Promoting justice: Professionalising frontline policing with an evidence-based Structured Interview Protocol

从受害者和证人那里获得的证据对刑事司法系统至关重要。目前的采访程序，以引出这一证据往往达不到最佳实践，并没有跟上有关人类记忆的理论发展。这是一个很大的问题，因为调查性会面的质素差，往好里说会导致证人证供不完整，往坏里说则会导致证供不可靠。前线军装人员缺乏警务经验，加上工作的优先次序要求高，涉及多方面，因此调查性会面技巧的质素尤其令人关注。为这些官员提供的面谈培训已经非常有限;通常只安排几天的基本培训来学习如何与受害人和证人互动。在财政紧缩时期，由于内政部对警察当局的赠款削减了20%，部队被要求在2015年前节省24亿英镑，这种情况正在走向危机点;前线军官的数量正在减少，军官的工作量正在增加，培训机会甚至更少。女王陛下的警务督察局（HMIC）提出的一项关键建议，即为这些严重削减编列预算，强调需要提高一线工作人员的效率。预算下降和期望值上升的关键挑战是最近在英国举行的政府政策会议的核心（21世纪世纪的警务与司法，2013年7月）。英国警务和刑事司法国务大臣呼吁“更大的创新，以保持标准”，作为他推动内政部最近政策的一部分-“使刑事司法系统更有效率”（2013年4月）和“帮助警察更有效地打击犯罪”（2013年3月）。英国警方正被鼓励通过采用新技术实现现代化，比如随身携带的摄像机。这些新举措很有希望，并有可能通过加快司法途径，减少文书工作，使警察能够花更多的时间巡逻，使警务工作更加高效和有效。然而，数字创新也将暴露面试和人际沟通技能方面的缺陷，因为透明度增加和录音的可用性。鉴于警务工作日益困难，迫切需要新的、有效的循证面谈程序，以补充关于收集证据的国家准则，同时（a）支持一线警官，（B）加快取证速度，（c）提高所获证据的质量，以及（d）促进当前和未来数字化技术实施的成功，因此，该项目的主要目的是通过制定和采用一种新的“结构化面谈程序”，这是一种调查性面谈程序，将有效促进进行符合道德操守的最佳做法面谈，以获取高质量的证据。该协议将借鉴相关的记忆理论和记忆的原则，目前的心理学理论的记忆报告的战略控制，和前沿的心理学发展调查采访研究。它将与警方知识交流伙伴合作开发，以提高数字记录访谈的成功率，同时巩固和改进前线官员进行访谈的做法。警务学院将提供专家监督和质量保证作用。将通过对照实验和随机对照现场试验对结构化面试方案进行科学验证。总的来说，这项研究有望产生重大影响。

Evidence obtained from victims and witnesses is of critical importance to the criminal justice system. Current interview procedures for eliciting this evidence frequently fall short of best practice, and have not kept pace with theoretical developments relating to human memory. This is highly problematic as poor quality investigative interviewing leads to incomplete witness evidence at best, and unreliable evidence at worst.Concerns over the quality of investigative interview skills is particularly acute for frontline uniformed officers who have a lack of policing experience coupled with demanding and multi-faceted work priorities. The provision of interview training for these officers is already severely limited; usually a couple of days of basic training are allocated to learning how to interact with victims and witnesses. At a time of financial austerity, when forces have been required to make savings of £2.4bn by 2015 due to a 20% cut in Home Office grants to police authorities, this situation is moving towards crisis point; the number of frontline officers is being reduced, officer workloads are increasing and there are even fewer opportunities for training. A key recommendation made by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) to budget for these severe cuts highlighted the need to transform the efficiency of front line staff. The proposed research directly addresses this.The critical challenges of falling budgets and rising expectations were central to a recent government policy conference in the UK (Policing & Justice for the 21st Century, July, 2013). The UK Minister of State for Policing and Criminal Justice called for 'greater innovation to maintain standards' as part of his bid to promote recent Home Office policies - 'Making the criminal justice system more efficient' (April, 2013), and 'Helping the police fight crime more effectively' (March, 2013). UK police forces are being encouraged to modernise by adopting new technology, such as body-worn-cameras. These new initiatives are promising, and have every potential to make policing more efficient and effective by speeding up the path to justice, reducing paperwork, and enabling officers to spend more time on patrol. However, digital innovations will also expose the deficits in interviewing and interpersonal communication skills, due to increased transparency and the availability of recordings. In light of this increasingly difficult policing context there is an urgent need for new and effective evidence-based interview procedures that complement national guidelines on the collection of evidence while also (a) supporting frontline officers, (b) increasing the speed of obtaining evidence, (c) enhancing the quality of evidence obtained, and (d) promoting the success of current and future technological implementation of digital-recording in policing contexts.The primary aim of the project is therefore to support current and future generations of frontline officers via the development and introduction of a novel 'Structured Interview Protocol', an investigative interview protocol that will efficiently and effectively promote the conduct of ethical best practice interviews to elicit high quality evidence. The protocol will draw upon relevant memory theory and principles of memory, current psychological theory on the strategic control of memory reporting, and cutting-edge psychological developments in investigative interviewing research. It will be developed in collaboration with police-based Knowledge Exchange partners to enhance the success of digitally-recorded interviews, at the same time consolidating and improving front line officers' practice conducting interviews. The College of Policing will provide expert oversight and a quality assurance role. The Structured Interview Protocol will be scientifically validated via controlled experiments and a randomised controlled field-trial. As a whole, the research promises significant impact.