
Martine B. PowellGriffith University · Griffith Criminology Institute
Martine B. Powell
PhD, MClinPsych, BA (Hons), DipTeach, FAPS
About
352
Publications
111,126
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Introduction
Martine Powell is a Professor in the Griffith Criminology Institute and Founding Director of the Centre for Investigative Interviewing. She is a world-leading expert in investigative interviewing - her work focuses on the ‘how to’ of obtaining accurate and detailed information from people about events to assist decision-making. It also addresses transfer of knowledge to the field, especially guidance for interviewers of vulnerable interviewees and questioning about sensitive topics.
Additional affiliations
January 2018 - present
July 2004 - December 2017
January 1999 - June 2004
Education
November 1993 - November 1996
November 1990 - November 1992
February 1986 - November 1989
Publications
Publications (352)
Concerns about police behavior, especially police use of force, necessitate the identification of training procedures that optimize learning outcomes for police. This study explored the potential of body-worn cameras (BWCs) as a feedback tool during police training. Police recruits ( N = 111) who had experienced a simulated use of force scenario an...
Ground rules establish the conversational expectations during an interview and are intended to reduce interviewee discomfort and increase response accuracy towards problematic interview questions. This study explored perceptions of ground rule instructions in adult interviews. Younger (18–40 years) and older (60+ years) adults (N=168) were intervie...
Background
Attrition of child sexual abuse (CSA) cases occurs at different stages of investigation, and only a small proportion of the cases reported to police are referred for prosecution. Different factors have been linked with the prosecution of CSA cases; however, little is known about how prosecutors determine which cases should proceed and wh...
While there has been considerable research on investigative interviews with children over the last three decades, there remains much to learn. The aim of this paper was to identify some of the issues and prospects for future scientific study that most urgently need to be addressed. Across 10 commentaries, leading scholars and practitioners highligh...
While there has been considerable research on investigative interviews with children over the last three decades, there remains much to learn. The aim of this paper was to identify some of the issues and prospects for future scientific study that most urgently need to be addressed. Across 10 commentaries, leading scholars and practitioners highligh...
This project, conducted in one Canadian province, investigated whether a train-the-trainer model of supervision and peer review could improve the interviewing skills of police officers new to interviewing children. At 6 police services, 2 “interview specialists” were chosen by criteria (e.g. having conducted > 30 interviews with children), commitme...
Although adolescents are at elevated risk of sexual victimisation, very limited research has focused on how best to interview suspected adolescent victims. The current study was conducted to lay the groundwork for the development of best-practice interviewing approaches with adolescents when sexual victimisation is suspected. Expert interviewers wi...
This proof-of- concept study focused on interviewers’ behaviors and perceptions when interacting with a dynamic AI child avatar alleging abuse. Professionals ( N = 68) took part in a virtual reality (VR) study in which they questioned an avatar presented as a child victim of sexual or physical abuse. Of interest was how interviewers questioned the...
Advances in investigative interviewer training, mostly developed in Western-Anglo-Saxon contexts, are not necessarily applicable to other cultures and languages. This research examined the efficacy and effectiveness of a training program for child interviewers—previously tested with English-speaking cohorts—when adapted to a Latin American Spanish-...
Forensic risk assessments are used to determine sanctions, identify recidivism risk and inform implementation of risk reduction strategies. The best way to gather reliable data to inform decisions is important and the focus of this mixed-method study. Forty-five experienced professionals performed a risk assessment involving a young person who sexu...
In this study, we examined children's memory for a staged repeated event after a two‐year delay to gain insights about how they represented the events in long‐term memory. Children aged 4–8 experienced six events and were interviewed about the last occurrence shortly after the event and 2 years later ( N = 29). Various characteristics of their memo...
Cross-examination is central to all common law adversarial trials. The rule in Browne v Dunn is, in turn, central to cross-examination. This article considers the rule in the context of cross-examining child witnesses. Both the literature and case law indicate the rule is often misunderstood by practitioners which, in turn, may lead to appeals, mis...
