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This meta-analytic review examines the most fundamental question for disclosing evidence during suspect interviews: What are the effective options for when to disclose the available evidence? We provide an update to Hartwig and colleagues (2014) meta-analysis of the efficacy of the late and early disclosure methods on eliciting statement-evidence inconsistencies from guilty and innocent suspects. We also extend these analyses to include studies comparing gradual disclosure to early and late disclosure when interviewing guilty suspects. Finally, we test whether a gradual disclosure leads to greater provision of novel investigative information when interviewing guilty suspects. Overall, we find that guilty suspects provide more statement-evidence inconsistencies than innocent suspects, and that both a late and gradual disclosure result in more statement-evidence inconsistencies than the early disclosure when interviewing guilty suspects. However, there are indications of small study effects that warrant considerable caution when interpreting the size of some of the identified effects.

This research examines how suspects attempt to influence interviewers during investigative interviews. Twenty-nine interview transcripts with suspects accused of controlling or coercive behavior within intimate relationships were submitted to a thematic analysis to build a taxonomy of influence behavior. The analysis classified 18 unique suspect behaviors: the most common behaviors were using logical arguments (17% of all observed behaviors), denial or denigration of the victim (12%), denial or minimization of injury (8%), complete denials (7%), and supplication (6%). Suspects' influence behaviors were mapped along two dimensions: power, ranging from low (behaviors used to alleviate investigative pressure) to high (behaviors used to assert authority), and interpersonal alignment, ranging from instrumental (behaviors that relate directly to evidence) to relational (behaviors used to bias interviewer perceptions of people and evidence). Proximity analysis was used to examine co-occurrence of influence behaviors. This analysis highlighted combinations of influence behaviors that illustrate how different behaviors map onto different motives, for example shifting attributions from internal to external to the suspect, or to use admissions strategically alongside denials to mitigate more serious aspects of an allegation. Our findings draw together current theory to provide a framework for understanding suspect influence behaviors in interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This experiment examines how a police interviewer’s judgment error and apology affect a sexual violence victim’s secondary victimization, trust in the interviewer, rapport, and willingness to provide information. Ninety students from Peru were asked to imagine being sexual violence victims and were interviewed online by a mock police interviewer. Participants were randomized into three conditions: judgment error without apology, judgment error with apology, and a no-error control. The judgment error involved suggesting the victim was partly responsible for their victimhood, citing women’s clothing choices and questioning men’s masculinity. Our findings show judgment errors reduced trust, rapport, and willingness to provide information while increasing secondary victimization; apologizing improved trust and rapport but did not affect secondary victimization or willingness to provide information. These outcomes indicate that judgment errors in sexual violence victim interviews can negatively impact the interviewing process and outcomes and highlight the importance of an apology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing the perception of legal risk via publicized litigation and lobbying for copyright law enforcement has had limited success in reducing unlawful content sharing by the public. We consider the extent to which engaging in file sharing online is motivated by the perceived benefits of this activity as opposed to perceived legal risks. Moreover, we explore moderators of the relationship between perceived risk and perceived benefits; namely, trust in industry and legal regulators, and perceived online anonymity. We examine these questions via a large two-part survey of consumers of music ( n = 658) and eBooks ( n = 737). We find that perceptions of benefit, but not of legal risk, predict stated file-sharing behavior. An affect heuristic is employed: as perceived benefit increases, perceived risk falls. This relationship is increased under high regulator and industry trust (which actually increases perceived risk in this study) and low anonymity (which also increases perceived risk). We propose that, given the limited impact of perceived legal risk upon unlawful downloading, it would be better for the media industries to target enhancing the perceived benefit and availability of lawful alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing the perception of legal risk via publicized litigation and lobbying for copyright law enforcement has had limited success in reducing unlawful content sharing by the public. We consider the extent to which engaging in file sharing online is motivated by the perceived benefits of this activity as opposed to perceived legal risks. Moreover, we explore moderators of the relationship between perceived risk and perceived benefits; namely, trust in industry and legal regulators, and perceived online anonymity. We examine these questions via a large two-part survey of consumers of music (n = 658) and eBooks (n = 737). We find that perceptions of benefit, but not of legal risk, predict stated file-sharing behavior. An affect heuristic is employed: as perceived benefit increases, perceived risk falls. This relationship is increased under high regulator and industry trust (which actually increases perceived risk in this study) and low anonymity (which also increases perceived risk). We propose that, given the limited impact of perceived legal risk upon unlawful downloading, it would be better for the media industries to target enhancing the perceived benefit and availability of lawful alternatives., (© 2016 The Authors Risk Analysis published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society for Risk Analysis.)