The Role of Social Norms, Research-Based Information and Witness Alcohol Intoxication in Police Decision-Making

• Absent national policy guidelines for investigative interviews have shouldered individual Swedish police officers with the decision of when to interview alcohol-intoxicated witnesses. As a group, officers have reported inconsistent decisions, which may jeopardize the rule of law through unequal witness treatment. We investigated Swedish police officers/recruits (N = 214) proposed nescience of scientific research regarding intoxicated witnesses, the extra-legal decisional influence of pre-existing social norms within the Police Authority and Academy, as well as the prospect of influencing the interview decision via a research-based message. In an online randomized experiment, participants watched a recorded fictive witness interview and rated the probability that they would interview the witness. The influence of social norms and research-based information was contrasted with a control condition at three independent levels of witness intoxication. Social normative information had no significant influence on the decision. Despite a low to moderate degree (breath-alcohol concentration < .10%) of intoxication, the interview probability varied with witness intoxication level. After reading the research-based information participants adjusted their decision to match the content, interview probability increased, and intoxication had less influence. Despite lacking state-of-the-art knowledge and national policy guidelines, the interview decision was unbiased by extra-legal social normative influence. Since participants were susceptible to new information, we proposed that this could be an effective implementation strategy for future policy guidelines. The novelty and limited scope of this study call for future research to extend these findings to other decisional parameters, attitudes and perceptions of intoxicated witnesses.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Juridik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Law (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Social Norms

Police

Alcohol-intoxication

Interview

Decision-making

Intervention.

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)