Free Custom «Interview or Interrogation» Essay Paper

Gathering information from special people is mostly complex task and requires extra efforts from police detectives. Such efforts are usually time consuming and may end up in wrong information or failure to gather information completely (Gordon & William, 2010). Since the assignment entails a critical case that requires immediate response, adherence to the decisions made by the union will not be of any significant help in resolving the urgent case. It is arguably evident that engaging in the interrogation or interviewing of special population is inconsistent with the absconding expedited work tasks. This requires the police detective to adopt effective strategies that aim at urgently solving the matter, while at the same time taking into account the potential pitfalls that may be helpful in protecting such actions which can be useful for later testimony during trial.

How the Assignment Will Be Approached

When interrogating or interviewing special population persons, extra attention is needed by the interrogated people with language barriers, people who has problems with hearing, speech impairments and those who has mentaldiseases. Specific interviewing and interrogating techniques are needed to gather information from special persons such as children, elderly and the disabled. Special populations have impairments that are associated with their cognitive and physical abilities. This requires the interrogator to conduct an initial assessment on the senses and memory function of the subject to be interrogated (Inbau & Reid, 2011).

Assessing the senses of the subject primarily involves evaluating his/her eye sight, which is vital in ascertaining the trustworthiness of the claim that the subject was a witness of the incident. When interviewing special populations, it is imperative for a police detective to be aware of the potential sensory limitations, after which the police detective is supposed to adjust the techniques used for interviewing. It is also important to observe the subject during dialogue, which can be used to gauge the appropriateness of the response from the subject.

The second important thing is to assess the memory of the special person in order to evaluate the level of memory decay. The inability to remember events affects the memory of special persons, and this should be taken into consideration when interviewing such people. This usually have an influence on the quantity and accuracy of information gathered from special populations. Interviewing special persons require the establishment of high levels of trust and emotional relieve prior to the investigation, avoidance of outside distractions, giving the subjects adequate time to retrieve their memories (Singh, 2008).

Pitfalls during the Assignment

There are numbers of pitfalls during the assignment, with the most significant drawback relating to the insufficient quality and quantity of information gathered from special persons. Mental, cognitive and physical impairments impose a significant challenge for special persons to recall information associated with the incidence, forcing the investigator to adopt advanced interviewing techniques coupled with patience in order to gain the required information. Other pitfalls when interrogating special persons include language barriers, poor memory recollections that are likely to result to wrong information and lack of cooperation (Inbau & Reid, 2011).

Protecting Such Actions for Later Testimony During Trial

Protection of interviews requires documentation prior to being used as testimony during trial. In light of this, investigators are required to document every detail of the interview using either video or audio, or must make sure that they ascertain their authenticity when used as testimony during trial.

It is also important for the investigator to affirm the memory trustworthiness of the subject that was interrogated. Countering this pitfall requires the use of corroborative questions, which request information that can be substantiated independently. The use of corroborative questions when interrogating special persons can be helpful when providing a testimony in court because the interrogator can validate the memory trustworthiness of the subject to the court.

This helps in increasing the validity of the interview during trial. Affirming memory trustworthiness can be done using corroborative questions during the interview with the witness (Inbau & Reid, 2011).