ABSTRACT
As with all police organizations around the world, interviews with suspects and accused persons are integral to the investigation of crime in Canada. To gain an appreciable understanding of suspect interviewing in Canada, it is important for readers to be familiar with the structure and autonomy of Canadian policing. Although there is much autonomy for police officers to use their preferred interviewing practices, there is legislation and case law that provides all interviewers with guidance on what are acceptable and unacceptable practices during custodial and non-custodial interviews. Even though there is a growing body of empirical literature that is starting to inform interviewing practices in Canada, much of what has driven investigative interviewing is based on common-sense notions of what should work and, more recently, empirically driven guidance on what actually works. There has been a major advancement in Canada over the last five years where the scientifically driven PEACE Model of Investigative Interviewing is challenging previously cherished beliefs and practices. As with any promising development, there has been an anticipated resistance to change; much work is therefore needed to reform investigative interviewing to continue the move from coercive practices (and their seemingly less coercive hybrid derivatives) to an empirically based and ethical model. Consequently, the goal of the current chapter is to provide an overview of the aforementioned current state of affairs.
