Request for UK police force for research collaboration

Please see the below request from one of our academic members:

Dear members of iIIRG,

We are looking for a police force in the UK to collaborate with on our project regarding interviewing of children.

Simply put, our research targets situational conditions that police can apply to instantly improve evidence gathering from vulnerable interviewees. Such situational conditions have been adapted with impressive and immediate outcomes in judicial processes (Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, 2018; The Modernisation of Family Justice, 2016). This research collaboration will develop an intelligent and a practically easy operating policy for using such situational conditions in investigating child sexual abuse cases.

Via our research collaboration interviewers’ involved in interviewing children will develop and improve existing interviewing skills.

More details on the project:

Invitation for research collaboration in an international and national research project: How situational conditions influence police interviews with children victims or witnesses?

What is expecting from a police force: Provide access to police interviews of children victims or witnesses of alleged crime 6 to 11 years old.

Benefits from taking part: Free individual and group feedback/training to interviewers based on interviewers’ performance and the department’s performance compare with national and international standards. Receive an intelligent protocol for handling situational conditions to help improve interviewers’ performance.

Who would need to be involved?: Any department that conducts interviews with children victims or witnesses.

What is the time commitment?: 2 months to get relevant permissions to access the interviews and about 5 months to transcribe the interviews. We are flexible and willing to make changes to minimise your time on this.

What exactly we want?: Access to video recordings of police interviews with children who have been victims or witnesses of alleged crimes (6 to 11 years old). We may need to use your facilities to transcribe the video recordings. We are flexible and willing to make changes to minimise your time on this.

Would the Police be paid for its time?: No.

Deadline for expressing an interest: 31st of October 2018

Our team has long experience on researching and training on police interviews with children.

Please email for further details M.Kyriakidou@shu.ac.uk

Thank you,

Dr. Marilena Kyriakidou