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Purpose: To determine the causes of visual impairment (VI) and blindness among children in schools for the blind in Myanmar; to identify the avoidable causes of VI and blindness; to provide spectacles, low-vision aids, and ophthalmic treatment where indicated; to provide an update of the 2007 survey performed and identify any major epidemiological changes. Methods: Two hundred and ninety children under 16 years of age from all eight schools for the blind in Myanmar were examined and the data entered into the World Health Organization Prevention of Blindness Examination Record for Childhood Blindness. Results: In total, 271 children (93.4%) were blind (visual acuity [VA]

This chapter asserts that evaluation, as a component of reflective practice, is a key activity for the interviewer practitioner in measuring progress against investigative goals or personal development. The chapter covers what the book considers to be the two separate processes of operational (investigation-focused) and developmental (personal-performance) evaluation; often wrongly both conflated and confused with the associated activities of review and assessment. It firstly illustrates the relevant terms and outlines the inherent difficulties in evaluation. The chapter then shows separate frameworks for operational and developmental evaluation, including an explanation of the Griffiths Question Map (GQMTM), an innovative and unique tool for capturing core elements of interviewer performance. Finally, the chapter declares that evaluation is that all-important final piece of the jigsaw; an essential component in the processes of both investigation and interviewing.

This chapter recalls how improper questioning induces to confess and shapes the responses of witnesses. It recounts how suggestive questions operate as post-event information (PEI) and influence the content of an individual's recall. The chapter considers what fundamentally makes a question, what constitutes the good question, and the many ways of asking a question classifiable as productive, counterproductive, or risky. It raises the issues of mental demand and latitude of response before systematically considering productive, counterproductive, and risky questions. Having addressed the issues of set induction, pausing and pacing, the chapter looks at ways of triggering — and responding to — initial spontaneous disclosure before considering the task of probing and accessing non-verbal experience. It covers the tasks of questioning about same and similar events, and investigatively important information, as well as how to respond to admissions and confessions. Ultimately, the chapter addresses the complexity of questioning, from its core ingredients, through the dangers of theoretical and simplistic classification, to how it operates in real life.

This chapter examines how one continues to ethically influence the individual, and the course and content of the exchange, through skilled handling of the individual's response to your request for an account or your probing of the individual's account and the individual's response to your questions. It first considers the determinants of an individual's response before turning to the risks of ceasing to converse mindfully with the individual. The chapter then offers advice on how to manage the flow of verbal information, before turning to the management of responses indicative of the individual experiencing problems with attention and following the thread of what is being said. Having covered the management of extreme emotion and arousal, the chapter demonstrates how to manage a wide range of problematic and anomalous responses and disclosures (PARDs). Ultimately, it presents advice on how to manage the many forms of anomaly, “hot spot” behaviours, and confabulation.

This chapter spotlights the key aspect of preparation and planning for an interview: the pre-contact assessment of potential or actual constraints. It discusses the breadth of assessment, decision-making and actions that are integral to preparing and planning to interview a witness — whether vulnerable, intimidated and significant (VIS) witnesses or non-VIS — or a suspect. It argues that such assessment is essential to the task of orientation — preparation for the interview in terms of assignment of the lead interviewer role, tasking the second investigator and key third parties — and key decision-making concerning the practicalities of the interview: location, medium, manner of recording, timing and duration. The chapter then elaborates the definition of constraint, which the chapter described as an aspect of an individual's circumstances — psychological make-up, physical make-up, ability to function cognitively and socially and to communicate, and personal situation — that actually or potentially disadvantages the individual in conversation prior to and during the interview. Ultimately, it illustrates the staging process of pre-contact assessment, which differs for witnesses and suspects.

This chapter reviews the key stages in the effective, ethical, and professional conversation management of an interview where the suspect answers questions and provides an account. It starts by analyzing the reasons for their decision and then explores the phases of the interview. First, how to initiate an initial account and then how to develop that account covering all interview objectives — adapting technique to the level of detail provided by the suspect. The chapter then outlines how to deal with discrepancy between the account offered and other evidence, through a process called the FAIR review. Ultimately, the chapter offers guidance in interviewing the suspect who answers questions. It argues that answering questions is the riskiest option because the suspect cannot anticipate what you will say and does not know what you know.

