Understanding the role of transcription in evidential consistency of police interview records in England and Wales

Emma Richardson; Magnus Hamann; James Tompkinson; Kate Haworth; Felicity Deamer

doi:10.1017/S004740452300060X

Understanding the role of transcription in evidential consistency of police interview records in England and Wales

Emma Richardson, Magnus Hamann, James Tompkinson, Kate Haworth, Felicity Deamer

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Evidential records of investigative interviews serve an important institutional purpose within the legal system in England and Wales. Academic scholars have long recognized that little institutional attention is paid to the transformation process that occurs when written records of the spoken are produced, nor to the potential impact this has on later interpretation by users of the records during the investigation of crimes and later in court. We analyse twenty-nine digitally recorded investigative interviews and their corresponding official written 'Record of Taped/Videoed Interview' (ROTI/ROVI) transcripts, taking an ethnomethodological, conversation analytic (CA) approach to examine the social actions that are transformed in this activity by comparing the audio record of police interview evidence to the written transcripts. The intended outcome of this work, within the wider project of which this forms a part, is to better understand this process within the legal system, and to incite improvements.

Original language	English
Number of pages	32
Journal	Language in Society
Early online date	15 Aug 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/S004740452300060X
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 15 Aug 2023

Bibliographical note

Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.

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10.1017/S004740452300060XLicence: CC BY 4.0

understanding-the-role-of-transcription-in-evidential-consistency-of-police-interview-records-in-england-and-wales
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Final published version, 933 KBLicence: CC BY 4.0

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title = "Understanding the role of transcription in evidential consistency of police interview records in England and Wales",

abstract = "Evidential records of investigative interviews serve an important institutional purpose within the legal system in England and Wales. Academic scholars have long recognized that little institutional attention is paid to the transformation process that occurs when written records of the spoken are produced, nor to the potential impact this has on later interpretation by users of the records during the investigation of crimes and later in court. We analyse twenty-nine digitally recorded investigative interviews and their corresponding official written 'Record of Taped/Videoed Interview' (ROTI/ROVI) transcripts, taking an ethnomethodological, conversation analytic (CA) approach to examine the social actions that are transformed in this activity by comparing the audio record of police interview evidence to the written transcripts. The intended outcome of this work, within the wider project of which this forms a part, is to better understand this process within the legal system, and to incite improvements.",

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AU - Deamer, Felicity

N1 - Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.

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N2 - Evidential records of investigative interviews serve an important institutional purpose within the legal system in England and Wales. Academic scholars have long recognized that little institutional attention is paid to the transformation process that occurs when written records of the spoken are produced, nor to the potential impact this has on later interpretation by users of the records during the investigation of crimes and later in court. We analyse twenty-nine digitally recorded investigative interviews and their corresponding official written 'Record of Taped/Videoed Interview' (ROTI/ROVI) transcripts, taking an ethnomethodological, conversation analytic (CA) approach to examine the social actions that are transformed in this activity by comparing the audio record of police interview evidence to the written transcripts. The intended outcome of this work, within the wider project of which this forms a part, is to better understand this process within the legal system, and to incite improvements.

AB - Evidential records of investigative interviews serve an important institutional purpose within the legal system in England and Wales. Academic scholars have long recognized that little institutional attention is paid to the transformation process that occurs when written records of the spoken are produced, nor to the potential impact this has on later interpretation by users of the records during the investigation of crimes and later in court. We analyse twenty-nine digitally recorded investigative interviews and their corresponding official written 'Record of Taped/Videoed Interview' (ROTI/ROVI) transcripts, taking an ethnomethodological, conversation analytic (CA) approach to examine the social actions that are transformed in this activity by comparing the audio record of police interview evidence to the written transcripts. The intended outcome of this work, within the wider project of which this forms a part, is to better understand this process within the legal system, and to incite improvements.

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Understanding the role of transcription in evidential consistency of police interview records in England and Wales

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'For the Record': applying linguistics to improve evidential consistency in police investigative interview records

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