POLICE INTERVIEWING - THE IDENTIFICATION OF VULNERABILITIES

Failure to identify potential psychological vulnerabilities of people entering the Criminal Justice System continues to present a serious pr oblem for the police and other agencies. This paper reviews some of th e problems involved which include: the nature of the handicap itself, current guidelines and definitions, and somewhat arbitrary legal inter pretations by the courts. An experiment is described in which police o fficers chose not to identify someone as vulnerable or 'at risk', desp ite information in all conditions having been biased towards eliciting a positive judgement.