This chapter notes the importance of a sound grasp in analyzing how conversation works. It examines conversation as a joint, highly organised, here-and-now, goal-orientated activity in which participants use two channels of communication to relate to each other as people and to exchange information. There are basic dimensions of relating in conversation. Whatever the relationship signalled by one participant to another, social norms govern and create expectations, in respect of the control of a conversation. In the speaking turn, a participant exercises greater control over the course and content of exchange, when in the listening role much less. The participant's concern — whether they consider it important to take into account the other's perspective or feelings — constitutes a conversational mindset. This mindset determines whether the participant's conversational style — actual behaviour when speaking and listening — is expedient or principled, with major implications in the investigative context. The chapter addresses how much most people use verbal and non-verbal behaviour to regulate the course and content of conversation.

This book provides readers with the knowledge, understanding, and tools to facilitate maximum disclosure by any interviewee in order to achieve the investigative aim and objectives. At its core, the Conversation Management Approach embodies a commitment to transparency and ethical conduct, as well as respect for the individual and professional expertise: qualities that make it applicable to any investigative context, whether conducted by the police or by private investigative agencies, both in the UK and internationally. This third edition presents a hands-on, how-to guide to interviewing a wide range of interviewees (witnesses, suspects, informants, and other individuals in special circumstances), underpinned by the world-renowned PEACE model for investigative interviewing. It includes straightforward explanations of how conversation works and how a working relationship is created; the realities of influencing, persuasion, and negotiation; the process of telling and listening; how people remember and forget offence-related experience; how to assist their remembrance of offence-related detail; and how to ask the right question at the right time in the right way.

This chapter analyzes how the development and testing of investigative CTs or hypotheses through repeat iterations of the ACCESS cycle gave rise to case material: information that assists in revealing what happened and points either towards, or away from any suspect's guilt. It highlights the significance of the effective processing of this information to understand its true value. The chapter explores this task from nine perspectives: the processing challenge posed by people's testimony, how to maximise the grasp of fine-grain detail (FGD), three methods for representing detail that facilitate analysis, how to create an overview of key material, identifying what you need to know and planning how to get it, how to assess alternative CTs and the disputability of information, visual planning for an interview, and finally cognitive debiasing to ensure the quality of your information processing. Finally, the chapter presents a common thread on information processing and professional management of information: conscious commitment to being open-minded, rational, and methodical when capturing FGD mentally and when working with FGD across the entire spectrum of processing task: representation, examination, analysis, assessment and planning.

This chapter establishes the scene for the rest of this book. It begins with a brief definition of the conversation management (CM) approach to investigative interviewing, before explaining the psychology of investigation as a decision-making process. Having distinguished the two opposing ethical perspectives on investigation, the chapter then introduces the context for the creation and emergence of CM with a detailed description of the practice of expedient interrogation of suspects and expedient interviewing of witnesses up to 1993: the year that PEACE — the national investigative interviewing model framed upon CM — was introduced. It also investigates the evolution of PEACE, the subsequent emergence of the Achieving Best Evidence (ABE) approach to interviewing vulnerable and intimidated witnesses, and the Professionalising of Investigation Programme (PIP). Ultimately, the chapter concludes with a synopsis of research findings that underpin the effectiveness of CM and how we continue to develop our approach to CM.

This chapter begins by outlining the process of how interviewees disclosed their remembrance of a happening. It then explains the meaning of happenings, episodes, and circumstances in relation to a person's memory. The chapter discusses how the interviewee pointed towards remembering what happened within a time frame, which the chapter considers material — with a potential bearing upon the commission of an offence. An offence may take place within a single material time frame (MTF). Other offending may involve more than one MTF. Remembering a happening is no mean task. It requires interviewees to search their memories, to locate their remembrance of, and find the words to describe, a happening that confronted them with a stream of sensory information. To a greater or lesser extent, the interviewees attended to this stream, perhaps specifically focusing upon some of it. With a varying degree of success, they made sense of the happening and responded to it. The chapter looks into the process of remembering: how we all engage in this process, and many forms of vulnerability can impair an individual's performance.