The current study evaluated a new training programme developed for generalist police who interview adults. It was designed to enhance officers’ use of open-ended questions with adult witnesses. The programme included all key training activities that had been used in successful earlier training evaluation studies related to the interviewing of child...
This study used innovative transdisciplinary methods to describe the nature and extent of early childhood memories recalled by 84 adults convicted of sexual offences. The timing of the memories, level of detail recalled and way memories were recollected were largely consistent with extant memory research. One important finding, however, was that mo...
This paper presents a detailed study of an AI-driven platform designed for the training of child welfare and law enforcement professionals in conducting investigative interviews with maltreated children. It achieves a subjective simulation of interview situation through the integration of fine-tuned GPT-3 models within the Unity framework. The stud...
Autistic children can experience memory and communication challenges that make reporting or recalling events difficult. Although open-ended prompts are generally considered the most effective question type, there is some debate about the utility of such prompts for autistic children. We systematically examined the responsiveness of autistic and non...
Training child investigative interviewing skills is a specialized task. Those being trained need opportunities to practice their skills in realistic settings and receive immediate feedback. A key step in ensuring the availability of such opportunities is to develop a dynamic, conversational avatar, using artificial intelligence (AI) technology that...
Background: Child investigative interviewing is a complex skill requiring specialised training. A critical training element is practice. Simulations with digital avatars are post-effective options for delivering training. This study of real-world data provides novel insights evaluating a large number of trainees' engagement with LiveSimulation (Liv...
Purpose
When multiple children are asked about the same event, the consistency of their reports may be used as a heuristic for credibility. Little research has considered how consistent child co‐witnesses are likely to be. In this study, we explored how likely child co‐witnesses were to report the same details from a mutually experienced event.
Me...
The need to educate criminal justice professionals about best practices to cross-examine complainants of child sexual abuse is widely acknowledged. Yet, a dearth of empirical information about their perceptions has hindered development of targeted professional education programmes. The present study compared perceptions of the quality of cross-exam...
Investigative interviewing of children who report sexual victimisation focuses on helping children tell in their own words what happened. Children may say other things important to them such as their justice goals. We conducted the first research into this possibility in an exploratory analysis of 300 transcripts of actual interviews with child com...
This paper investigates how 192 trainees' self-assessment practices and personal attributes related to their success in an online interview training program. Performance was measured pre-and post-training by evaluating the use of open-ended questions and positive interviewing behaviors. Personal data and a pre-training survey on self-assessment pra...
Although police organizations have devoted considerable effort to training investigators in evidence-based witness interviewing techniques, there is some suggestion that current practices do not meet the multifaceted requirements of sexual assault cases. Here, we assessed the specific challenges inherent in conducting interviews with adult sexual a...
Obtaining abuse disclosure from children in forensic interviews can be challenging for interviewers. The present study explored strategies interviewers used when children did not disclose abuse in response to the initial invitation to provide the interview purpose. The sample included 116 forensic interviews with 4- to 16-year-olds who ultimately d...
Mock (simulated) interviews can be used as a safe context for trainee interviewers to learn and practice questioning skills. When mock interviews are designed to reflect the body of scientific evidence on how questioning skills are best learned, research has demonstrated that interviewers acquire relevant and enduring skills. Despite the importance...
Maximising the accuracy and detail of information elicited through a clinical–forensic interview may increase the reliability and validity of an individual’s assessment. Despite this, there is little empirical research on what questions forensic mental health practitioners employ, and whether these correspond with empirically established interviewi...
When responding to allegations of child sexual, physical, and psychological abuse, Child Protection Service (CPS) workers and police personnel need to elicit detailed and accurate accounts of the abuse to assist in decision-making and prosecution. Current research emphasizes the importance of the interviewer’s ability to follow empirically based gu...
