An Analysis of the Traditional Method of Interview in the Brazilian Criminal Courts from the Perspective of the Cognitive Interview

• In Event: Posters I

Abstract

This work aims to carry out an analysis of the investigative hearings held in the Criminal Courts of the Metropolitan Region of Recife, Brazil, from the perspective of the Cognitive Interview. The Cognitive Interview was developed by Fisher, Geiselman and colleagues in the 1980s, and is a multidisciplinary forensic method based on the theories of Cognitive Psychology that uses the knowledge about the process of storing, processing and recovery of the human memory. Our hypothesis is that this technique can provide a better performance in the Recife Criminal Courts than the traditional method of question and answer applied by the justice operators when interviewing victims and witnesses, which is often ineffective in stimulating the memory of interviewees to collect credible, detailed or simply useful testimonies. The research is based on a qualitative analysis of recordings of investigative hearings, collected through media attached to the case files that reach the appeal court of the Pernambuco State Court. We intend to identify patterns in the local traditional method of interview that are similar to the American traditional method of interview described by Fisher and Geiselman, so that the conclusions from their researches would be potentially applicable to our local reality.

Author

• Renan Nascimento Araujo, Federal University of Pernambuco