhances witness recollection and also likely contributes to victims' well being.

Field test of the Cognitive Interview: enhancing the recollection of actual victims and witnesses of crime.

The Cognitive Interview was tested in the field to enhance the recollection of actual victims and witnesses of crime. The technique is based on laboratory-tested principles of memory retrieval, knowledge representation, and communication. Seven experienced detectives from the Metro-Dade Police Department were trained to use the technique and were compared with 9 untrained detectives.