We explored adults’ perceptions of evidence-based interview frameworks in the context of sexual assault, in order to examine stakeholders’ suggestions that police interviews are not sensitive to complainants psychological and emotional needs. Participants (N= 91) watched a video of an implied sexual assault and were randomly assigned to one of thre...
Giving evidence from the witness stand is often distressing for complainants of child sexual abuse. Technology-based special measures (eg, CCTV/AV link) enable complainants to give evidence from a location outside the courtroom, making the process less intimidating for complainants, which in turn enhances the quality of their evidence. Although the...
Investigators hope to elicit disclosure or other case-related (informative) responses quickly when transitioning to the substantive phase of forensic interviews. Interviewing protocols suggest directly asking the child about the purpose of the interview to obtain early disclosure. However, interviewers sometimes rephrase scripted transition prompts...
Children and other vulnerable parties such as those with a cognitive, social or communication impairment frequently struggle to understand, and be understood in, the criminal justice environment. One way this has been addressed in jurisdictions around Australia and overseas is through the introduction of intermediary (or communication partner) sche...
The way that complainants of child sexual assault are questioned about their experiences can profoundly influence the accuracy, credibility, and consistency of their evidence. This is the case for all people, but especially children whose language, social, and cognitive capacity is still developing. In this study, we examined the questions used by...
Cases of historic child assault typically rely on the complainant's narrative due to lack of corroborating evidence. Although it is important that complainants give their best evidence, concern has been expressed that evidence-sharing procedures are suboptimal. This study explored criminal justice professionals’ perspectives on the utility of intro...
The pursuit of justice increasingly relies on productive interactions between witnesses and investigators from diverse cultural backgrounds during investigative interviews. To date, the role of cultural context has largely been ignored by researchers in the field of investigative interviewing, despite repeated requests from practitioners and policy...
We analysed chat log communications between 38 adult males and children who were accessed by the men via social media for sexually exploitative purposes. Our goal was to understand how sexual offenders engage with children online and the dialogue they use to elicit compliance with sexual requests. Results revealed 72 discrete linguistic tactics, co...
Purpose
Investigative interviewers assess their colleagues' interviews (‘peer review’) as a necessary part of their practice, and for their self-development. Yet, there is little guidance around what the process involves and how they might do it. Research suggests that effective peer review is supported by using guidance material. The goal of the p...
This article presents the results of a study that evaluated the extent to which judges and lawyers intervene during questioning of child and adult complainants in child sexual assault (CSA) cases. Transcripts of the evidence of 120 CSA complainants were analysed according to the frequency and nature of interventions, such as raising issues with the...
Successful interview training includes components beyond content learning (e.g., coding question types, practicing skills in simulated interviews), but the advantages conferred by adding components are unclear. The present research evaluated best practice questioning and behavior following the addition of a series of training components delivered i...
Often, a complainant’s testimony is the central element in proving a sexual assault case, because no other physical evidence exists. The chapter focuses on three behavioral characteristics that decision makers frequently rely upon to question the validity of a complainant’s memory: Omissions and inconsistencies in the complainant’s testimony, and t...
We examined the perceptions of multi-agency child abuse investigation professionals following the implementation of an independent computerised data linkage system for case tracking purposes. Semi-structured interviews (N = 30) were conducted with child protection workers and police officers, from both frontline and managerial roles, to explore the...
For over a century, changes have been implemented in the way the evidence of adult and child sexual assault complainants is received during the common-law adversarial trial process. Could the fact that reforms have rarely affected the way information is gathered at the initial stages of investigation be a reason why legal systems still struggle wit...
Estimates suggest that close to 3 million institutionalized children internationally have some family to whom they could go home. A proportion of these children is recruited from their communities under false pretenses and has false documentation that describes them as legal orphans. The orphanages where they live exploit them on the basis of their...
This study examines how adults with limited expressive language (with average sentences of five words or less) respond to open-ended questions. Participants (n = 49) completed a baseline measure and were then interviewed about a personal experience using exclusively open-ended questions, followed by open-ended and directive questions about a staged...