This chapter focuses on the suspects who exercise their right to remain silent, that is, to say 'no comment' in response to questions concerning the offence, but without presenting a prepared statement. It notes that this approach can cause interviewers to lose focus and control of the situation. The chapter details the effective, ethical, and professional conversation management of this scenario, by first examining the logic behind the decision, how it will be presented and then how to proceed, to ensure that a legally compliant interview product is obtained that can still advance the case. It also offers a detailed discussion about responding to the suspect who unexpectedly switching to answering questions and the suspect who is not legally represented and exercises the right to silence.

This chapter analyses conversation management (CM) in circumstances beyond interviewing either victims and witnesses to produce testimonial evidence or suspects to establish their account. It reveals how the principles of CM can be successfully applied to any purposeful encounter. The chapter then describes the types of encounter that demand greater flexibility, greater attention to the fundamentals of set induction, relationship, plus skillful monitoring and assertion to enable the practitioner to impact positively upon the individual, and to exert the appropriate sway necessary to engage in ethical influencing. Ultimately, the chapter demonstrates how the core elements of CM can be successfully applied when faced with the demand to interview in difficult extended circumstances. It then illustrates the three diverse contexts: handling informants, port examinations and assisting offenders.

This chapter details key interpersonal and conversation management behaviours and tools that will enable a person to influence ethically the attitude and behaviour of any individual or third party in a face to face encounter. It argues that each participant's attitude affects their manifest behaviour which in turn affects the other person's attitude and behaviour. For an interviewer, this means approaching both planned and unanticipated conversations with an objective and constructive attitude seeking to create a positive impression from first contact and using this as a basis for building and then maintaining rapport across the whole encounter. The chapter also emphasizes the need to monitor and to arrive at a reasonable assessment of the individual's cognitive ability, i.e. ability to cope with what you are saying. Finally, the chapter highlights the importance of being mindful of the language that is used, such as using straightforward talk makes it easy to attend, to follow, and ultimately to comprehend what you are saying irrespective of the individual's manifest ability and facility with language.

This chapter stresses the importance of witness interviewing, and argues that it is a complex discipline. It details how an interviewer applied the psychological fundamentals discussed in previous chapters across a wide diversity of witnesses and situations in order to obtain reliable information in real life criminal investigations. Preparation is paramount and the chapter covers a number of the relevant key considerations. It begins with categorising the multiple types of witness and proceeds to examine how the interviewer can prepare effectively, reducing the risks posed by interviewer bias and interviewee memory contamination, to work with any witness, including those considered vulnerable in order to obtain detailed and reliable disclosure. Ultimately, the chapter analyzes how witness interviewing changed with gradual recognition of the complexity and diversity of the demands placed on the interviewer by factors such as trauma and vulnerability, the expanded legal framework which requires video recorded interviews and the diverse categories of witnesses encountered.

This chapter explores the key issues relevant to the interview of any suspect. It begins with legal advice, explaining the role and objectives of the legal adviser to allow one to understand their behaviour and work with them as fellow professionals working at the “front end” of the criminal justice system. The chapter also considers the key tasks of interview planning, in particular information disclosure both prior to and during an interview, and practical preparation prior to meeting the suspect. It then investigates the legal safeguard of the caution and other pre-questioning issues. Ultimately, the chapter examines the presentation of case material to the suspect, bad character questioning, and how to tackle omission and anomaly by conducting a FAIR review, before closing — appropriately — with how to end the interview.

This chapter explores the issues involved when either a 'bare bones' or 'full' prepared statement is produced as the 'safest defence.' It also outlines a methodical approach to processing their contents and subsequent effective, ethical conversation managed interviewing of the suspect. The production of a prepared statement by a suspect and their legal adviser can unsettle some interviewers. This is caused less by the statement itself but more by the signalled intention to make no comment replies to all questions. Understanding the logic behind the decision to opt for a prepared statement, the types of prepared statement and having a plan to respond assists management of this situation. The chapter spotlights the significance of having a sound understanding of the two types of statement, knowing how to process any prepared statement and then respond correctly in the light of your case knowledge for an interview practitioner.

