Abstract
The investigative interviewing of victims, witnesses and suspects is one of the most frequent and important tasks undertaken by those conducting law enforcement investigations. Over the past 20 years or so, there has been a substantial growth in the amount of research examining the practice. Nonetheless, little research has been conducted into those interviews where an interpreter is increasingly present. Using a self-administered questionnaire, the present study examined the beliefs of 66 investigators and 40 interpreters in the context of international criminal investigations, concerning certain key tasks in such interpreter-assisted interviews. It was regularly found that there was not always a consensus of opinion either within or between these two groups of professionals concerning whether (when participating in investigative interviews) (1) they prepared jointly with each other; (2) interpreters assisted (or otherwise) with rapport building; (3) interpreters could interpret accurately; and (4) interpreter interventions were disruptive or not. Given such divisions of opinion, our findings tend to suggest that there is a lack of clarity as to the role of interpreters and, indeed, only personalised views as to what is best practice. The implications of our findings are discussed, and recommendations are made to enable practice enhancement.
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Permissions were given by the host agency to access their personnel for the data reported herein and later to disseminate this data in a peer reviewed outlet.
Notes
For the purpose of clarity, the difference between interpreters and translators is that an interpreter translates orally, while a translator interprets the written word.
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Professor Ray Bull for his informative comments on earlier version of this paper.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standard.
The research herein has been conducted only after ethical clearance was given by the University research ethics committee pertaining to the first author which obviously included the matter that informed consent was to be obtained from all individual participants included in the study (and was obtained before their participation).
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Walsh, D., Oxburgh, G.E. & Amurun, T. Interpreter-Assisted Interviews: Examining Investigators’ and Interpreters’ Views on Their Practice. J Police Crim Psych 35, 318–327 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-020-09366-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-020-09366-2