1.1 The introduction of PACE in England and Wales

Before 1984, in England and Wales, interviews were governed by ‘Judges’ Rules’, in which an account of what was discussed in the interview was given from the memory of the interviewing officer. Interviews were not tape recorded and so no ‘true’ record of them existed. From a psychological viewpoint, this approach would (in the present day) be perceived as problematic. First, of course, this would allow officers to lie about what the conversation included if they wanted to do so. However, even for officers trying to do a good and honest job (which would be the majority of them) this system can introduce a lot of errors. Errors are likely to be particularly problematic as interviewers are under high cognitive load (i.e. they are extremely mentally busy) because they not only have to think of their next question, they also have to pay attention to the information the suspect is giving them. If they also had to commit all of the conversation to memory, it is very likely that selective recall consistent with their main theory about what happened would take place.

The Police and Criminal Evidence Act (introduced in 1984), known by the acronym PACE, is legislation that was brought in to regulate and monitor interviewing in England and Wales and to protect the rights of suspects. It introduced the right for all suspects to have a legal advisor present, and phased in the compulsory audio recording of all suspect interviews.

The recording of police suspect interviews also allowed for a much greater proliferation of research into this area by psychologists, which in turn led to an awareness that some of the practices taking place in interviews were less than ideal. In the early 1990s, the national Association of Chief Police Officers and the Home Office (the government ministry responsible for security matters) working with experienced detectives utilised some of the psychological literature on this topic to develop what is called the PEACE approach – which had at its heart the desire to obtain as much information as possible from witnesses or suspects (Bull, 2013).

The PEACE model is based on the idea that successful interviews don’t just come about as a result of investigative genius on behalf of the interviewer, but rather are built and managed in a way that is consistent and logical. It is also based on the idea that such important conversations should be planned for in advance, as well as evaluated at the end.