The author's final peer reviewed version can be found by following the URI. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link. Self-evaluation of one’s own performance has been found in prior research to be an enabler of professional development. The task of evaluation is also a core component of a model of the investigative interviewing of victims, witnesses and suspects, being increasingly used throughout the world. However, it remains the case that there has been little research as to how practitioners approach the task itself. The present study examined the topic through the lens of observing how effectively 30 real-life investigators in the UK undertook evaluation of their interviews, representing almost the entire investigative frontline workforce of a small law enforcement agency in this country. Using an established scale of measurement, both investigators’ and an expert’s ratings of the same sample of interviews were compared across a range of tasks and behaviours. It was found that in almost all the assessed behaviours, requiring of the investigators to provide a self-rating, their scores tended to significantly outstrip those applied to the sample by the expert. Reasons are explored for the investigators’ overstated assessments. Implications for practice are then discussed.

This chapter will examine how the cognitive interview (CI) has been applied into the real world of policing. We will consider the impact the CI has had on every-day policing, ranging from front-line communication, to being utilised within a visually recorded interview, which may replace live evidence in the court-room (depending on the legislative framework of the country it is being applied). As the CI is utilised in a multitude of different types of information and evidence gathering scenarios the way in which the CI needs to be applied, and thus trained should reflect the context within which it is to be used in the field. Accordingly, the UK has developed the ‘Tiered approach’ to interview training (Clarke & Milne, 2011), whereby interviewers learn interviewing skills (including the CI) incrementally, across a police investigator’s career span. This approach has been adopted in numerous countries and the chapter will explain the approach, outline a model of training to maximize transference of skills into the workplace, and the research base examining its effectiveness in the field.

All investigative interviews are dialogues set within a legal context specific to an individual country or jurisdiction. Nevertheless, the need to ask questions appropriately is common to every interview, if reliable information is to be obtained. Despite this fact, published research has frequently reported a lack of skill in both the types of questions used by interviewers and the manner in which they are asked. However, during a recent quantitative evaluation of an advanced interview training programme in the UK, it was observed that graduates of this programme, in contrast to previous research, appeared to employ highly structured questioning strategies, methodically covering relevant subject matter across the complete time-span of an interview. The current study is a follow-up study using an alternative qualitative methodology for a deeper exploration of the rationale behind the formation of these questioning strategies. Using ‘think-aloud’ techniques, two independent groups of police officers ( n = 9) with advanced training in interviewing of either suspects or witnesses were individually interviewed about how they had structured their questioning during two phases of a simulated interview conducted on a training course. The results confirm, first, the high level of conscious decision-making employed by the advanced interviewers in formulating their question strategies, but secondly, identify excessive levels of control evident in some interviews with compliant witnesses. Finally, the results confirm the complex nature of real-life investigative interviewing, even for highly trained interviewers. The results are discussed.

In this chapter, we discuss the interviewing of adult witnesses and victims with reference to how the extant psychological and linguistic literature has contributed to understanding and informing interview practice over the past 20 years and how it continues to support practical and procedural improvements. We have only scratched the surface of this important and complex topic, but throughout this chapter we have directed readers to many in-depth reviews and some of the most contemporary research literature currently available in this domain. We have introduced the PEACE model and described the Cognitive Interview procedure and its development. We have also discussed rapport building, question types and communication style, all with reference to witness memory and practical interviewing. Finally, we highlight areas that would benefit from research, for example conducting interviews with interpreters, and how new training initiatives are seeking to improve interview procedures and interviewer practice.

This paper examines how culturally‐based images have and do effect the economic fortunes of various regions and localities within the UK. At the heart of the analysis is the North‐South divide in the UK, and whether this is a cultural or an economic construct. The divide has economic reality but there is also a regional dimension rooted in literary and modern media images. This image of a divided Britain is deeply rooted in the consciousness of future decision‐makers. In response to the negative implications of these regional constructs, economic development agencies have placed greater emphasis on the cultural content of their promotional materials. These contribute to deconstructing stereotypes and to attracting key personnel in an increasingly consumerist society.