1. Criteria used for statement analysis in courts and asylum procedures
Rebecca M. Willén, MSc
University of Gothenburg
Sweden

2. This presentation
Offenders’ lies and truths: An evaluation of the Supreme Court of Sweden´s criteria for credibility assessments (Willén & Strömwall, manuscript submitted for publication)
Introduction
Method
Results
Implications
Possible future directions

3. Introduction Page 1 of 6
Credibility assessments: in cases where the statement is of great importance
Criminal cases: sexual assaults and domestic violence (Schelin, 2006)
International criminal courts (May & Wierda, 2002)
Asylum procedures (Kagan, 2003)
The criteria used for these credibility assessments have never before been scientifically evaluated

4. Introduction Page 2 of 6 Sexual assaults and domestic violence
Lena Schelin (2006): What the Supreme Court has referred to in the grounds for their decisions
5 reality criteria
6 control criteria
The plaintiff’s account

5. Introduction Page 3 of 6 Reality criteria long, coherent, clear,
The account should be...
long,
coherent,
clear,
detailed,
consistent.
Control criteria
Difficult-to-explain points
How the account was given (non verbal cues)
Credible impression
Impression of self-experience
Contamination effect
Burden of explanation

6. Introduction Page 4 of 6 Reality criteria longer, more coherent,
Previous research shows that truthful accounts are...
longer,
more coherent,
more clear,
more detailed,
more consistent.
Control criteria
Difficult-to-explain points
Burden of explanation
How the account was given (non verbal cues)
Credible impression
Impression of self-experience
Contamination effect

7. Introduction Page 5 of 6
The global criteria credible impression and impression of self-experience are basically a direct judgement of veracity (Schelin, 2006)
Previous research has shown that people are not skilled in detecting lies; the accuracy levels achieved are in general not better than chance (Bond & DePaulo, 2006)

8. Introduction Page 6 of 6
The main purpose of the present study was to evaluate the discriminative ability of the Swedish Supreme Court’s criteria

9. Method: Participants 30 offenders (9 women, 21 men)
Criminal experience
Men: violence, drug offences, theft
Women: drug offences, theft, fraud
Number of police interviews: 4 – 200 (Mdn: 23)
20 offenders had also been interviewed as plaintiffs or witnesses

10. Method: Procedure Each participant was interviewed twice:
A true confession
A false confession
Each interview lasted about 10 min

11. Method: Coding procedure
Transcribed interviews
Reality criteria
Three-point rating scale: 0-2
Global criteria (credible impression & self-experience)
Six-point rating scale: 1-6
Low interrater agreement
Reality criteria ranged from .24 to .74 (Pearson r)
Two persons scored all interviews and the average value were used in the analyses (creating a five-point rating scale)

12. Main results The overall discriminative ability of the criteria
No multivariate effect (p > .05)
Truths were more clear than lies (p < .05)
Effects of interview experience
No multivariate effects (p > .05)
One univariate interaction effect (p < .05)
The most experienced participants gave a stronger impression of self-experience in their deceptive than in their truthful accounts
The less experienced participants gave a stronger impression of self-experience in their truthful than in their deceptive accounts
A non-significant tendency indicating more details in the most experienced offenders’ deceptive accounts than in their truthful, and the opposite for the less experienced offenders

13. Results: Gender A multivariate effect of gender (p < .05)
Women received higher scores in their truthful than in their deceptive accounts
Women gave a more credible impression in their truthful than in their deceptive accounts (p < .05)
Accounts by women were less coherent in general than accounts by men (p < .05)

14. To sum it up
The criteria used by Swedish courts did not distinguish truthful and deceptive accounts in this study
The most experienced offenders seemed to had developed a kind of expertise in telling convincing lies
Gender influenced the results
The interrater agreements were low

15. Limitations of the study
Ground truth was not established
Small sample size
Low interrater reliability
Is it a finding or a limitation?

16. Conclusions
Swedish courts are today practising a complex psychological technique without proper training (Diesen, 2008)
This practise is not limited to Swedish courts, but also common in asylum procedures in several countries (Kagan, 2003) as well as in international criminal courts (May & Wierda, 2002).
Hence, it is possible that this practise is negatively affecting many people in great need of protection
The criteria and the practise of them still lacks scientific support

17. Possible future directions
The discriminative ability of the criteria
Interpreted statements
Experienced vs naïve senders (criminally experienced)
Isolated incidents vs prolonged events
Gender differences
Experienced vs naïve raters
Accuracy
Interrater agreement
Choice of criteria
Training of law practitioners
E.g. Reality Monitoring (RM) vs the court’s criteria

18. Questions and viewpoints are most welcome.
Thank you for listening!