Police Practices and Beliefs about Suspect Interviews in Europe
*This conference is provisionally cancelled*.
The current (and projected) situation around COVID-19 and restrictions on travel and public gatherings do not allow to hold the conference with personal presence of speakers and participants. Given its highly interactive nature, an online format is not suitable for this event.
We are committed to organising the conference at a later date, hopefully in 2021, when the study is finalised and the epidemiological situation improves and the respective restrictions are lifted. We will keep you informed about the developments on this webpage.
Location: University College Maastricht (UCM)
The conference will present the results and discuss the implications of a self-reported survey of police investigators concerning suspect interviews in Europe. The survey was conducted across six countries: Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden.
As suspect interviews are vital to the process of solving crimes and serving justice, improving interviewing practices is essential. Little is known about what actually happens in suspect interviews in Europe. To shed light on police practices and beliefs, the self-report survey of North American police investigators by Kassin and colleagues (2007) was replicated. An adapted version of their instrument covered the following topics: suspect rights, frequency and length of interviews, interview recording, interviewing techniques, deception detection, and (false) confessions.
This research project generated knowledge about the common practices used by investigators across Europe. The conference aims at sharing, exchanging and evaluating the findings of the survey and discussing the results with leading researchers in the field of suspect interviews along with legal practitioners. Furthermore, one of the goals is to stimulate new, collaborative research projects concerning suspect interviews, and to expand the current project to other European and non-European countries.
Preliminary programme
Contact: Chantal Meertens, Research Support Office, Faculty of Law
Organisers: Dr. Miet Vanderhallen, Assistant Professor Criminology, Faculty of Law and
Dr. Jenny Schell-Leugers, Assistant Professor, Chair UCM Board of Examiners, University College Maastricht
| DATE TBD | |
| 09:00-09:30 |
Registration |
| 09:30-09:40 | Opening and welcome |
| 09:40-10:30 |
Keynote by Prof. dr. Saul Kassin (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, NYC) |
| 10:30-11:00 | Coffee break |
| 11:00-13:00 |
Country presentations: |
| 13:00-14:00 | Lunch |
| 14:00-14:30 |
Comparative European analysis |
|
14:30-15:45 |
Workshops |
| 15:45-16:00 | Coffee break |
| 16:00-17:00 |
Final discussion and action plan |
Registration
The participation fee is € 25 including lunch for regular participants and free for invited speakers.
Registration and payment by 15 October (via the green button on the right side of this page).
This event is financed by University College Maastricht, University Fund Limburg (SWOL) and Maastricht Working on Europe.
SWOL aims to support scientific research and education at Maastricht University. Science is a crucial building block to achieve a better future for next generations.
The aim of Maastricht, Working on Europe is to position Maastricht as a meeting place for citizen dialogue and debate and establish a Centre of Excellence for research on Europe and European integration. In short: a workplace for a better Europe. For everyone. Website: www.maastrichteurope.nl, Twitter: @WorkingOnEurope.
We also thank the Faculty of Law and the Research Support office for their support.