Interviewing victims, including children and people with intellectual disabilities

This chapter examines the importance within investigations of victims of crime and witnesses to crime and will emphasize that assisting victims/witnesses to provide as full an account as possible of “what happened” is a complex process for which interviewers need to be properly trained. Psychology needs to rise to the challenge of (i) translating what is known from laboratory and field research into this applied arena and (ii) developing new theories and techniques to the extent that current laboratory research on memory and communication provides insufficient guidance. This chapter will first of all examine the role of witnesses and victims within the investigation process and then it will discuss the importance of the appropriate interviewing of witnesses and victims within the criminal justice system. This will lead to a discussion of the necessity of the accurate recording of information gleaned from such interviewing and we will try to answer the question: “To video or not to video?”. The chapter will then examine the interviewing of children and people with learning disabilities. The discussion will make recommendations for best practice.