Computer-based simulations provide an opportunity for social work students to learn effective communication skills that sit at the core of social work practice. The current study describes a best practice interviewing protocol that promotes the use of open-ended questions (i.e. that elicit elaborate responses without dictating expected content) tau...
Researchers have demonstrated that interviewer supportive behaviors positively affect children's abilities to provide information about their experiences in many circumstances, but there is some evidence that supportiveness effects may be influenced by children's temperament. The associations among interviewer support, child temperament, and childr...
Phenomenon
Communication is a complex and essential element of clinical practice. It is widely accepted that communication skills can be taught and learned, but challenges remain for clinicians in achieving effective communication with patients. This study explored the patient-communication challenges faced by both medical students and experienced...
The current study tested the effectiveness of a compact (18 hour) and blended (involving online and face-to-face components) training course, adapted from a previously evaluated course found to be successful in fostering long-term change in interviewing skill. The compact course was developed by trimming the previous course to only include learning...
Background:
Communication is a common element in all medical consultations, affecting a range of outcomes for doctors and patients. The increasing demand for medical students to be trained to communicate effectively has seen the emergence of interpersonal communication skills as core graduate competencies in medical training around the world. Medi...
This study aims to advance the field of child forensic interviewing by assessing the impact of different refresher training modalities on police officers’ abilities to adhere to the steps of an interview protocol and on the types of questions used. Previously trained police officers (N = 46) were randomly assigned to one of three experimental condi...
Preschool children are particularly prone to suggestion. Here, we examined the extent to which temperament variables and internalising and externalising problems influenced preschoolers’ suggestibility. Children aged between 3 and 5 years (N = 140) completed the Video Suggestibility Scale for Children (Scullin & Ceci, 2001), and their kindergarten...
The typical misinformation effect shows that accuracy is lower for details about which people received misleading compared to non‐misleading (control) information. In two experiments, we examined the misinformation effect for non‐witnessed details (i.e., absent). Three question types introduced control, misleading, and absent details (closed, close...
A key cross-examination tactic in trials of child sexual abuse (CSA) is to highlight inconsistencies between sources of information to discredit the complainant's account. The present study examined the prevalence, origin and nature of inconsistencies arising in the cross-examination of complainants in CSA trials. Further, we examined the associati...
Background
The use of mock interviews (also known as role play), particularly using trained actors as interviewees, has demonstrated positive effects on communication training but little is known about how learners engage with these practice activities.
Objective
The current study was conducted to determine what perceptions forensic interviewers h...
The present study tested the effectiveness of narrative practice on adult witnesses’ reports about a mock sexual assault. Narrative practice is a rapport-building activity that involves recounting a neutral or pleasant event prior to discussing the target topic. Engaging in narrative practice tends to enhance children’s reporting, but its utility w...
The standard interview method (SIM) is a guidance framework for information gathering interviews. This article describes the purpose, scope, origin, experimental basis, and practical application of the SIM. It provides an informative overview of developments to date for psychologists and researchers within the behavioural sciences, as well as for p...
Adults with communication impairment are vulnerable to abuse and are over-represented as victims in the criminal justice system. Investigative interviewers rely largely on verbal accounts to establish whether a criminal offence occurred, and therefore the way these accounts are elicited is paramount. To date, little research has evaluated whether c...
Self-assessment is a fundamental skill for professionals because self-assessment can promote self-regulated learning and professional development. However, studies reporting the use of self-assessment instruments in the professional training context are scarce. This study aimed to re-evaluate the psychometric properties of the Self-assessment Pract...
We explored Australian criminal justice professionals’ views on how well special measures for child complainants of sexual abuse are working in practice. We interviewed judges, prosecutors, defence counsel and witness assistance officers (n = 43) from four Australian jurisdictions, using a qualitative, non-directive approach. Overall, professionals...
Child witness interviews frequently comprise the central evidence in child sexual assault prosecutions. The aim of the present study was to explore the association between interview quality, interview inconsistencies raised during cross-examination, and trial outcome, while taking into account the strength of the prosecution case. Sixty-nine interv...
