ABSTRACT
Criminology is, by long-established practice, multi-disciplinary. As such it attends to areas of overlapping interest between disciplines, tending to neglect the more technical concerns of individual disciplines. This chapter aims to demonstrate the wider relevance of a methodological development in one discipline, social science, to criminology and to the practice of criminal investigation. Employing the example of suspected cases of child sexual abuse, the relevance of recent evaluations of the status of interview data is demonstrated in respect of investigators seeking legal evidence from interviews with victims, witnesses and suspect offenders. Many concerns raised by social scientists about the quality, reliability and validity of interview data apply equally to the problems faced by investigators seeking to interpret statements and non-verbal action by victims, witnesses and suspects. A profile of the micro-analysis of interview data is given, drawing on an interview with a very young suspected victim of sexual abuse. The example illustrates the interpretive work needed to carefully assess the evidence offered by an investigative interview. The approach is then related to the psychological approach to the interpretation of investigative interviews as represented by Statement Validity Analysis.
