Conclusion

Psychology and Law Enforcement are intrinsically bound together. Researchers in both fields are constantly working to improve practices. Research has shown that Cognitive Interview strategies have a place in both forensic psychology and interviewing witnesses who have witnessed crimes.

Empirical evidence has shown that standard police interviewing and interrogation strategies can lead to false confessions. The evidence also shows that current strategies for detecting deception are largely ineffective.

Cognitive interviewing has been shown to be of help in interviewing special needs clients. Children, developmentally disabled, and the mentally retarded respond particularly well to these strategies. Persons who have experienced traumatic events also benefit from CI, but a risk of being re-traumatized does exist.

Continued training of law enforcement officers is needed. They need to be trained not only to detect deceit, but also to detect the truth. Interviewing strategies need to be modified and implemented to reduce the number of false convictions and improve the accuracy of litigations.

Forensic psychologists need to be trained to perform cognitive interviewing in an appropriate manner to avoid the possibility of inducing false memories. Further, psychologists need to be aware of the affects of multiple interviewing and the outcomes that can result from reactivity.

Implications on Sasquatch Research

Coming back now to the field of sasquatch research, what conclusions can be drawn from the fields of law enforcement and psychology in regards to witness interviewing? First, determining the accuracy of witness testimony rarely can be determined beyond the level of chance. Considering this empirical fact, the odds of compiling a meaningful database appears bleak at best. Some may read this review and point to research that claims there are “wizards” within the law enforcement community that can detect deception at a very high level of accuracy (see, O’Sullivan & Ekman, 2004). Similarly, there are those within the field of sasquatch research that have made these same claims. However, the existence of wizards is still very much a controversy and lacks empirical backing (see, O’Sullivan, 2007 and Bond & Uysal, 2007).

The short and simple is that the opinion rendered on the accuracy of witness testimony, whether conducted by law enforcement officers, psychologists, or sasquatch researchers, is simply an opinion and has relatively no validity. However, there is some hope to improve this level of validity when the appropriate interviewing techniques are employed.

At this time, it appears that cognitive interviewing holds the most promise in all fields related to obtaining accurate witness testimony. Groups, individuals, and organizations devoted to obtaining the most accurate data should begin to explore the intricacies of CI. The development of set standards and training are needed in the field of sasquatch research. However, it is important to note that these techniques have been made standard procedure in some law enforcement agencies, and accuracy still fails to reach levels of significance (see, Alison & Howard, 2005).

Based on this information, leaders in the sasquatch community may want to consider a change in focus as to when it is appropriate to include an eye witness report in their database. As it stands, most reports are considered worthy of publication or inclusion based on whether the witness is deemed credible. The problem with this, as has been noted, is that the data is not credible, no matter how confident the investigator is in the reliability of the witness. A more accurate stance may be to only include reports when the witness is both deemed credible and the location of the sighting reveals evidence such as tracks. By corroborating witness stories with physical evidence databases will be much smaller, but likely, much more accurate. Aside from this, researchers may better serve the common good of the sasquatch community by spending their time in pursuit of the creatures or physical evidence, rather than in anecdotal evidence that has thus far led to very little useable data.

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