When undertaking a forensic risk assessment with a young person, most evaluators complete an assessment interview to elicit autobiographical history as well as perspectives, thoughts and feelings about the individual’s offending behaviour. While forensic risk assessment tools provide some suggestions on interview questions and techniques, there is...
Background:
Effective communication is at the heart of good medical practice but rates of error, patient complaints, and poor clinician job satisfaction are suggestive of room for improvement in this component of medical practice and education.
Methods:
We conducted semi-structured interviews with experienced clinicians (n = 19) and medical stud...
This study examined the effectiveness of ground rules—simple instructions outlining the communication expectations of an investigative interview—with 73 younger (age 18–40) and 57 older (age 60+) adults. Participants watched a film depicting an implied sexual assault and were interviewed after a brief delay. One third received no ground rules, one...
Background Effective communication is at the heart of good medical practice but rates of error, patient complaints, and poor clinician job satisfaction are suggestive of room for improvement in this component of medical practice and education. Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews with experienced clinicians (n = 19) and medical students...
A properly conducted forensic interview has the greatest chance of eliciting a complete and accurate account from children about their experiences. We review the features of best practice interviews within the framework of a recent analysis of interviews from several Australian jurisdictions. Transcripts of 118 police interviews with child sexual a...
Special measures are alternative modes of evidence presentation by vulnerable witnesses, such as child and adult complainants in child sexual assault (CSA) cases. They include closed-circuit television (CCTV) and prerecorded investigative interviews. This chapter reviews studies on special measures to determine (a) the prevalence of special measure...
The decision whether to prosecute an individual can potentially impact a number of private and public interests. In Australia, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in each jurisdiction provides written prosecutorial guidelines relating to the decision to prosecute. Little scholarly attention has focused on how these guidelines differ i...
Background Effective communication is at the heart of good medical practice but rates of error, patient complaints, and poor clinician job satisfaction are suggestive of room for improvement in this component of medical practice and education.
Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews with experienced clinicians (n = 19) and medical students...
Information gleaned from a patients’ medical history is a core determinant of a medical diagnosis. Accurate and effective history-taking is, therefore, a foundational skill for medical practitioners and is introduced early in medical training. Recognizing and developing the skills of effective medical interviewing is an ongoing challenge for medica...
In many jurisdictions, child witness interviews are pre-recorded and played in court as complainants’ evidence-in-chief in cases of child sexual abuse (CSA). The present study examined whether and how legal professionals discuss child witness interviews in the course of CSA trials. The trial transcripts of a sample of 85 child sexual abuse complain...
In 2017, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended reforms to the law of competence of child witnesses. We examined Australian judges’ practices in assessing children’s competence to give sworn evidence. Trial transcripts from 56 victims revealed that 64% were posed competence questions, with fewer to older...
Investigating sexual assault is one of the most challenging tasks in modern-day policing. Because investigators must rely largely on the account provided by the complainant to establish whether or not a criminal offence has occurred, the way in which these accounts are elicited becomes paramount. Although there is a strong empirical consensus on ho...
The present study evaluated whether the strength of relationship between child nonverbal behaviors (expressivity, attention, and coordination) across time points varied as a function of interviewer nonverbal behaviors (expressivity, attention, and coordination) under supportive versus neutral interviewing conditions. Children (n = 123) participated...
Objectives:
Child witnesses often describe their experiences across multiple interviews. It is unknown whether talking with a familiar interviewer increases disclosures, however, or whether any benefits of a familiar interviewer could be achieved by ensuring that interviewers (regardless of familiarity) behave in socially supportive ways. This stu...
The current study explored the effectiveness of three interview protocols on the number and specificity of details provided by minimally verbal adults about a staged repeated event. Eighty adults (with expressive sentence length of around 5 words, matched on measures of expressive language and intellectual functioning) participated in three live ev...